新视野大学英语2全部课文原文

Unit1Americans believe no one stands still. If you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind. This attitude results in a nation of people committed to researching, experimenting and exploring. Time is one of the two elements that Americans save carefully, the other being labor."We are slaves to nothing but the clock,” it has been said. Time is treated as if it were something almost real. We budget it, save it, waste it, steal it, kill it, cut it, account for it; we also charge for it. It is a precious resource. Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness of each lifetime. Once the sands have run out of a person’s hourglass, they cannot be replaced. We want every minute to count.A foreigner’s first impression of the U.S. is li kely to be that everyone is in a rush -- often under pressure. City people always appear to be hurrying to get where they are going, restlessly seeking attention in a store, or elbowing others as they try to complete their shopping. Racing through daytime meals is part of the paceof life in this country. Working time is considered precious. Others in public eating-places are waiting for you to finish so they, too, can be served and get back to work within the time allowed. You also find drivers will be abrupt and people will push past you. You will miss smiles, brief conversations, and small exchanges with strangers. Don’t take it personally. This is because people value time highly, and they resent someone else “wasting” it beyond a certain appropriate point.Many new arrivals to the States will miss the opening exchanges of a business call, for example. They will miss the ritual interaction that goes with a welcoming cup of tea or coffee that may be a convention in their own country. They may miss leisurely business chats in a restaurant or coffee house.Normally, Americans do not assess their visitors in such relaxed surroundings over extended small talk; much less do they take them out for dinner, or for around on the golf course while they develop a sense of trust. Since we generally assess and probe professionally rather than socially, we start talking business very quickly. Time is, therefore, always ticking in our inner ear. Consequently, we work hard at the task of saving time. Weproduce a steady flow of labor-saving devices; we communicate rapidly through faxes, phone calls or emails rather than through personal contacts, which though pleasant, take longer -- especially given our traffic-filled streets. We, therefore, save most personal visiting for after-work hours or for social weekend gatherings. To us the impersonality of electronic communication has little or no relation to the significance of the matter at hand. In some countries no major business is conducted without eye contact, requiring face-to-face conversation. In America, too, a final agreement will normally be signed in person. However, people are meeting increasingly on television screens, conducting “teleconferences” to settle problems not only in this country but also -- by satellite -- internationally.The U. S. is definitely a telephone country. Almost everyone uses the telephone to conduct business, to chat with friends, to make or break social appointments, to say “Thank you,” to shop and to obtain all kinds of information. Telephones save the feet and endless amounts of time. This is due partly to the fact that the telephone service is superb here, whereas the postal service is less efficient.Some new arrivals will come from cultures where it is considered impolite to work too quickly. Unless a certain amount of time is allowed to elapse, it seems in their eyes as if the task being considered were insignificant, not worthy of proper respect. Assignments are, consequently, felt to be given added weight by the passage of time. In the U. S., however, it is taken as a sign of skillfulness or being competent to solve a problem, or fulfill a job successfully, with ually, the more important a task is, the more capital, energy, and attention will be poured into it in order to “get it moving.”Unit2Learning the Olympic Standard for LoveNikolai Petrovich Anikin was not half as intimidating as I ha d imagined he would be. No, this surely was not the ex-Soviet coach my father had shipped me out tomeet.But Nikolai he was, Petrovich and all. He invited me inside an d sat down on the couch, patting the blanket next to him toget me to sit next to him. I was so nervous in his presence. "You are young," he began in his Russian-style English. "If yo u like to try for Olympic Games, I guess you will be able to do this. Nagano Olympics too soon for you, but for 2002in Salt Lake City, you could be ready.""Yes, why not?" he replied to the shocked look on my face.I was a promisingamateur skier, but by no means the top skier in the country. " Of course, there will be many hard training sessions, and you will cry, but you will improve."To be sure, there were countless training sessions full of pain a nd more than a few tears,but in the five years that followedI could always count on being encouraged by Nikolai's amusing stories and sense of humor."My friends, they go in the movies, they go in the dance, th ey go out with girls," he would start. "But I," he would continue , lowering his voice, "I am practice, practice, practice in the stadium. And by the next year, I had cut 1-1/2 minutes of f my time in the15-kilometer race!"My friends asked me, 'Nikolai, how did you do it?' And I replied, 'You go in the movies, you go in the dance, you go out with girls, but I am practice, practice, practice.' "Here the story usually ended, but on one occasion, which we later learned was his 25th wedding anniversary, he stood proudly in a worn woolen sweater and smiled and whispered , "And I tell you, I am 26 years old before I ever kiss a girl! She was the woman I later marry."Romantic and otherwise, Nikolai knew love.His consistent good humor, quiet gratitude, perceptivity, and sincerity set an Olympic standard for love that I continue to r each for, even though my skiing days are over.Still, he never babied me.One February day I had a massive headache and felt quite fatigued. I came upon him in a clearing, and after approxim ately 15 minutes of stridinginto the cold breeze over the white powder to catch him, I fu ssed, "Oh, Nikolai, I feel like I am going to die.""When you are a hundred years old, everybody dies," he sa id, indifferent to my pain."But now," he continued firmly. "Now must be ski, ski, ski." An d, on skis, I did what he said.On other matters, though, I was rebellious.Once, he packed 10 of us into a Finnish bachelor's tiny home for a low-budget ski camp. We awokethe first morning to find Nikolai making breakfast and then m ade quick work with our spoonswhile sitting on makeshift chairs around a tiny card table. When we were finished, Nikolaistacked the sticky bowls in front of my sole female teammat e and me, asserting, "Now, girls do dishes!"I threw my napkin on the floor and swore at him,"Ask the damn boys! This is unfair."He never asked this of me again, nor did he take much notic e of my outburst. He savedhis passion for skiing.When coaching, he would sing out his instructions keeping r hythm with our stride: "Yes, yes, one-two-three, one-two-three ." A dear lady friend of my grandfather, after viewing a copy of a video of me training with Nikolai, asked, "Does he also te ach dance?"In training, I worked without rest to correct mistakes that Nik olai pointed out and I asked after each pass if it was better. "Yes, it's OK. But the faster knee down, the better." "But is i t fast enough?" I'd persist. Finally he would frown and say,"Billion times you make motion—then be perfect," reminding me in an I've-told-you-a-billion-times tone, "You m ust be patient."Nikolai's patience and my hard work earned me a fourth-pla ce national ranking headinginto the pre-Olympic season,but then I missed the cut for the 2002 Olympics.Last summer, I returned to visit Nikolai. He made me tea... a nd did the dishes! We talked while sitting on his couch. Missing the Olympic Team the previous year had made me pause and reflect on what I had gained—not the least of wh ich was a quiet, indissoluble bond with a short man in a tropi cal shirt.Nikolai taught me to have the courage, heart, and disciplin e to persist, even if it takes a billion tries.He taught me to be thankful in advance for a century of life on earth, and toremind myself every day that despite the challenges at hand , "Now must be love, love, love.Unit 3Marriage Across the NationsGail and I imagined a quiet wedding. During our two years together we had experienced the usual ups and downs of a couple learning to know, understand, and respect each other. But through it all we had honestly confronted theweaknesses and strengths of each other's characters. Our racial and cultural differences enhanced our relationship and taught us a great deal about tolerance, compromise, and being open with each other. Gail sometimes wondered why I and other blacks were so involved with the racial issue, and I was surprised that she seemed to forget the subtler forms of racial hatred in American society.Gail and I had no illusions about what the future held for us as a married, mixed couple in America. The continual source ofour strength was our mutual trust and respect.We wanted to avoid the mistake made by many couples of marrying for the wrong reasons, and only finding out ten, twenty, or thirty years later that they were incompatible, thatthey hardly took the time to know each other, that they overlooked serious personality conflicts in the expectation that marriage was an automatic way to make everything work out right. That point was emphasized by the fact that Gail's parents, after thirty-five years of marriage, were going through a bitter and painful divorce, which had destroyed Gail and for a time had a negative effect on our buddingrelationship.When Gail spread the news of our wedding plans to her family she met with some resistance. Her mother, Deborah, all along had been supportive of our relationship, and even joked about when we were going to get married so she could have grandchildren. Instead of congratulations upon hearing our news, Deborah counseled Gail to be really sureshe was doing the right thing."So it was all right for me to date him, but it's wrong for me to marry him. Is his color the problem, Mom?" Gail subsequently told me she had asked her mother."To start with I must admit that at first I harbored reservations about a mixed marriage, prejudices you might even call them. But when I met Mark I found him a charming and intelligent young guy. Any mother would be proud to havehim for a son-in-law. So, color has nothing to do with it. Yes, my friends talk. Some even express shock at what you're doing. But they live in a different world. So you see, Mark's color is not the problem. My biggest worry is that you may be marrying Mark for the same wrong reasons that I married your father. When we met I saw him as my beloved, intelligent, charming, and caring. It was all so new, all so exciting, and we both thought, on the surface at least, that ours was an ideal marriage with every indication that it would last forever.I realized only later that I didn't know my beloved, your father,very well when we married.""But Mark and I have been together more than two years," Gail railed. "We've been through so much together. We've seen each other at our worst many times. I'm sure that time will only confirm what we feel deeply about each other.""You may be right. But I still think that waiting won't hurt.You're only twenty-five."Gail's father, David, whom I had not yet met personally, approached our decision with a father-knows-best attitude. He basically asked the same questions as Gail's mother: "Why the haste? Who is this Mark? What's his citizenship status?" And when he learned of my problems with the Citizenshipdepartment, he immediately suspected that I was marrying his daughter in order to remain in the United States."But Dad, that's harsh," Gail said."Then why the rush? Buy time, buy time," he remarkedrepeatedly."Mark has had problems with citizenship before and has always taken care of them himself," Gail defended." In fact, he made it very clear when we were discussing marriage that if I had any doubts about anything, I should not hesitate tocancel our plans."Her father proceeded to quote statistics showing that mixed couples had higher divorce rates than couples of the same race and gave examples of mixed couples he hadcounseled who were having marital difficulties. "Have you thought about the hardships your children wouldgo through?" he asked."Dad, are you a racist?""No, of course not. But you have to be realistic." "Maybe our children will have some problems, but whose children don't? But one thing they'll always have: our loveand devotion.""That's idealistic. People can be very cruel toward childrenfrom mixed marriages.""Dad, we'll worry about that when the time comes. If we had to resolve all doubt before we acted, very little would everget done.""Remember, it's never too late to change your mind."Unti4A Test of True LoveSix minutes to six, said the digital clock over the information desk in Grand Central Station. John Blandford, a tall young army officer, focused his eyesight on the clock to note the exact time. In six minutes he would see the woman who had filled a special place in his life for the past thirteen months, a woman he had never seen, yet whose written wor ds had been with him and had given him strength without fai l.Soon after he volunteered for military service, he had receiv ed a book from this woman. A letter, which wished him courage and safety, came with the book. He discovered that ma ny of his friends, also in the army, had received the identical book from the woman, Hollis Meynell. And while they all got s trength from it, and appreciated her support of their cause, J ohn Blandford was the only person to write Ms. Meynell back. On the day of his departure, to a destination overseas wher e he would fight in the war, he received her reply. Aboard th e cargo ship that was taking him into enemy territory, he stoo d on the deck and read her letter to him again and again. For thirteen months, she had faithfully written to him. When hi s letters did not arrive, she wrote anyway, without decrease. During the difficult days of war, her letters nourished him and gave him courage. As long as he received letters from her, h e felt as though he could survive. After a short time, he believ ed he loved her, and she loved him. It was as if fate had bro ught them together.But when he asked her for a photo, she declined his request . She explained her objection: "If your feelings for me have a ny reality, any honest basis, what I look like won't matter. Sup pose I'm beautiful. I'd always be bothered by the feeling that you loved me for my beauty, and that kind of love would dis gust me. Suppose I'm plain. Then I'd always fear you were writing to me only because you were lonely and had no one els e. Either way, I would forbid myself from loving you. When yo u come to New York and you see me, then you can make yo ur decision. Remember, both of us are free to stop or to go o n after that—if that's what we choose..."One minute to six... Blandford's heart leaped.A young woman was coming toward him, and he felt a con nection with her right away. Her figure was long and thin, her spectacular golden hair lay back in curls from her small ears. Her eyes were blue flowers; her lips had a gentle firmness. In her fancy green suit she was like springtime come alive.He started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she wasn't wearing a rose, and as he moved, a small, warm smile formed on her lips."Going my way, soldier?" she asked.Uncontrollably, he made one step closer to her. Then he sa w Hollis Meynell.She was standing almost directly behind the girl, a woman well past forty, and a fossil to his young eyes, her hair sporting patches of gray. She was more than fat; her thick legs shook as they moved. But she wore a red rose on her brown coat. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away and soonvanished into the fog. Blandford felt as though his heart was being compressed into a small cement ball, so strong was his desire to follow the girl, yet so deep was his longing for the w oman whose spirit had truly companioned and brought war mth to his own; and there she stood. Her pale, fat face was g entle and intelligent; he could see that now. Her gray eyes h ad a warm, kindly look.Blandford resisted the urge to follow the younger woman, th ough it was not easy to do so. His fingers held the book she h ad sent to him before he went off to the war, which was to id entify him to Hollis Meynell. This would not be love. However, i t would be something precious, something perhaps even less common than love—a friendship for which he had been, an d would always be, thankful. He held the book out toward the woman."I'm John Blandford, and you—you are Ms. Meynell. I'm so g lad you could meet me. May I take you to dinner?" The wom an smiled. "I don't know what this is all about, son," she answe red. "That young lady in the green suit—the one who just wen t by—begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said that if you asked me to go out with you, I should tell you that she's waiting for you in that big restaurant near the highway.She said it was some kind of a test."Unte5Weeping for My Smoking Daughter)My daughter smokes. While she is doing her homework, her feet on the bench in front of her and her calculator clicking out answers to her geometry problems, I am looking at the h alf-empty package of Camels tossed carelessly close at han d. I pick them up, take them into the kitchen, where the light is better, and study them -- they are filtered, for which I am gr ateful. My heart feels terrible. I want to weep. In fact, I do we ep a little, standing there by the stove holding one of the inst ruments, so white, so precisely rolled, that could cause my d aughter's death. When she smokedMarlboros and Players I hardened myself against feeling so b ad; nobody I knew eversmoked these brands.She doesn't know this, but it was Camels that my father, her g randfather,smoked. But before he smoked cigarettes made by manufa cturers -- when he was very young and very poor, with glowi ng eyes -- he smoked Prince Albert tobacco in cigarettes he rolled himself. I remember the bright-red tobacco tin, with a picture ofQueen Victoria's partner, Prince Albert, dressed in a black dr ess coat and carrying a cane.By the late forties and early fifties no one rolled his own any more (and few women smoked) in my hometown of Eatonto n, Georgia. The tobacco industry, coupledwith Hollywood movies in which both male and female hero es smoked like chimneys,completely won over people like my father, who were hopel essly hooked by cigarettes. He never looked as fashionable as Prince Albert, though; he continued to look like a poor, ov erweight, hard working colored man with too large a family, black, with a very white cigarette stuck in his mouth.I do not remember when he started to cough. Perhaps it w as unnoticeable at first, a little coughing in the morning as he lit his first cigarette upon getting out of bed. By the time I was sixteen, my daughter's age, his breath was a wheeze, emb arrassing to hear; he could not climb stairs without resting ev ery third or fourth step. It was not unusual for him to cough for an hour.My father died from "the poor man's friend", pneumonia, o ne hard winter when hislung illnesses had left him low. I doubt he had much lung left at all, after coughingfor so many years. He had so little breath that, during his last years, he was alwaysleaning on something. I remembered once, at a family reuni on, when my daughter wastwo, that my father picked her up for a minute -- long enoug h for me to photograph them -- but the effort was obvious. N ear the very end of his life, and largely because he had no m ore lungs, he quit smoking. He gained a couple of pounds, b ut by then he was so slim that no one noticed.When I travel to Third World countries I see many people like my father anddaughter. There are large advertisement signs directed at th em both: the tough, confident or fashionable older man, the beautiful, "worldly" young woman, bothdragging away. In these poor countries, as in American inner cities and onreservations, money that should be spent for food goes inste ad to the tobacco companies; over time, people starve the mselves of both food and air, effectivelyweakening and hooking their children, eventually killing the mselves. I read in thenewspaper and in my gardening magazine that the ends of cigarettes are sopoisonous that if a baby swallows one, it is likely to die, and t hat the boiled water from a bunch of them makes an effecti ve insecticide.There is a deep hurt that I feel as a mother. Some days it is a feeling of uselessness.I remember how carefully I ate when I was pregnant, how pa tiently I taught my daughter how to cross a street safely. For what, I sometimes wonder; so that she can struggle to breath e through most of her life feeling half her strength, and then dieof self-poisoning, as her grandfather did?There is a quotation from a battered women's shelter that I especially like: "Peace on earth begins at home." I believe everything does. I think of a quotation for people trying to stop smoking: "Every home is a no smoking zone." Smoking is a for m of self-battering that also batters those who must sit by, oc casionally joke or complain, and helplessly watch. I realize no w that as a child I sat by, through the years, and literally wat ched my father kill himself: surely one such victory in my famil y, for the prosperous leaders who own the tobacco compani es, is enough.Uint6 aFor her first twenty-four years, she'd been known as Debbie—a name that didn't suit her good looks and elegant manner."My name has always made me think I should be a cook," she complained."I just don't feel like a Debbie."One day, while filling out an application form for a publishingjob, the young woman impulsivelysubstituted her middle name, Lynne, for her first name Debbie."That was the smartest thing I ever did," she says now."As soon as I stopped calling myself Debbie, I felt more comfortable with myself... and other people started to take me more seriously."Two years after her successful job interview, the former waitress is now a successful magazine editor.Friends and associates call her Lynne.Naturally, the name change didn't cause Debbie/Lynne'sprofessional achievement—but it surely helped if only by adding a bit of self-confidence to hertalents Social scientists say that what you're called can affect your life.Throughout history, names have not merely identified people but also described them."As his name is, so is he." says theBible, and Webster's Dictionary includes the following definition of name: "a word or words expressing some quality considered characteristic or descriptive of a person or a thing, often expressing approval or disapproval".Note well "approval or disapproval".For better or worse, qualities such as friendliness or reserve, plainness or charm may be suggested by your name and conveyed to other people before they even meet you.Names become attached to specific images, as anyone who's been called "a plain Jane" or "just an average Joe" can show.Thelatter name particularly bothers me since my name is Joe, which some think makes me more qualified to be a baseball player than, say, an art critic.Yet, despite this disadvantage, I did manage to become an art critic for a time.Even so, one prominent magazine consistently refused to print "Joe" in myby-line, using my first initials, J. S., instead.I suspect that if I were a morerefined Arthur or Adrian, the name would have appeared complete.Of course, names with a positive sense can work for you and even encourage new acquaintances.A recent survey showed that American men thought Susan to be the most attractive female name, while women believedRichard and David were the most attractive for men.One woman I know turned down a blind date with a man named Harry because "he sounded dull".Several evenings later, she came up to me at a party, pressing for an introduction to a very impressive man; they'd been exchanging glances all evening."Oh," I said. "You mean Harry."She was ill at ease.Though most of us would like to think ourselves free from such prejudiced notions, we're all guilty of name stereotyping to some extent.<p18><28>Confess</28>: Wouldn't you be surprised to meet a <29>carpenter</29> named Nigel? A <30>physicist</30> named Bertha? A <31>Pope</31> Mel? Often, <p19>we project name-based stereotypes on people, <p20>as one woman friend discovered while taking charge of a <33>nursery school</33>'s group of four-year-olds."There I was, trying to get a little active boy named Julian to sit quietly and read a book—<p21>and pushing a <34>thoughtful</34> <35>creature</35> named Rory to play ball.I had their personalities confused because of their names!"Apparently, such prejudices can affect classroom achievement as well.In a study conducted by Herbert Harari of San Diego State University, and John McDavid of Georgia State University, teachers gave consistently lower grades on essays apparently written by boys named Elmer and Hubert than they <36>awarded</36> to the same papers when the writers' names were given as Michael and David. However, teacher prejudice isn't the only source of classroom difference.<37>Dr</37>. Thomas V. Busse and Louisa Seraydarian of Temple University found those girls with names such as Linda, Diane, Barbara, Carol, and Cindy <p22>performed better on <39>objectively</39> graded IQ and achievement tests than did girls with less <40>appealing</40> names.(A companion study showed girls' <41>popularity</41> with their peers was also related to the popularity of their names―although the connection was less clear for boys.)Though your parents probably meant your name to last alifetime, remember that when they picked it they'd hardly met you, and the hopes and dreams they valued when they chose it may not match yours.If your name no longer seems to fit you, don't<42>despair</42>; <p23>you aren't stuck with the<43>label</43>.Movie stars regularly change their names, and with some determination, you can, too.Unit7 aIf you often feel angry and overwhelmed, like the stress in your life is spinning out of control, then you may be hurting your heart.If you don't want to break your own heart, you need to learn to take charge of your life where you can—and recognize there are many things beyond your control.。