大学英语四课文原文
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现代大学英语Unit4lionsandtigersandbears课文原文Unit 4Lions and Tigers and Bears1.So I thought I'd spend the night in Central Park and, having stuffed my small rucksackwith a sleeping bag, a big bottle of mineral water, map, and a toothbrush, I arrived one heavy, muggy Friday evening in July to do just that: to walk around until I got so tired that I'd curl up under a tree and drop off to a peaceful, outdoorsy sleep. Of course, anybody who knows anything about New York knows the city's essential platitude-that you don't wander around Central Park at night-and in that, needless to say, was the appeal: it was the thing you don't do. And from what I can tell, it has always been the thing you don't do, ever since the Park's founding commissioners, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, decided that the place should be closed at night. Ogden Nash observed in 1961:If you should happen after darkTo find yourself in Central Park,Ignore the paths that beckon youAnd hurry, hurry to the zoo,And creep into the tiger's lair.Frankly, you'll be safer there.2.Even now, when every Park official, city administrator, and police officer tells us that thePark is safe during the day, they all agree in this: only a fool goes there at night. Or a purse snatcher, loon, prostitute, drug dealer, murderer-not to mention bully, garrotter, highway robber.3.I arrived at nine-fifteen and made for the only nocturnalspot I knew: the DelacorteTheatre. Tonight's show was The Taming of the Shrew,Lights out, applause, and the audience began exiting. So far, so normal, and this could have been an outdoor summer-stock Shakespeare production anywhere in America, except in one respect: a police car was now parked conspicuously in view, its roof light slowly rotating. The police were there to reassure the audience that it was being protected; the rotating red light was like a campfire in the wild, warning what's out there to stay away.4.During my first hour or so, I wandered around the Delacorte, reassured by the lights, thelaughter, the lines of Shakespeare that drifted out into the summer night. I was feeling a certain exhilaration, climbing the steps of Belvedere Castle all alone, peeking through the windows of the Henry Luce Nature Observatory, identifying the herbs in the Shakespeare Garden, when ,after turning this way and that ,I was on a winding trail in impenetrable foliage, and within minutes, I was lost.5.There was a light ahead ,and as I rounded the corner I came upon five men, all wearingwhite T-shirts, huddled around a bench. I walked past, avoiding eye contact, and turned down a path, a narrow one, black dark, going down a hill, getting darker, very dark. ThenI heard a great shaking of the bushes beside me and froze. Animal? Mugger? WhateverI was hearing would surely stop making that noise, I thought. But it didn't. How can thisbe? I'm in the Park less than an hour and already I'm lost, on an unlighted, Shit! What amI doing here? And I bolted ,not running, exactly, but nolonger strolling-and certainly notlooking back-turning left, turning right ,all sense of direction obliterated, the crashing continuing behind me, louder even, left ,another man in a T-shirt, right, another man, when finally I realized where I was -in the Ramble. As I turned left again, I saw the lake, and the skyline of Central Park South. I stopped, I breathed. Relax, I told myself. It's only darkness.6.About fifteen feet into the lake, there was a large boulder, with a heap of branchesleading to it. I tiptoed across and sat, enjoying the picture of the city again, the very reassuring city. I looked around .There was a warm breeze, and heavy clouds overhead, but it was still hot ,and I was sweating. Far out in the lake, there was a light-someone rowing a boat, a lantern suspended above the stern. I got my bearings. I was on the West Side, around Seventy-seventh. The far side of the lake must be near Strawberry Fields, around Seventy-second. It was where, I realized, two years ago ,the police had found the body of Michael McMorrow ,a forty-four-year-old man(my age), who was stabbed thirty-four times by a group of boys .After he was killed, he was disemboweled, and his intestines ripped out so that his body would sink when rolled into the lake-a detail that I've compulsively reviewed in my mind since I first heard it. And then his killers, with time on their hands and no witnesses, just went home.7.One of the first events in the park took place 140 years ago almost to the day: a handconcert. The concert, pointedly, was held on a Saturday, still a working day, because the concert, like much of the Park then, was designed to keep the city's rougher elements out. The Park at night must have seemed luxurious and secluded-a giantevening garden party. The Park was to be strolled though, enjoyed as an aesthetic experience, like a walk inside a painting. George Templeton Strong, the indefatigable diarist ,recognized, on his first visit on June 11, 1859, that the architects were building two different parks at once, One was the Romantic park, which included the Ramble, the carefully ''designed'' wilderness ,wild nature re-created in the middle of the city .The other, the southern end of the park, was more French: ordered, and characterized by straight lines8.I climbed back down from the rock. In the distance, I spotted a couple approaching. Yourfirst thought is: nutcase? But then I noticed, even from a hundred feet, that the couple was panicking: the man was pulling the woman to the other side of him, so that he would be between her and me when we passed. The woman stopped, and the man jerked her forward authoritatively. As they got closer, I could see that he was tall and skinny, wearinga plaid shirt and black horn-rimmed glasses; she was a blonde, and looked determinedlyat the ground, her face rigid. When they were within a few feet of me, he reached out and grabbed her arm. I couldn't resist: just as we were about to pass each other, Iaddressed them , forthrightly: ''Hello, good people!'' I said, ''And how are you on this fine summer evening?'' At first, silence, and then the woman started shrieking uncontrollably-''Oh, my God! Oh my God!''-and they hurried away.9.This was an interesting discovery. One of the most frightening things in the Park at nightwas a man on his own. One of the most frightening things tonight was me .I was emboldened by the realization: I was nolonger afraid; I was frightening.10.Not everyone likes the Park, but just about everyone feels he should. This was at theheart of Henry James's observations when he visited the Park, in 1904.The Park, in James's eyes, was a failure, but everyone, as he put it, felt the need to ''keep patting the Park on the back.'' By then, the Park's founders had died, and the Park, no longer the domain of the privileged, had been taken over by immigrants. In fact, between James's visit and the nineteen-thirties, the Park might have been at its most popular, visited by ten to twenty million a year. The Park in fact was being destroyed by overuse, until 1934, when the legendary Robert Moses was appointed the Park's commissioner. Moses was responsible for the third design element in the Park-neither English nor French, neither Romantic nor classical, but efficient, purposeful, and unapologetically American. He put in baseball diamonds, volleyball courts, and swimming pools. He even tried to turn the Ramble intoa senior citizen's recreation center, but was stopped by the protesting bird-watchers. Theirony was that by the end of the Moses era the Park was dangerous.11.In my new confidence I set out for the northern end of the Park. Near the reservoir, agang of kids on bicycles zoomed across the Eighty-fifth Street Transverse, hooting witha sense of ominous power. A little later, there was another gang, this one on foot-abouta dozen black kids, moving eastward, just by the running track. I kept my head down andpicked up my pace, but my mind involuntarily called up thememory of the 1989 incident, in which a young investment banker was beaten and sexually assaulted by a group of kids ona rampage.12.Around Ninety-fifth Street, I found a bench and stopped .I had taken one of the trailsthat run alongside the Park's West Drive, and the more northern apartments of Central Park West were in view ,I sat as residents prepared for bed: someone watching television ,a woman doing yoga, a man stepping into the shower. Below me was the city, the top of the Empire State Building peeking over the skyline. George Templeton Strong discovered the beauty of Central Park at night on July 30, 1869, on a ''starlit drive'' with his wife. But tonight, even if it weren't clouding over, there'd be no stars. Too much glare.The Park is now framed, enveloped even, by the city , but there was no escaping the recognition that this city--contrived, man-made, glaringly obtrusive, consuming wasteful and staggering quantities of electricity and water and energy -was very beautiful. I'm not sure why it should be so beautiful; I don't have the vocabulary to describe its appeal. But there it was: the city at night, viewed from what was meant to be an escape from it, shimmering.13.I walked and walked. Around one-thirty, I entered the North Woods, and made my waydown to what my map would later tell me was a stream called the Loch. The stream was loud, sounding more like a river than a stream. And for the first time that night the city disappeared: no buildings, no lights, no sirens.14.I was tired. I had been walking for a long time. I wanted to unroll my sleeping bag, outof view of the police, and fall asleep. I was looking forward to dawn and being awakened by birds.15.I made my way down a ravine. A dirt trail appeared on my left .This looked promising. Ifollowed it, and it wound its way down to the stream. I looked ba ck: I couldn’t see the trail; it was blocked by trees. This was good. Secluded. I walked on. It flattened out and I could put a sleeping bag here. This was good, too. Yes: good. There were fireflies, even at this hour ,and the place was so dark and so densely shrouded by the trees overhead that the light of the fireflies was hugely magnified; their abdomens pulsed like great yellow flashlights.16.I eventually rolled out my sleeping bag atop a little rise beside the bridle path by theNorth Meadow, and then I crawled inside my bag and closed my eyes. And then: snap!A tremendous cracking sound. I froze, then quickly whipped round to have a look:nothing. A forest is always full of noises. How did I manage to camp out as a kid? Finally,I fell asleep.17.I know I fell asleep because I awake again. Another branch snapping, but this sound wasdifferent-as if I could hear the tissue of the wood tearing. My eyes still closed , I was motionless .Another branch , and then a rustling of leaves. No doubt: someone was there.I could tell I was being stated at ;I could feel the staring. I heard breathing.18.I opened my eyes and was astonished by what I saw. There were three of them, all withinarm's reach. They looked very big. At first I didn't know what they were, except that they were animals. Maybe they were bears, small ones. Then I realized; they were-what do you call them? Those animals that Daniel Boone made his hat out of.19.They weren't moving; I wasn't moving. They just stared, brown eyes looking blankly intomy own. They were obviously very perplexed to find me here. Suddenly, I was very perplexed to find me here, too. ''Imagine this,'' one of them seemed to be saying. ''A grown man sleeping out in Central Park!''20.''Obviously, not from New York.'21.''Hi, guys,'' I muttered. I said this very softly.22.My voice startled them and they scurried up the tree in front of me. Then they stoppedand resumed staring. And then, very slowly, they inched farther up. They were now aboutforty feet directly above me, and the tree was swaying slightly with their weight.23.It was starting to drizzle. I heard a helicopter, its searchlight crisscrossing the path onlyten feet away. So maybe there were bad guys.24.I looked back at the raccoons. ''Are there bad guys here?''I asked them. It was stupid tospeak. My voice startled them and, directly overhead, one of them stared peeing. And then, nature finding herself unable to resist, it started to pour.25.But not for long. The rain stopped, and I fell sleep. I knowI fell asleep because the nextthing I heard was birds. A naturally beautiful sound.。
Para1An artist who seeks fame is like a dogchasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it.The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destruction.艺术家追求成名,如同狗自逐其尾,一旦追到手,除了继续追逐不知还能做些什么。
成功之残酷正在于它常常让那些追逐成功者自寻毁灭。
"Don't quit your day job!" is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed. The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt. Still, impure motives such as the desire for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on. The lure of drowning in fame's imperial glory is not easily resisted.对一名正努力追求成功并刚刚崭露头角的艺术家,其亲朋常常会建议“正经的饭碗不能丢!”他们的担心不无道理。
全新版大学英语综合教程4课文原文及翻译《全新版大学英语综合教程 4 课文原文及翻译》在大学英语的学习过程中,全新版大学英语综合教程 4 无疑是一本重要的教材。
其中的课文涵盖了丰富多样的主题和文体,对于提升英语语言能力和拓宽知识面都具有重要意义。
下面将为您呈现部分课文的原文及翻译。
课文一:The Tail of FameAn artist who seeks fame is like a dog chasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destruction"Don't quit your day job!" is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt Still, impure motives such as the desire for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on The lure of drowning in fame's imperial glory is not easily resisted Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result of exploiting their talent for singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc They develop a style that agents market aggressively to hasten popularity, and their ride on the express elevator to the top is a blur Most would be hardpressed to tell you how theyeven got there Artists cannot remain idle, though When the performer, painter or writer becomes bored, their work begins to show a lack of continuity in its appeal and it becomes difficult to sustain the attention of the public After their enthusiasm has dissolved, the public simply moves on to the next flavor of the month Artists who do attempt to remain current by making even minute changes to their style of writing, dancing or singing,run a significant risk of losing the audience's favor The public simply discounts styles other than those for which the artist has become famousFamous authors' styles—such as Jane Austen's or Ernest Hemingway's—are easily recognizable The same is true of painters like Monet or Picasso The distinctive style of an artist, however, can become a trademark Whenthat happens, the artist becomes confined to that style If an artist is talented but not unique, fame will be fleeting Even if an artist possesses a unique style, fame is not guaranteed The market for art is fickle The public's appetite for a new style is insatiable The artist, like the politician, must often please the public in order to remain popular翻译:名声之尾追求名声的艺术家就像一只追着自己尾巴跑的狗,一旦抓住了尾巴,除了继续追着跑之外,不知道还能做什么。
Unit5Some people seem easy to understand: their character appears obvious on first meeting. Appearances, however, can be deceptive.有些人似乎容易了解:他们的个性在初次交往时就表露无遗。
然而,外表可能具有欺骗性。
A Friend in NeedSomerset Maugham1 For thirty years now I have been studying my fellowmen. I do not know very much about them. I shrug my shoulders when people tell me that their first impressions of a person are always right. I think they must have small insight or great vanity. For my own part I find that the longer I know people the more they puzzle me.患难之交萨默塞特·毛姆三十年来,我一直研究我的人类同胞,但至今了解不多。
每当有人跟我说他对一个人的第一次印象向来不错的时候,我就耸耸肩。
我想这种人不是无知,就是自大。
拿我自己来说,我发现,认识一个人的时间越长,我就越感到困惑。
2 These reflections have occurred to me because I read in this morning's paper that Edward Hyde Burton had died at Kobe. He was a merchant and he had been in business in Japan for many years. I knew him very little, but he interested me because once he gave me a great surprise. Unless I had heard the story from his own lips, I should never have believed that he was capable of such an action. It was more startling because both in appearance and manner he suggested a very definite type. Here if ever was a man all of a piece. He was a tiny little fellow, not much more than five feet four in height, and very slender, with white hair, a red face much wrinkled, and blue eyes. I suppose he was about sixty when I knew him. He was always neatly and quietly dressed in accordance with his age and station.我产生这些想法,是因为我在今天早上的报纸上看到爱德华·海德·伯顿在神户去世的消息。
大学英语精读4课文原文大学英语精读4课文原文当英语长句的内容叙述层次与汉语基本一致时,可以按照英语原文表达的层次顺序翻译成汉语,从而使译文与英语原文的顺序基本一致。
下面是大学英语精读4课文原文,欢迎参考阅读!Unit1weatherHey, you guys! Don't forget Lingling's birthday next week.Right。
We're going to buy a gift for her. It's very cold, isn't it?Yes, it's cold.Toni, what are you going to do for the Spring Festival?We are going to England.Is it going to snow there?You must be joking. It wouldn't even be cold, it's just raining. It may also be windy. Betty, are you going to the United States?We haven't decided yet. We may go to Australia.That sounds great! What's the weather going there?I think it would be good. At that time, Australia was summer, so it could be very hot and sunny. What about you, Daming?We're going to Hongkong. It may be cool, but it may be very dry. When is the best time to go to the United States, Betty?It's not so cold... It's not too hot to go.Come on, or to go!What are you going to buy for Lingling?Wear warm things!Unit2When is the best time to visit your city or countryThe United States is a big country, so if you want to go thereand play, you must be careful in the choice of time and place. Maybe you want to walk around, so take a good map.It was a good time to go to New York and Washington, D.C., in May or October, when the weather was not very hot. There will be a lot of snow in winter.It was a good idea to play new England in September, and the weather began to cool and the trees began to change color. Maybe you have to take photos of the leaves of the fall, so taking your camera is a good idea.In Losangeles, California, four thousand miles away, the weather is good all year round. It's so nice to see the sun in December. With a swimsuit, you might want to swim in the sea.The northwest is not very cold, but there is a lot of rain, so you have to take an umbrella. It's very comfortable to go to Alaska in July and August. But at night, it may be cool so remember to wear warm. But the winter do not go there, because all day long is dark and cold.In the Texas and southeastern regions, there are frequent storms in summer and fall. Compared to many other places, there are often jiaoyangsihuo.So, when is the best time to go to the United States?M12 unit1You have to wait a moment and open it laterDon't talk to everyone. She's here! Happy birthday, Lingling.Oh, you still remember it!We have a gift for you.Thank youYou can open it! Hurry up!Oh, no! I can't open it now. It will be a moment!Wait! In the United States, when someone gives you a gift,you have to open it immediately.No, you can't open the gift at once in China.And remember that when you pick up a gift, you have to connect it with your hands.Hands! In Britain we can use one hand!That's true。
大学英语四课文原文4Preview:The 1990s marks the beginning of a telecommunications revolution. This can mean a quantum change in the information available to people and organizations. Although the transition will be slow for some, the development seems inevitable. Eventually, all of us will be affected and all of us will depend upon the new technology as a basic information resource. The passages in this unit give a general picture of the revolution and shed light on the advantages as well as challenges the new technology will bring about.A transformation is occurring that should greatly boost living standards in the developing world. Places that until recently were deaf and dumb are rapidly acquiring up-to-date telecommunications that will let them promote both internal and foreign investment. It may take a decade for many countries in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe to improve transportation, power supplies, and other utilities. But a single optical fiber with a diameter of less than half a millimeter can carry more information than a large cable made of copper wires. By installing optical fiber, digital switches, and the latest wireless transmission systems, a parade of urban centers and industrial zones from Beijing to Budapest are stepping directly into the Information Age. A spider's web of digital and wireless communication links is already reaching most of Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.All these developing regions see advanced communications as a way to leap over whole stages of economic development.Widespread access to information technologies, for example, promises to condense the time required to change from labor-intensive assembly work to industries that involve engineering, marketing, and design. Modern communications "will give countries like China and Vietnam a huge advantage over countries stuck with old technology".How fast these nations should push ahead is a matter of debate. Many experts think Vietnam is going too far by requiring that all mobile phones be expensive digital models, when it is desperate for any phones, period. "These countries lack experience in weighing costs and choosing between technologies," says one expert.Still, there's little dispute that communications will be a key factor separating the winners from the losers. Consider Russia. Because of its strong educational system in mathematics and science, it should thrive in the Information Age. The problem is its national phone system is a rusting antique that dates from the l930s. To lick this problem, Russia is starting to install optical fiber and has a strategic plan to pump $40 billion into various communications projects. But its economy is stuck in recession and it barely has the money to even scratch the surface of the problem.Compare that with the mainland of China. Over the next decade, it plans to pour some $100 billion into telecommunications equipment. In a way, China's backwardness is an advantage, because the expansion occurs just as new technologies are becoming cheaper than copper wire systems. By the end of 1995, each of China's provincial capitals except for Lhasa will have digital switches and high-capacity optical fiber links. This means that major cities are getting the basicinfrastructure to become major parts of the information superhighway, allowing people to log on to the most advanced services available.Telecommunications is also a key to Shanghai's dream of becoming a top financial center. To offer peak performance in providing the electronic data and paperless trading global investors expect, Shanghai plans telecommunications networks as powerful as those in Manhattan.Meanwhile, Hungary also hopes to jump into the modern world. Currently, 700,000 Hungarians are waiting for phones. T o partially overcome the problem of funds and to speed the import of Western technology, Hungary sold a 30% stake in its national phone company to two Western companies. T o further reduce the waiting list for phones, Hungary has leased rights to a Dutch-Scandinavian group of companies to build and operate what it says will be one of the most advanced digital mobile phone systems in the world. In fact, wireless is one of the most popular ways to get a phone system up fast in developing countries. It's cheaper to build radio towers than to string lines across mountain ridges, and businesses eager for reliable service are willing to accept a significantly higher price tag for a wireless call—the fee is typically two to four times as much as for calls made over fixed lines.Wireless demand and usage have also exploded across the entire width and breadth of Latin America. For wireless phone service providers, nowhere is business better than in Latin America—having an operation there is like having an endless pile of money at your disposal. BellSouth Corporation, with operations in four wireless markets, estimates its annual revenue per average customer at about $2,000 as compared to $860 inthe United States. That's partly because Latin American customers talk two to four times as long on the phone as people in North America.Thailand is also turning to wireless, as a way to allow Thais to make better use of all the time they spend stuck in traffic. And it isn't that easy to call or fax from the office: The waiting list for phone lines has from one to two million names on it. So mobile phones have become the rage among businesspeople who can remain in contact despite the traffic jams.Vietnam is making one of the boldest leaps. Despite a per person income of just $220 a year, all of the 300,000 lines Vietnam plans to add annually will be optical fiber with digital switching, rather than cheaper systems that send electrons over copper wires. By going for next-generation technology now, Vietnamese telecommunications officials say they'll be able to keep pace with anyone in Asia for decades.For countries that have lagged behind for so long, the temptation to move ahead in one jump is hard to resist. And despite the mistakes they'll make, they'll persist—so that one day they can cruise alongside Americans and Western Europeans on the information superhighway.5Preview:Personal relationship plays an important role in our life. It is important partly because we are scared of solitude. Most people, if left to live alone, will find life empty, boring and lonely. While personal relationship may make life fun and fulfilling, it may also cause tension, even conflicts. Nowadays, more and more people are living alone, either choosing to live that way orhaving to. While some claim that living alone gives themcreative inspirations and the sense of independence, many suffer from loneliness. Whether living alone or staying with families or friends, what is important is to find pleasure in life.Here we are, all by ourselves, all 22 million of us by recent count, alone in our rooms, some of us liking it that way and some of us not. Some of us divorced, some widowed, some never yet committed.Loneliness may be a sort of national disease here, and it's more embarrassing for us to admit than any other sin. On the other hand, to be alone on purpose, having rejected company rather than been cast out by it, is one characteristic of an American hero. The solitary hunter or explorer needs no one as they venture out among the deer and wolves to tame the great wild areas. Thoreau, alone in his cabin on the pond, his back deliberately turned to the town. Now, that's character for you.Inspiration in solitude is a major commodity for poets and philosophers. They're all for it. They all speak highly of themselves for seeking it out, at least for an hour or even two before they hurry home for tea.Consider Dorothy Wordsworth, for instance, helping her brother William put on his coat, finding his notebook and pencil for him, and waving as he sets forth into the early spring sunlight to look at flowers all by himself. "How graceful, how benign, is solitude," he wrote.No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.Look at Milton's daughters arranging his cushions and blankets before they silently creep away, so he can create poetry. Then, rather than trouble to put it in his own handwriting, he calls the girls to come back and write it down while he dictates.You may have noticed that most of these artistic types wentoutdoors to be alone. The indoors was full of loved ones keeping the kettle warm till they came home.The American high priest of solitude was Thoreau. We admire him, not for his self-reliance, but because he was all by himself out there at Walden Pond, and he wanted to be—all alone in the woods.Actually, he lived a mile, or 20 minutes' walk, from his nearest neighbor; half a mile from the railroad; three hundred yards from a busy road. He had company in and out of the hut all day, asking him how he could possibly be so noble. Apparently the main point of his nobility was that he had neither wife nor servants, used his own axe to chop his own wood, and washed his own cups and saucers. I don't know who did his laundry; he doesn't say, but he certainly doesn't mention doing his own, either. Listen to him: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."Thoreau had his own self-importance for company. Perhaps there's a message here: The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around. The more modest and humble we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company.If you live with other people, their temporary absence can be refreshing. Solitude will end on Thursday. If today I use a singular personal pronoun to refer to myself, next week I will use the plural form. While the others are absent you can stretch out your soul until it fills up the whole room, and use your freedom, coming and going as you please without apology, staying up late to read, soaking in the bath, eating a whole pint of ice cream at one sitting, moving at your own pace. Those absent will be back. Their waterproof winter coats are in the closet and the dog keepswatching for them at the window. But when you live alone, the temporary absence of your friends and acquaintances leaves a vacuum; they may never come back.The condition of loneliness rises and falls, but the need to talk goes on forever. It's more basic than needing to listen. Oh, we all have friends we can tell important things to, people we can call to say we lost our job or fell on a slippery floor and broke our arm. It's the daily succession of small complaints and observations and opinions that backs up and chokes us. We can't really call a friend to say we got a parcel from our sister, or it's getting dark earlier now, or we don't trust that new Supreme Court justice.Scientific surveys show that we who live alone talk at length to ourselves and our pets and the television. We ask the cat whether we should wear the blue suit or the yellow dress. We ask the parrot if we should prepare steak, or noodles, for dinner. We argue with ourselves over who is the greater sportsman: that figure skater or this skier. There's nothing wrong with this. It's good for us, and a lot less embarrassing than the woman in front of us in line at the market who's telling the cashier that her niece Melissa may be coming to visit on Saturday, and Melissa is very fond of hot chocolate, which is why she bought the powdered hot chocolate mix, though she never drinks it herself.It's important to stay rational.It's important to stop waiting and settle down and make ourselves comfortable, at least temporarily, and find some grace and pleasure in our condition, not like a self-centered British poet but like a patient princess sealed up in a tower, waiting for the happy ending to our fairy tale.After all, here we are. It may not be where we expected to be,but for the time being we might as well call it home. Anyway, there is no place like home.10Preview:Emotional Intelligence (or EQ), as defined by Daniel Goleman, is "a capacity for recognizing our own and others' feelings, for motivating ourselves, and for managing ourselves, both within ourselves and in our relationships". Some scientists are arguing that EQ is a better measure of how intelligent a person is, and many researchers on the subject now agree that among the ingredients for success, EQ counts more than any other factor. Emotional Intelligence could be of practical use in many aspects such as how companies decide which job candidate to hire, how parents should raise their children, how schools should teach them, and so onWhat is the most valuable contribution employees make to their companies, knowledge or judgment? I say judgment. Knowledge, no matter how broad, is useless until it is applied. Andapplication takes judgment, which involves something of a sixth sense—a high performance of the mind.This raises interesting questions about the best training for today's business people. As Daniel Goleman suggests in his new book, Emotional Intelligence, the latest scientific findings seem to indicate that intelligent but inflexible people don't have the right stuff in an age when the adaptive ability is the key to survival.In a recent cover story, Time magazine sorted through the current thinking on intelligence and reported, "New brain research suggests that emotions, not IQ, may be the truemeasure of human intelligence." The basic significance of the emotional intelligence that Time called "EQ" was suggested by management expert Karen Boylston: "Customers are telling businesses, 'I don't care if every member of your staff graduated from Harvard. I will take my business and go where I am understood and treated with respect.'"If the evolutionary pressures of the marketplace are making EQ, not IQ, the hot ticket for business success, it seems likely that individuals will want to know how to cultivate it. I have a modest proposal: Embrace a highly personal practice aimed at improving these four adaptive skills.Raising consciousness. I think of this as thinking differently on purpose. It's about noticing what you are feeling and thinking and escaping the conditioned confines of your past. Raise your consciousness by catching yourself in the act of thinking as often as possible. Routinely take note of your emotions and ask if you're facing facts or avoiding them.Using imagery. This is what you see Olympic ski racers doing before entering the starting gate. With their eyes closed and bodies swaying, they run the course in their minds first, which improves their performance. You can do the same by setting aside time each day to dream with passion about what you want to achieve.Considering and reconsidering events to choose the most creative response to them. When a Greek philosopher said 2,000 years ago that it isn't events that matter but our opinion of them, this is what he was talking about. Every time something important happens, assign as many interpretations to it as possible, even crazy ones. Then go with the interpretation most supportive of your dreams.Integrating the perspectives of others. Brain research shows that our view of the world is limited by our genes and the experiences we've had. Learning to incorporate the useful perspectives of others is nothing less than a form of enlarging your senses. The next time someone interprets something differently from you—say, a controversial political event—pause to reflect on the role of life experience and consider it a gift of perception.The force of habit—literally the established wiring of your brain—will pull you away from practicing these skills. Keep at it, however, because they are based on what we're learning about the mechanism of the mind.Within the first six months of life the human brain doubles in capacity. It doubles again by age four and then grows rapidly until we reach sexual maturity. The body has about a hundred billion nerve cells, and every experience triggers a brain response that literally shapes our senses. The mind, we now know, is not confined to the brain but is distributed throughout the body's universe of cells. Yes, we do think with our hearts, brains, muscles, blood and bones.During a single crucial three-week period during our teenage years, chemical activity in the brain is cut in half. That done, we are "biologically wired" with what one of the nation's leading brain researchers calls our own "world view". He says it is impossible for any two people to see the world exactly alike. So unique is the personal experience that people would understand the world differently.However, it is not only possible to change your world view, he says, it's actually easier than overcoming a drug habit. But you need a discipline for doing it. Hence, the method recommendedhere.No, it's not a curriculum in the sense that an MBA is. But the latest research seems to imply that without the software of emotional maturity and self-knowledge, the hardware of academic training alone is worth less and less.。
全新版大学英语综合教程4课文原文及翻译《全新版大学英语综合教程4课文原文及翻译》Unit 1: EducationText A: Is College the Best Option?大学是否是最佳选择?Part I: Text A in EnglishText A: Is College the Best Option?Nowadays, the decision to attend college or not is a topic of much debate. With the rising cost of tuition and the uncertainty of job prospects after graduation, many people are questioning whether college is truly the best option.On one hand, a college education has obvious benefits. It provides individuals with the opportunity to gain knowledge, develop critical thinking skills, and broaden their horizons. College also offers networking opportunities and the chance to meet people from diverse backgrounds, which can be valuable in the professional world. Additionally, many employers still consider a college degree as a minimum requirement for job applicants.On the other hand, the cost of college has skyrocketed in recent years. Tuition fees, accommodation expenses, and textbooks can easily accumulate into a significant financial burden. Moreover, there is no guarantee that a college degree will lead to a well-paying job. In today's competitive jobmarket, having a degree no longer guarantees a successful career. Many college graduates find themselves underemployed or in jobs that don't align with their educational background.Furthermore, alternative pathways such as vocational schools, apprenticeships, or entrepreneurship have proven to be successful for many individuals. These options often provide practical, hands-on training and immediate job placement. For those who have a clear career goal and are willing to put in the effort, skipping college and pursuing alternative paths can lead to quicker entry into the workforce and potential financial success.In conclusion, the decision to attend college or pursue alternative paths depends on individual circumstances and goals. While a college education offers numerous benefits, it is necessary to carefully consider the financial costs and job prospects in today's economy. Ultimately, success in any field requires a combination of education, skills, and determination, regardless of whether one obtains a college degree or not.Part II: Text A in Chinese (课文A:大学是否是最佳选择?)如今,是否上大学成为了一个备受争议的话题。
Lesson 1Thinking as a HobbyWilliam GoldingWhile I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking;and thatI myself could not think at all.It was the headmaster of my grammar school who first brought the subject of thinkingbefore me.He had somestatuettes in his study. They stood on a high cupboard behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel. She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towelslip down any farther, and since she had no arms, she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her, crouched the statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet. Beyond the leopard was a naked, muscular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee. He seemed utterly miserable.Some time later, I learned about these statuettes. The headmaster had placed them where they would face delinquent children, because they symbolized to him to whole of life. The naked ladywas the Venus. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy being beautiful. The leopard was Nature, and he was being natural. The naked, muscular gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodin's Thinker, an image of pure thought.I had better explain that I was a frequent visitor to the headmaster's study, because of the latest thing I had done or left undone. As we now say, I was not integrated. I was, if anything, disintegrated. Whenever Ifound myself in a penal position before the headmaster's desk, I would sink my head, and writhe one shoe over the other.The headmaster would look at me and say,"What are wegoing to do with you?"Well, what were they going to do with me? I would writhe my shoe some more and staredown atthe worn rug."Look up, boy! Can't you look up?"Then I would look at the cupboard, where the naked lady was frozen in her panic and themuscular gentleman contemplated the hindquarters of the leopard in endless gloom. I had nothing to say to the headmaster. His spectacles caught the light so that you could see nothing human behind them. There was no possibility of communication."Don't you ever think at all?"No, I didn't think, wasn't thinking, couldn't think - I was simply waiting in anguish for theinterview to stop."Then you'd better learn - hadn't you?"On one occasion the headmaster leaped to his feet, reached up and put Rodin's masterpiece onthe desk before me."That's what a man looks like when he's really thinking."Clearly there was something missing in me. Nature had endowed the rest of the human race witha sixth sense and left me out. But like someone born deaf, but bitterly determined to find outabout sound, I watched my teachers to find outabout thought.There was Mr. Houghton. He was always telling me to think. With a modest satisfaction, he would tell that he had thought a bit himself. Then why did he spend so much time drinking? Or was there more sense in drinking than there appeared to be? But if not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous to health - and Mr. Houghton was ruined, there was no doubt about that - why was he always talking about the clean life and the virtues of fresh air?Sometimes, exalted by his own oratory, he would leap from his desk and hustle usoutside into a hideous wind."Now, boys! Deep breaths! Feel it right down inside you - huge draughts of God's good air!"He would stand before us, put his hands on his waist and take a tremendous breath. You couldhear the wind trapped in his chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments. His bodywould reel with shock and his face go white at the unaccustomed visitation. He would staggerback to his desk and collapse there, useless for the rest of the morning.Mr. Houghton was given to high-minded monologues about the good life, sexless and full of duty. Yet in the middle of one of these monologues, if a girl passed the window, his neck would turn of itself and he would watch her out of sight. In this instance, he seemed to me ruled not by thoughtbut by an invisible and irresistible spring in his nack.His neck was an object of great interest to me. Normally it bulged a bit over his collar.But Mr. Houghton had fought in the First World War alongside both Americans and French, and had cometo a settled detestation of both countries. If either country happened to be prominent in current affairs, no argument could make Mr. Houghton think well of it. He would bang the desk, his neck would bulge still further and go red. "You can say what you like," he would cry, "but I've thought about this - and I know what I think!"Mr. Houghton thought with his neck.This was my introduction to the nature of what is commonly called thought. Through them Idiscovered that thought is often full of unconscious prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy. It will lecture on disinterested purity while its neck is being remorselessly twisted toward a skirt. Technically, it is about as proficient as most businessmen's golf, as honest as most politician's intentions, or as coherent as most books that get written. It is what I came to call grade-three thinking, though more properly, it is feeling, rather than thought.True, often there is a kind of innocence in prejudices, but in those days I viewed grade-three thinking with contempt and mockery. I delighted to confront a pious lady who hated the Germans with the proposition that we should love our enemies. She taught me a great truth in dealing with grade-three thinkers; because of her, I no longer dismiss lightly a mental process which fornine-tenths of the population is the nearest they will ever get to thought. They have immense solidarity. We had better respect them, for we are outnumbered and surrounded. A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill.Grade-two thinking is the detection of contradictions. Grade-two thinkers do not stampede easily, though often they fal linto the other fault and lag behind. Grade-two thinking is a withdrawal,with eyes and ears open. It destroys without having the power to create. It set me watching the crowds cheering His Majesty the King and asking myself what all the fuss was about, without giving me anything positive to put in the place of that heady patriotism. But there were compensations. To hear people justify their habit of hunting foxes by claiming that the foxes like it. To her our Prime Minister talk about the great benefit we conferred on India by jailing people like Nehru and Gandhi. To hear American politicians talk about peace and refuse to join the League of Nations. Yes, there were moments of delight.But I was growing toward adolescence and had to admit that Mr. Houghton was not the only one with an irresistible spring in his neck. I, too, felt the compulsive hand of nature and began to findthat pointing out contradiction could be costly as well as fun. There was Ruth, for example, a serious and attractive girl. I was an atheist at the time. And she was a Methodist. But, alas, instead of relying on the Holy Spirit to convert me, Ruth was foolish enough to open her pretty mouth in argument. She claimed that the Bible was literally inspired. I countered by saying thatthe Catholics believed in the literal inspiration of Saint Jerome's Vulgate, and the two books were different. Argument flagged.At last she remarked that there were an awful lot of Methodists and they couldn't bewrong, could they - not all those millions? That was too easy, said I restively (for the nearer you were to Ruth, the nicer she was to be near to) since there were more Roman Catholics than Methodists anyway; and they couldn't be wrong, could they - not all those hundreds of millions? An awfulflicker of doubt appeared in her eyes. I slid my arm round her waist and murmured that if wewere counting heads, the Buddhists were the boys for my money. She fled. The combination ofmy arm and those countless Buddhists was too much for her.That night her father visited my father and left, red-cheeked and indignant. I was given the thirddegree to find out what had happened. I lost Ruth and gained an undeserved reputation as a potential libertine.Grade-two thinking, though it filled life with fun and excitement, did not make for content. Tofind out the deficiencies of our elders satisfies the young ego but does not make for personal security. It took the swimmer some distance from the shore and left him there, out of his depth.A typical grade-two thinker will say, "What is truth?" There is still a higher grade of thought which says, "What is truth?" and sets out to find it.But these grade-one thinkers were few and far between. They did not visit my grammar school inthe flesh though they were there in books. I aspired to them, because I now saw my hobby as an unsatisfactory thing if it went no further. If you set out to climb a mountain, however high you climb, you have failed if you cannot reach the top.I therefore decided that I would be a grade-one thinker. I was irrelevant at the best of times. Political and religious systems, social customs, loyalties and traditions, they all came tumbling down like so many rotten apples off a tree. I came up in the end with what mustalways remainthe justification for grade-one thinking. I devised a coherent system for living. It was a moral system, which was wholly logical. Of course, as I readily admitted, conversion of the world to my way of thinking might be difficult, since my system did away with a number of trifles, such as big business, centralized government, armies, marriage...It was Ruth all over again. I had some very good friends who stood by me, and still do. But my acquaintances vanished, taking the girls with them. Young people seemed oddly contented withthe world as it was. A young navy officer got as red-necked as Mr. Houghton when I proposed a world without any battleships in it.Had the game gone too far? In those prewar days, I stood to lose a great deal, for the sake of a hobby.Now you are expecting me to describe how I saw the folly of my ways and came back to the warm nest, where prejudices are called loyalties, pointless actions are turned into customs by repetition, where we are content to say we think when all we do is feel.But you would be wrong. I dropped my hobby and turned professional.Lesson 2Waiting for the PoliceI wonder where Mr Wainwright's gone?' said Mrs Mayton.It didn't matter to her in the least where he had gone. All that mattered was that he paid his three guineas a week regularly for board and lodging. But life - and particularly evening life -wasnotoriously dull in her boarding-house, and every now and again one tried to whip up a little interest.`Did he go?' asked Monty Smith.It didn't matter to him, either, but he was as polite as he was pale, and he always did his best to keep any ball rolling.`I thought I heard the front door close,' answered Mrs Mayton. `Perhaps he went out to post a letter,' suggested Miss Wicks, without pausing in her knitting. She had knitted for seventy years,and looked good for another seventy.`Or perhaps it wasn't him at all,' added Bella Randall. Bella was the boarding-house lovely, but no one had taken advantage of the fact. `You mean, it might have been someone else?' inquired Mrs Mayton.`Yes,' agreed Bella.They all considered the alternative earnestly. Mr Calthrop, coming suddenly out of a middle-aged doze, joined in the thinking without any idea what he was thinking.`Perhaps it was Mr Penbury,' said Mrs Mayton, at last. `He's always popping in and out.'But it was not Mr Penbury, for that rather eccentric individual walked into the drawing-room a moment later.His arrival interrupted the conversation, and the company became silent. Penbury always had a chilling effect. He possessed a brain, and since no one understood it when he used it, it was resented. But Mrs Mayton never allowed more than three minutes to go by without a word; andso when the new silence had reached its allotted span, she turned to Penbury and asked:`Was that Mr Wainwnght who went out a little time ago?Penbury looked at her oddly.`What makes you ask that?' he said.`Well, I was just wondering.'`I see,' answered Penbury slowly. The atmosphere seemed to tighten, but Miss Wicks went on knitting. `And are you all wondering?'`We decided perhaps he'd gone out to post a letter,' murmured Bella.`No, Wainwright hasn't gone out to post a letter,' responded Penbury. `He's dead.'The effect was instantaneous. Bella gave a tiny shriek. Mrs Mayton's eyes became two startled glass marbles. Monty Smith opened his mouth and kept it open. Mr Calthrop, in a split second,lost all inclination to doze. Miss Wicks looked definitely interested, though she did not stop knitting. That meant nothing, however. She had promised to knit at her funeral.`Dead?' gasped Mr Calthrop.`Dead,' repeated Penbury. `He is lying on the floor of his room. He is rather a nasty mess.'Monty leapt up, and then sat down again. `You - don't mean . . . ?' he gulped.`That is exactly what I mean,' replied Penbury.There had been,countless silences in Mrs Mayton's drawing-room, but never a silence like this one. Miss Wicks broke it.`Shouldn't the police be sent for?' she suggested.`They already have,' said Penbury. `I phoned the station just before coming into the room.'`How long - that is - when do you expect . . . ?' stammered Monty.`The police? I should say in two or three minutes,' responded Penbury. His voice suddenly shed its cynicism and became practical. `Shall we try and make use of these two or three minutes? Weshall all be questioned, and perhaps we can clear up a little ground before they arrive.'Mr Calthrop looked angry.`But this is nothing to do with any of us, sir!' he exclaimed.`The police will not necessarily accept our word for it,' answered Penbury. `That is why I propose that we consider our alibis in advance. I am not a doctor, but I estimate from my brief examination of the body that it has not been dead more than an hour.Since it is now ten pastnine, and at twenty to eight we saw him leave the dining-room for his bedroom . . .'`How do you know he went to his bedroom?' interrupted Miss Wicks.`Because, having a headache, I followed him upstairs to go to mine for some aspirin, and my room is immediately opposite his,' Penbury explained. `Now, if my assumption is correct, he was killed between ten minutes past eight and ten minutes past nine, so anyone who can prove thathe or she has remained in this room during all that time should have no worry.'He looked around inquiringly.`We've all been out of the room,' Miss Wicks announced for the company.`That is unfortunate,' murmured Penbury.`But so have you!' exclaimed Monty, with nervous aggression.`Yes -so I have,' replied Penbury. `Then let me give my alibi first. At twenty minutes to eight I followed Wainwright up to the second floor. Before going into his room he made an odd remark which - in the circumstances -is worth repeating. "There's somebody in this house who doesn'tlike me very much," he said. "Only one?" I answered. "You're luckier than I am." Then he wentinto his room, and that was the last time I saw him alive. I went into my room. I took two aspirin tablets.Then as my head was still bad, I thought a stroll would be a good idea, and I went out. Ikept out till approximately - nine o'clock. Then I came back. The door you heard closing, Mrs Mayton, was not Wainwright going out. It was me coming in.'`Wait a moment!' ejaculated Bella.`Yes?'`How did you know Mrs Mayton heard the front door close? You weren't here!'Penbury regarded her with interest and respect.`Intelligent,' he murmured.`Now, then, don't take too long thinking of an answer!' glared Mr Calthrop.`I don't need any time at all to think of an answer,' retorted Penbury. `I know because I listened outside the door. But as I say, I came back. I went up to my room.' He paused. `On the floor Ifound a handkerchief. So I went into his room to ask if the handkerchief was his. I found him lyingon the ground near his bed. On his back. Head towards the window. Stabbed through the heart.But no sign of what he'd been stabbed with . . . It looks to me a small wound, but deep. It foundthe spot all right . . . The window was closed and fastened. Whoever did it entered through the door. I left the room and locked the door. I knew no one should go in again till the police andpolice doctor turned up.I came down. The telephone, as you know, is in the dining-room. Most inconvenient. It should be in the hall. Passing the door of this room,I listened, to hear what youall were talking about. Then I went into the dining-room and telephoned the police. And then Ijoined you.'Flushed and emotional, Mrs Mayton challenged him.`Why did you sit here for three minutes without telling us?' she demanded.`I was watching you,' answered Penbury, coolly.`Well, I call that a rotten alibi!' exclaimed Mr Calthrop. `Who's to prove you were out all that time?'`At half past eight I had a cup of coffee at the coffee-stall in Junkers Street,' replied Penbury. `That's over a mile away. It's not proof, I admit, but they know me there, you see, and it may help. Well, who's next?'`I am', said Bella. `I left the room to blow my nose. I went to my room for a handkerchief. Andhere it is!' she concluded, producing it triumphantly.`How long were you out of the room?' pressed Penbury.`Abour five minutes.'`A long time to get a handkerchief.'`Perhaps. But I not only blew my nose, I powdered it.'`That sounds good enough,' admitted Penbury. `Would you oblige next, Mr Calthrop? We all know you walk in your sleep. A week ago you walked into my room, didn't you. Have you lost a handkerchief?'Mr Calthrop glared.`What the devil are you implying?' he exclaimed.`Has Mr Calthrop dozed during the past hour?' pressed Penbury.`Suppose I have?' he cried. `What damned rubbish! Did I leave this room without knowing it, andkill Wainwright for -for no reason at all ?' He swallowed, and calmed down. `I left the room,sir,about twenty minutes ago to fetch the evening paper from the dining-room to do the crossword puzzle!' He tapped it viciously. `Here it is!'Penbury shrugged his shoulders.`I should be the last person to refute such an emphatic statement,' he said, `but let me suggestthat you give the statement to the police with slightly less emphasis, Mr Smith?'Monty Smith had followed the conversation anxiously, and he had his story ready.。
全新版大学英语综合教程4课文原文及翻译Unit 1 Text A: Fighting with the Forces of NatureAmong the forces of nature, wind and water are perhaps the two that have most effect on the land Wind and water, working together, are constantly changing the shape of the land Sometimes the wind blows very hard for a long time This is called a windstorm When a windstorm hits an area, it can cause a lot of damage It can blow away soil and destroy crops It can even destroy buildings and kill peopleWater also plays an important role in changing the land Rivers carry soil and sand from one place to another When the river slows down, the soil and sand are deposited Over time, this can form new land Sometimes a river can change its course This can cause problems for people who live near the riverPeople have always tried to control the forces of nature They have built dams to hold back water and prevent floods They have also planted trees to stop the wind from blowing away the soil But sometimes our efforts to control nature can have unexpected resultsFor example, when a dam is built, it may stop the flow of a river This can cause problems for fish and other animals that live in the river It can also change the climate of the area Sometimes our attempts to control nature can cause more harm than goodTranslation:在自然力量中,风和水也许是对陆地影响最大的两种力量。
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4Preview:The 1990s marks the beginning of a telecommunications revolution. This can mean a quantum change in the information available to people and organizations. Although the transition will be slow for some, the development seems inevitable. Eventually, all of us will be affected and all of us will depend upon the new technology as a basic information resource. The passages in this unit give a general picture of the revolution and shed light on the advantages as well as challenges the new technology will bring about.A transformation is occurring that should greatly boost living standards in the developing world. Places that until recently were deaf and dumb are rapidly acquiring up-to-date telecommunications that will let them promote both internal and foreign investment. It may take a decade for many countries in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe to improve transportation, power supplies, and other utilities. But a single optical fiber with a diameter of less than half a millimeter can carry more information than a large cable made of copper wires. By installing optical fiber, digital switches, and the latest wireless transmission systems, a parade of urban centers and industrial zones from Beijing to Budapest are stepping directly into the Information Age. A spider's web of digital and wireless communication links is already reaching most of Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.All these developing regions see advanced communications as a way to leap over whole stages of economic development. Widespread access to information technologies, for example, promises to condense the time required to change from labor-intensive assembly work to industries that involve engineering, marketing, and design. Modern communications "will give countries like China and Vietnam a huge advantage over countries stuck with old technology".How fast these nations should push ahead is a matter of debate. Many experts think Vietnam is going too far by requiring that all mobile phones be expensive digital models, when it is desperate for any phones, period. "These countries lack experience in weighing costs and choosing between technologies," says one expert.Still, there's little dispute that communications will be a key factor separating the winners from the losers. Consider Russia. Because of its strong educational system in mathematics and science, it should thrive in the Information Age. The problem is its national phone system is a rusting antique that dates from the l930s. To lick this problem, Russia is starting to install optical fiber and has a strategic plan to pump $40 billion into various communications projects. But its economy is stuck in recession and it barely has the money to even scratch the surface of the problem.Compare that with the mainland of China. Over the next decade, it plans to pour some $100 billion into telecommunications equipment. In a way, China's backwardness is an advantage, because the expansion occurs just as new technologies are becoming cheaper than copper wire systems. By the end of 1995, each of China's provincial capitals except for Lhasa will have digital switches and high-capacity optical fiber links. This means that major cities are getting the basic infrastructure to become major parts of the information superhighway, allowing people to log on to the most advanced services available.Telecommunications is also a key to Shanghai's dream of becoming a top financial center. To offer peak performance in providing the electronic data and paperless trading global investors expect, Shanghai plans telecommunications networks as powerful as those in Manhattan.Meanwhile, Hungary also hopes to jump into the modern world. Currently, 700,000 Hungarians are waiting for phones. To partially overcome the problem of funds and to speed the import of Western technology, Hungary sold a 30% stake in its national phone company to two Western companies. To further reduce the waiting list for phones, Hungary has leased rights to a Dutch-Scandinavian group of companies to build and operate what it says will be one of the most advanced digital mobile phone systems in the world. In fact, wireless is one of the most popular ways to get a phone system up fast in developing countries. It's cheaper to build radio towers than to string lines across mountain ridges, and businesses eager for reliable service are willing to accept a significantly higher price tag for a wireless call—the fee is typically two to four times as much as for calls made over fixed lines.Wireless demand and usage have also exploded across the entire width and breadth of Latin America. For wireless phone service providers, nowhere is business better than in Latin America—having an operation there is like having an endless pile of money at your disposal. BellSouth Corporation, with operations in four wireless markets, estimates its annual revenue per average customer at about $2,000 as compared to $860 in the United States. That's partly because Latin American customers talk two to four times as long on the phone as people in North America.Thailand is also turning to wireless, as a way to allow Thais to make better use of all the time they spend stuck in traffic. And it isn't that easy to call or fax from the office: The waiting list for phone lines has from one to two million names on it. So mobile phones have become the rage among businesspeople who can remain in contact despite the traffic jams.Vietnam is making one of the boldest leaps. Despite a per person income of just $220 a year, all of the 300,000 lines Vietnam plans to add annually will be optical fiber with digital switching, rather than cheaper systems that send electrons over copper wires. By going for next-generation technology now, Vietnamese telecommunications officials say they'll be able to keep pace with anyone in Asia for decades.For countries that have lagged behind for so long, the temptation to move ahead in one jump is hard to resist. And despite the mistakes they'll make, they'll persist—so that one day they can cruise alongside Americans and Western Europeans on the information superhighway.5Preview:Personal relationship plays an important role in our life. It is important partly because we are scared of solitude. Most people, if left to live alone, will find life empty, boring and lonely. While personal relationship may make life fun and fulfilling, it may also cause tension, even conflicts. Nowadays, more and more people are living alone, either choosing to live that way orhaving to. While some claim that living alone gives them creative inspirations and the sense of independence, many suffer from loneliness. Whether living alone or staying with families or friends, what is important is to find pleasure in life.Here we are, all by ourselves, all 22 million of us by recent count, alone in our rooms, some of us liking it that way and some of us not. Some of us divorced, some widowed, some never yet committed.Loneliness may be a sort of national disease here, and it's more embarrassing for us to admit than any other sin. On the other hand, to be alone on purpose, having rejected company rather than been cast out by it, is one characteristic of an American hero. The solitary hunter or explorer needs no one as they venture out among the deer and wolves to tame the great wild areas. Thoreau, alone in his cabin on the pond, his back deliberately turned to the town. Now, that's character for you.Inspiration in solitude is a major commodity for poets and philosophers. They're all for it. They all speak highly of themselves for seeking it out, at least for an hour or even two before they hurry home for tea.Consider Dorothy Wordsworth, for instance, helping her brother William put on his coat, finding his notebook and pencil for him, and waving as he sets forth into the early spring sunlight to look at flowers all by himself. "How graceful, how benign, is solitude," he wrote.No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.Look at Milton's daughters arranging his cushions and blankets before they silently creep away, so he can create poetry. Then, rather than trouble to put it in his own handwriting, he calls the girls to come back and write it down while he dictates.You may have noticed that most of these artistic types went outdoors to be alone. The indoors was full of loved ones keeping the kettle warm till they came home.The American high priest of solitude was Thoreau. We admire him, not for his self-reliance, but because he was all by himself out there at Walden Pond, and he wanted to be—all alone in the woods.Actually, he lived a mile, or 20 minutes' walk, from his nearest neighbor; half a mile from the railroad; three hundred yards from a busy road. He had company in and out of the hut all day, asking him how he could possibly be so noble. Apparently the main point of his nobility was that he had neither wife nor servants, used his own axe to chop his own wood, and washed his own cups and saucers. I don't know who did his laundry; he doesn't say, but he certainly doesn't mention doing his own, either. Listen to him: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."Thoreau had his own self-importance for company. Perhaps there's a message here: The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around. The more modest and humble we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company.If you live with other people, their temporary absence can be refreshing. Solitude will end on Thursday. If today I use a singular personal pronoun to refer to myself, next week I will use the plural form. While the others are absent you can stretch out your soul until it fills up the whole room, and use your freedom, coming and going as you please without apology, staying up late to read, soaking in the bath, eating a whole pint of ice cream at one sitting, moving at your own pace. Those absent will be back. Their waterproof winter coats are in the closet and the dog keeps watching for them at the window. But when you live alone, the temporary absence of your friends and acquaintances leaves a vacuum; they may never come back.The condition of loneliness rises and falls, but the need to talk goes on forever. It's more basic than needing to listen. Oh, we all have friends we can tell important things to, people we can call to say we lost our job or fell on a slippery floor and broke our arm. It's the daily succession of small complaints and observations and opinions that backs up and chokes us. We can't really call a friend to say we got a parcel from our sister, or it's getting dark earlier now, or we don't trust that new Supreme Court justice.Scientific surveys show that we who live alone talk at length to ourselves and our pets and the television. We ask the cat whether we should wear the blue suit or the yellow dress. We ask the parrot if we should prepare steak, or noodles, for dinner. We argue with ourselves over who is the greater sportsman: that figure skater or this skier. There's nothing wrong with this. It's good for us, and a lot less embarrassing than the woman in front of us in line at the market who's telling the cashier that her niece Melissa may be coming to visit on Saturday, and Melissa is very fond of hot chocolate, which is why she bought the powdered hot chocolate mix, though she never drinks it herself.It's important to stay rational.It's important to stop waiting and settle down and make ourselves comfortable, at least temporarily, and find some grace and pleasure in our condition, not like a self-centered British poet but like a patient princess sealed up in a tower, waiting for the happy ending to our fairy tale.After all, here we are. It may not be where we expected to be, but for the time being we might as well call it home. Anyway, there is no place like home.10Preview:Emotional Intelligence (or EQ), as defined by Daniel Goleman, is "a capacity for recognizing our own and others' feelings, for motivating ourselves, and for managing ourselves, both within ourselves and in our relationships". Some scientists are arguing that EQ is a better measure of how intelligent a person is, and many researchers on the subject now agree that among the ingredients for success, EQ counts more than any other factor. Emotional Intelligence could be of practical use in many aspects such as how companies decide which job candidate to hire, how parents should raise their children, how schools should teach them, and so onWhat is the most valuable contribution employees make to their companies, knowledge or judgment? I say judgment. Knowledge, no matter how broad, is useless until it is applied. Andapplication takes judgment, which involves something of a sixth sense—a high performance of the mind.This raises interesting questions about the best training for today's business people. As Daniel Goleman suggests in his new book, Emotional Intelligence, the latest scientific findings seem to indicate that intelligent but inflexible people don't have the right stuff in an age when the adaptive ability is the key to survival.In a recent cover story, Time magazine sorted through the current thinking on intelligence and reported, "New brain research suggests that emotions, not IQ, may be the true measure of human intelligence." The basic significance of the emotional intelligence that Time called "EQ" was suggested by management expert Karen Boylston: "Customers are telling businesses, 'I don't care if every member of your staff graduated from Harvard. I will take my business and go where I am understood and treated with respect.'"If the evolutionary pressures of the marketplace are making EQ, not IQ, the hot ticket for business success, it seems likely that individuals will want to know how to cultivate it. I have a modest proposal: Embrace a highly personal practice aimed at improving these four adaptive skills.Raising consciousness. I think of this as thinking differently on purpose. It's about noticing what you are feeling and thinking and escaping the conditioned confines of your past. Raise your consciousness by catching yourself in the act of thinking as often as possible. Routinely take note of your emotions and ask if you're facing facts or avoiding them.Using imagery. This is what you see Olympic ski racers doing before entering the starting gate. With their eyes closed and bodies swaying, they run the course in their minds first, which improves their performance. You can do the same by setting aside time each day to dream with passion about what you want to achieve.Considering and reconsidering events to choose the most creative response to them. When a Greek philosopher said 2,000 years ago that it isn't events that matter but our opinion of them, this is what he was talking about. Every time something important happens, assign as many interpretations to it as possible, even crazy ones. Then go with the interpretation most supportive of your dreams.Integrating the perspectives of others. Brain research shows that our view of the world is limited by our genes and the experiences we've had. Learning to incorporate the useful perspectives of others is nothing less than a form of enlarging your senses. The next time someone interprets something differently from you—say, a controversial political event—pause to reflect on the role of life experience and consider it a gift of perception.The force of habit—literally the established wiring of your brain—will pull you away from practicing these skills. Keep at it, however, because they are based on what we're learning about the mechanism of the mind.Within the first six months of life the human brain doubles in capacity. It doubles again by age four and then grows rapidly until we reach sexual maturity. The body has about a hundred billion nerve cells, and every experience triggers a brain response that literally shapes our senses. The mind, we now know, is not confined to the brain but is distributed throughout the body's universe of cells. Yes, we do think with our hearts, brains, muscles, blood and bones.During a single crucial three-week period during our teenage years, chemical activity in the brain is cut in half. That done, we are "biologically wired" with what one of the nation's leading brain researchers calls our own "world view". He says it is impossible for any two people to see the world exactly alike. So unique is the personal experience that people would understand the world differently.However, it is not only possible to change your world view, he says, it's actually easier than overcoming a drug habit. But you need a discipline for doing it. Hence, the method recommended here.No, it's not a curriculum in the sense that an MBA is. But the latest research seems to imply that without the software of emotional maturity and self-knowledge, the hardware of academic training alone is worth less and less.。