名人演讲:J.K. Rowling2008年在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲part3
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
和你们差不多大的时侯，我对学校功课明显缺乏热情，很少去听课，反而花了大把的时间在咖啡吧里写小说，不过我似乎天生就有通过考试的本领，凭借这点，我过了数年所谓“成功”的生活。
我还不至于笨到认为，你们这些天资聪颖又受过良好教育的年轻人，会不知道艰难和心碎的滋味。即使才华横溢，智商一流，你们的人生也不可能全无波澜。我也从不觉得，你们已经享受到了特殊身份带来的满足感。
但是，你们是哈佛大学的毕业生这个事实说明，你们还不怎么熟悉失败。正如你们渴望成功一样，你们可能也害怕失败。的确，你们构想的失败也许就是普通人眼里的成功，因为你们毕竟已经在学术殿堂的高空翱翔。
尽管什么是失败，最终还得由自己决定。但这个世界总是急于向你兜售它的一套标准。仅毕业七年，我就输得一败涂地，按传统的看法，这么说并不为过。我短暂的婚姻闪电般地破裂，还失去了工作，成为一个单身母亲。在英国，除了流浪汉，找不到比我更穷的人了。我父母对我的担忧，我对我自己的担忧，都成为了现实。用普通人的标准，我是我所知道的最失败的人。
现在，我在这里想告诉你们的是，失败不是一件多好玩的事。那段日子是我生命的黑暗时期。我不知道我会写出后来媒体称为童话革命的文字，我根本不知道这条路还要走多远。很长一段时期里，现实让人绝望，只有路尽头的一点微光给我希望。
那我为什么还要讲失败的好处呢？因为失败把非本质的东西都剥离了。我不再伪装自己，我找到了真正的自我，开始将所有精力投入到唯一对我重要的工作。如果我已经在别的事情中有所成就，我可能永远不会有这样的决心，在属于我的舞台上奋斗，直到成功的那一天。我像得到了解放，因为我最害怕的事情终于发生了，可我还活着，我还有深爱的女儿，还有一台旧打字机，还有一个大大的梦想。我把这片生命的低谷踩在了脚下，开始在这坚实的基础上重建生活。
Motivation:积极性，干劲
Knack
1. 本领;熟练技巧[S1][(+of/for)]
He has a knack for making furniture.
他有做家具的熟练技能。
2. 妙法,诀窍[S1][(+of/for/to)]
There’s a knack to baking a good cake.
烘烤美味的蛋糕是有窍门的。
Inoculate
1. 【医学】给…接种；给…注射预防针：
to inoculate somebody against cholera
给某人注射霍乱预防针
2. 向…移入(细菌等)；将…移入适合环境：
to inoculate the soil with bacteria
细菌移入土壤
3. 灌输(思想等)：
to inoculate somebody with new ideas
向某人灌输新思想
caprice: 多变;反复无常;怪念头[C][U]
Her decision to wear only black clothes was pure caprice.
她决定只穿黑衣服完全是忽发奇想。
the caprices of the weather
天气的多气
constitute
1. 构成,组成[W]
This move constitutes an act of aggression.
这一举动构成了侵略行为。
2. 设立(机构等);制定(法律等)
A committee was constituted to investigate into that affair.
建立了一个委员会以调查那件事。
3. 指定,任命,选派…的[O1]
The strikers constituted him their spokesman.
罢工工人选他为他们的发言人。
Criterion: (判断、批评的)标准,准则,尺度[C]
What criteria do you use when judging the quality of a student’s work?
你用什么标准来衡量学生的学业?
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