全新版大学英语综合教程-B4-U6-(文本)

Integrated Course Book 4 Unit 6

Listen to the recording two or three times and then think over the following questions:

1. Do you keep a diary? What sort of things do you write about?

2. How does the singer treat his diary? Why?

3. What does the singer think about how other people spend their time?

4. Can we infer what attitude the singer takes towards the pace of life today?

 In the song you are about to listen to we hear what the singer is thinking as he writes his diary. Like many people who keep a diary, he treats it like a friend to whom he can pour out his inmost feelings. From the confidences he entrusts to his diary we learn of what he thinks of the way most people live. He thinks they spend their days in a rush, so much so that they have no time for him. As he says:



    So many people by the score.

    Rushing around so senselessly.

    They don't notice there's people like me.



    Perhaps he's right, perhaps people are too much in a rush to spare enough time for one another. Though one suspects they may have other reasons for not sparing the singer time. He sounds altogether self-centred, looking at the world only from his own narrow point of view. We hear this at the end of the song, when he passes lightly over an H-bomb explosion as something of no concern to him as nobody he knew was involved. Given his outlook, it is probably just as well he has his diary as a friend, as others might find it a bit hard to put up with him.

Dear Diary

                   The Moody Blues

Dear diary, what a day it's been

Dear diary, it's been just like a dream

Woke up too late. Wasn't where I should have been

For goodness sake what's happening to me

Write lightly, yours truly, dear diary



It was cold outside my door

So many people by the score

Rushing around so senselessly

They don't notice there's people like me

Write lightly, yours truly, dear diary



They don't know what they're playing

They've no way of knowing what the game is

Still they carry on doing what they can

Outside me, yours politely, dear diary



It's over. Will tomorrow be the same

I know that they're really not to blame

If they weren't so blind then surely they'd see

There's a much better way for them to be

Inside me, yours truly, dear diary



Somebody exploded an H-bomb today

But it wasn't anyone I knew

Text A

As the pace of life in today's world grows ever faster, we seem

forever on the go. With so much to do and so little time to do it in, how

are we to cope? Richard Tomkins sets about untangling the problem and

comes up with an answer.

随着当今世界生活节奏日益加快，我们似乎一直在不停奔忙。事情那么多，时间却那么少，我们该怎么办？里查德·汤姆金斯着手解决这一问题，并提出了建议。

Old Father Time Becomes a Terror

Richard Tomkins

1 Once upon a time, technology, we thought, would make our lives

easier. Machines were expected to do our work for us, leaving us with

ever-increasing quantities of time to waste away on idleness and pleasure.

时间老人成了可怕的老人

理查德·汤姆金斯

从前，我们以为技术发展会使我们的生活变得更安逸。那时我们觉得机器会替代我们工作，我们则有越来越多的时间休闲娱乐。

2 But instead of liberating us, technology has enslaved us. Innovations

are occurring at a bewildering rate: as many now arrive in a year as once

arrived in a millennium. And as each invention arrives, it eats further

into our time.

但技术发展没有把我们解放出来，而是使我们成为奴隶。新技术纷至沓来，令人目不暇接：一年涌现的技术创新相当于以前一千年。而每一项新发明问世，就进一步吞噬我们的光阴。

3 The motorcar, for example, promised unimaginable levels of personal

mobility. But now, traffic in cities moves more slowly than it did in the

days of the horse-drawn carriage, and we waste our lives stuck in traffic

jams.

比如，汽车曾使我们希望个人出行会方便得让人难以想象。可如今，城市车辆运行得比马车时代还要慢，我们因交通堵塞而困在车内，徒然浪费生命。

4 The aircraft promised new horizons, too. The trouble is, it delivered

them. Its very existence created a demand for time-consuming journeys that

we would never previously have dreamed of undertaking -- the transatlantic

shopping expedition, for example, or the trip to a convention on the other

side of the world.

飞机也曾有可能为我们拓展新天地。问题是，飞机提供了新的天地。其存在本身产生了对耗时的长途旅行的需求，这种旅行，如越洋购物，或远道前往地球的另一半参加会议，以前我们是根本无法想象的。

5 In most cases, technology has not saved time, but enabled us to do

more things. In the home, washing machines promised to free women from

having to toil over the laundry. In reality, they encouraged us to change

our clothes daily instead of weekly, creating seven times as much washing

and ironing. Similarly, the weekly bath has been replaced by the daily

shower, multiplying the hours spent on personal grooming.

在大多数情况下，技术发展并未节省时间，而是使我们得以做更多的事。在家里，洗衣机可望使妇女摆脱繁重的洗衣劳作。但事实上，它们促使我们每天，而不是每星期换一次衣服，这就使熨洗衣物的工作量变成原来的7倍。同样地，每周一次的沐浴为每日一次的淋浴所代替，使得用于个人穿着打扮的时间大大增加。

6 Meanwhile, technology has not only allowed work to spread into our

leisure time -- the laptop-on-the-beach syndrome -- but added the new

burden of dealing with faxes, e-mails and voicemails. It has also provided

us with the opportunity to spend hours fixing software glitches on our

personal computers or filling our heads with useless information from the

Internet.

与此同时，技术发展不仅听任工作侵入我们的闲暇时间 ── 带着便携式电脑去海滩综合症 ──

而且添加了收发传真、电子邮件和语音邮件这些新的负担。技术发展还向我们提供机会，在个人电脑上一连几小时处理软件故障，或把因特网上那些无用的信息塞进自己的大脑。

7 Technology apart, the Internet points the way to a second reason why

we feel so time-pressed: the information explosion.

除去技术发展，因特网指出了我们为何感到时间如此紧迫的第二个原因：信息爆炸。

8 A couple of centuries ago, nearly all the world's accumulated

learning could be contained in the heads of a few philosophers. Today,

those heads could not hope to accommodate more than a tiny fraction of the

information generated in a single day.

几个世纪以前，人类积累的几乎所有知识都能装在若干哲人的大脑之中。如今，这些大脑休想容纳下一天中产生的新信息中的小小一部分。

9 News, facts and opinions pour in from every corner of the world. The

television set offers 150 channels. There are millions of Internet sites.

Magazines, books and CD-ROMs proliferate.

各种消息、事实和见解从世界各个角落大量涌入。电视机能收到150个频道。因特网网址多达千百万。杂志、书籍和光盘只读存储器的数量也激增。

10 "In the whole world of scholarship, there were only a handful of

scientific journals in the 18th century, and the publication of a book was

an event," says Edward Wilson, honorary curator in entomology at Harvard

University's museum of comparative zoology. "Now, I find myself

subscribing to 60 or 70 journals or magazines just to keep me up with what

amounts to a minute proportion of the expanding frontiers of scholarship."

“在18世纪，整个国际学术界总共只有屈指可数的几家科学刊物，出版一本书是件了不起的大事，”哈佛大学比较动物学博物馆昆虫馆名誉馆长爱德华·威尔逊说。“如今，我本人就订阅了60或70种期刊杂志，以便自己跟上不断拓展的学术前沿中一个微小部分的发展动向。”

11 There is another reason for our increased time stress levels, too:

rising prosperity. As ever-larger quantities of goods and services are

produced, they have to be consumed. Driven on by advertising, we do our

best to oblige: we buy more, travel more and play more, but we struggle to

keep up. So we suffer from what Wilson calls discontent with super

abundance -- the confusion of endless choice.

我们产生日益加重的时间紧迫感还有一个原因：日渐繁荣富足。由于生产的物品与提供的服务越来越多，我们必须去消费。在广告的推动下，我们努力照办：我们多多购买多多旅游多多玩儿，但得尽力坚持下去。于是我们就深受威尔逊所谓的对极大富足不满之苦

── 即无休止的选择所造成的困惑。

12 Of course, not everyone is overstressed. "It's a convenient

shorthand to say we're all time-starved, but we have to remember that it

only applies to, say, half the population," says Michael Willmott,

director of the Future Foundation, a London research company.

当然，并非人人感到时间过度紧迫。“说我们都缺少时间只是随意讲讲，我们应该记住，这种说法大约只适用于一半人，”未来基金公司

── 一家伦敦研究公司 ── 的经理迈克尔·威尔莫特说。

13 "You've got people retiring early, you've got the unemployed, you've

got other people maybe only peripherally involved in the economy who don't

have this situation at all. If you're unemployed, your problem is that

you've got too much time, not too little."

“有些人早早退休了，有些人失业了，有些人或许只与经济活动沾点边，根本不会有这种情况。如果失业了，那你的问题就是时间太多，而不是太少。”

14 Paul Edwards, chairman of the London-based Henley Centre forecasting

group, points out that the feeling of pressures can also be exaggerated,

or self-imposed. "Everyone talks about it so much that about 50 percent of

unemployed or retired people will tell you they never have enough time to

get things done," he says. "It's almost got to the point where there's

stress envy. If you're not stressed, you're not succeeding. Everyone wants

to have a little bit of this stress to show they're an important person."

总部设在伦敦的亨利中心预测小组组长保罗·爱德华兹指出，压力感也可能被夸大，或者被强加于自身。“人人都大谈压力，以至于多达半数的失业者或退休人员都会跟你说，他们根本来不及把事情做完，”他说。“这几乎是到了羡慕压力的程度。没有感到有压力，就不是成功者。人人都想表现几分时间紧迫感，以显示自己的重要。”

15 There is another aspect to all of this too. Hour-by-hour logs kept

by thousands of volunteers over the decades have shown that, in the U.K. ,

working hours have risen only slightly in the last 10 years, and in the

U.S., they have actually fallen -- even for those in professional and

executive jobs, where the perceptions of stress are highest.

这一切还有另外一个方面。几十年来由数千名志愿者所作的钟点日志表明，英国在最近十年中工作时间只略微增加，而在美国，即使对工作压力最大的专业人士和管理人员而言，工作时间实际上减少了。

16 In the U.S., John Robinson, professor of sociology at the University

of Maryland, and Geoffrey Godbey, professor of leisure studies at Penn

State University found that, since the mid-1960s, the average American had

gained five hours a week in free time -- that is, time left after working,

sleeping, commuting, caring for children and doing the chores.

在美国，马里兰大学社会学教授约翰·鲁宾逊和宾夕法尼亚州立大学研究闲暇问题的教授杰弗里·戈德比发现，自20世纪60年代中期以来，普通美国人每周增加了5小时空余时间，即工作、睡眠、乘车上下班、照料孩子和家务劳动之余的时间。

17 The gains, however, were unevenly distributed. The people who

benefited the most were singles and empty-nesters. Those who gained the

least -- less than an hour -- were working couples with pre-school

children, perhaps reflecting the trend for parents to spend more time

nurturing their offspring.

但增加的时间分配得并不均匀。受惠最多的是未婚者和子女不在身边的人。得益最少的 ── 增加了不足1个小时 ──

是有学前子女的双职工夫妇，这或许反映了父母在抚养子女方面花费更多时间这一倾向。

18 There is, of course, a gender issue here, too. Advances in household

appliances may have encouraged women to take paying jobs: but as we have

already noted, technology did not end household chores. As a result, we

see appalling inequalities in the distribution of free time between the

sexes. According to the Henley Centre, working fathers in the U. K.

average 48 hours of free time a week. Working mothers get 14.

这里当然也存在着性别问题。家用器具的更新换代或许鼓励妇女去做有报酬的工作，但正如我们已经注意到的，技术发展并没有扫除家务杂活。其结果是，我们发现男女空余时间的分配惊人地不平等。据亨利中心的调查，在英国，有工作的父亲平均每周有48小时的空余时间。有工作的母亲只有14小时。

19 Inequalities apart, the perception of the time famine is widespread,

and has provoked a variety of reactions. One is an attempt to gain the

largest possible amount of satisfaction from the smallest possible

investment of time. People today want fast food, sound bytes and instant

gratification. And they become upset when time is wasted.

除去不平等，缺乏时间的感觉也普遍存在，并引起了各种反应。反应之一是试图投入最少的时间以获取最大的满足。如今人们需要快餐，需要电台、电视台播放简短片断，还要即刻得到满足。时间一旦被浪费，人们就会很不高兴。

20 "People talk about quality time. They want perfect moments," says

the Henley Centre's Edwards. "If you take your kids to a movie and

McDonald's and it's not perfect, you've wasted an afternoon, and it's a

sense that you've lost something precious. If you lose some money you can

earn some more, but if you waste time you can never get it back."

“人们谈论着质量时间。他们需要最佳时光，”亨利中心的爱德华兹说。“如果你带孩子去看电影或去麦当劳，但度过的时光并不甜美，你浪费了一个下午，感觉就像是你丢失了宝贵物品。钱丢失了还能挣回来，但时间浪费了就再也无法追回。”

21 People are also trying to buy time. Anything that helps streamline

our lives is a growth market. One example is what Americans call concierge

services -- domestic help, childcare, gardening and decorating. And

on-line retailers are seeing big increases in sales -- though not, as yet,

profits.

人们还试图购买时间。任何能帮助我们提高生活效率的事物都有越做越大的市场。美国人所谓的家政服务 ──

做家务，带孩子，修剪花木，居家装饰 ── 即为一例。网上零售商在看着销售额大幅增长 ── 虽然利润尚未同样大幅增长。

22 A third reaction to time famine has been the growth of the work-life

debate. You hear more about people taking early retirement or giving up

high pressure jobs in favour of occupations with shorter working hours.

And bodies such as Britain's National Work-Life Forum have sprung up,

urging employers to end the long-hours culture among managers and to adopt

family-friendly working policies.

对时间匮乏的第三个反应是有关人的一生应该工作多少年的争论增多。你比过去更常听到人们谈论早早退休，谈论放弃压力大的工作去从事工作时间短的工作。诸如英国全国工作年限论坛这样的机构像雨后春笋般出现了，敦促雇主终止让管理人员长时间加班的做法，而采取能适应家庭生活的工作方式。

23 The trouble with all these reactions is that liberating time --

whether by making better use of it, buying it from others or reducing the

amount spent at work -- is futile if the hours gained are immediately

diverted to other purposes.

所有这些反应的问题在于，把时间解放出来 ── 无论是靠更充分地利用时间，靠购买他人的时间，还是靠缩短工作时间 ──

是没有意义的，如果赢得的时间又即刻被用于其他目的。

24 As Godbey points out, the stress we feel arises not from a shortage

of time, but from the surfeit of things we try to cram into it. "It's the

kid in the candy store," he says. "There's just so many good things to do.

The array of choices is stunning. Our free time is increasing, but not as

fast as our sense of the necessary."

正如戈德比所指出的，我们的紧张感并非源于时间短缺，而是因为我们试图在一个个时段中塞入过多的内容。“就像糖果店里的孩子，”他说，“有那么多美好的事情要做。选择之多，令人眼花缭乱。我们的空余时间在增加，但其速度跟不上我们心中日益增多的必须做的事。”

25 A more successful remedy may lie in understanding the problem rather

than evading it.

更有效的解决方式或许在于去理解这一问题，而不是回避这一问题。

26 Before the industrial revolution, people lived in small communities

with limited communications. Within the confines of their village, they

could reasonably expect to know everything that was to be known, see

everything that was to be seen, and do everything that was to be done.

工业革命前，人们居住在交通联系不方便的小社区里。在本村范围内，人们自然而然地期望了解该了解的一切，见到该见的一切，做该做的一切。

27 Today, being curious by nature, we are still trying to do the same.

But the global village is a world of limitless possibilities, and we can

never achieve our aim.

如今，生性好奇的我们仍试图这么做。然而，地球村是一个有着无限可能的世界，我们永远无法实现自己的目标。

28 It is not more time we need: it is fewer desires. We need to switch

off the cell-phone and leave the children to play by themselves. We need

to buy less, read less and travel less. We need to set boundaries for

ourselves, or be doomed to mounting despair.

我们需要的不是更多的时间：是更少的欲望。我们定要关掉手机，让孩子们自己玩耍。我们定要少购物，少阅读，少出游。我们定要在有所为、有所不为方面给自己设定界限，不然则注定会越来越感到绝望。

Text B

Come on, admit it -- you like living at breakneck speed.

好了，承认吧 ── 你就喜欢忙得团团转。

Life in the Fast Lane

James Gleick

1 We are in a rush. We are making haste. A compression of time

characterizes many of our lives. As time-use researchers look around, they

see a rushing and scurrying everywhere. Sometimes culture resembles "one

big stomped anthill," say John P. Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey in their

book Time for Life.

人在快车道

詹姆斯·格利克

我们东奔西忙。我们急急匆匆。时间紧迫是我们许多人的生活特点。时间利用研究者环顾四周，只见人人忙乱，处处步履匆匆。有时文明就像是“一个被踩瘪的大蚁冢”，约翰·P·鲁宾逊和杰弗里·戈德比在《生活时间》一书中写道。

2 (1) Instantaneity rules. Pollsters use electronic devices during

political speeches to measure opinions on the wing, before they have been

fully formed; fast-food restaurants add express lanes. Even reading to

children is under pressure. The volume One-Minute Bedtime Stories consists

of traditional stories that can be read by a busy parent in only one

minute.

即时行为主宰着一切。人们发表政治演说时，听众尚未形成看法，民意调查人员就利用电子装置进行当场测定；快餐店增设了快速通道。甚至给孩子念故事也得赶时间。《一分钟临睡前的故事》一书收的都是让忙碌的家长仅用一分钟就能讲完的老故事。

3 There are places and objects that signify impatience. The door-close

button in elevators, so often a placebo used to distract riders to whom

ten seconds seems an eternity. Speed-dial buttons on telephones. Remote

controls, which have caused an acceleration in the pace of films and

television commercials.

许多场所和物件都表明人们有急躁情绪。电梯里的关门按钮常常起心理安慰作用，好让那些连10秒钟都觉得漫长难捱的乘梯人分散注意力。还有电话机的快拨键。还有可使影片和电视广告快速播放的遥控器。

4 Time is a gentle deity, said Sophocles. Perhaps it was, for him.

These days it cracks the whip.(2) We humans have chosen speed, and we

thrive on it -- more than we generally admit. Our ability to work and play

fast gives us power. It thrills us.

时间之神温雅从容，索福克勒斯如是说。他那时或许如此。当今社会时间扬鞭催人。我们人类选择了速度，凭借着速度而繁荣兴旺 ──

其程度超过人们所普遍承认的那样。我们快节奏工作、娱乐的本领赋予我们力量。我们为此兴奋不已。

5 And if haste is the accelerator pedal, multitasking is overdrive.

These days it is possible to drive, eat, listen to a book and talk on the

phone -- all at once, if you dare. David Feldman, in New York, schedules

his tooth flossing to coincide with his regular browsing of online

discussion groups. He has learned to hit PageDown with his pinkie. Mike

Holderness, in London, watches TV with captioning so that he can keep the

sound off and listen to the unrelated music of his choice. An entire class

of technologies is dedicated to the furtherance of multitasking. Car

phones. Bookstands on exercise machines. Waterproof shower radios.

如果匆忙是加速器的踏板，一心多用就是超速档。如今，完全可能做到边开车边吃东西边听录音书籍边打电话 ──

要是你敢这么做。纽约的大卫·费尔德曼把用洁牙线清洁牙缝安排在日常浏览网上讨论之时。他已经学会用小手指敲击下行键。伦敦的迈克·霍尔德内斯看带字幕的电视节目，这样他就能把音量调低到听不见，好欣赏自己喜欢的与电视节目无关的音乐。有一整套的技术专门用来促进一心多用。如汽车电话。如健身器材上的搁书架。如防水的淋浴间收音机。

6 Not so long ago, for most people, listening to the radio was a single

task activity. Now it is rare for a person to listen to the radio and do

nothing else.

不久以前，对大多数人而言，听收音机是一项单一的活动。如今极少有人在听收音机时，别的什么也不干。

7 Even TV has lost its command of our foreground. In so many households

the TV just stays on, like a noisy light bulb, while the life of the

family passes back and forth in its shimmering glow.

就连我们生活中占据重要地位的电视机也失去了控制力。在许多家庭里，电视机就一直开着，如同一个发出噪声的灯泡，人们在其微弱的闪光里日复一日地过着他们的家庭生活。

8 (3) A sense of well-being comes with this saturation of parallel

pathways in the brain. We choose mania over boredom every time. "Humans

have never, ever opted for slower," points out the historian Stephen Kern.

脑海中充斥的这种种并行不悖的情况带来的是一种幸福感。每次我们都宁可大干一番而不愿厌倦懈怠。“人类从未，也永远不会选择放慢速度，”历史学家斯蒂芬·克恩说。

9 We catch the fever -- and the fever feels good. We live in the buzz.

"It has gotten to the point where my days, crammed with all sorts of

activities, feel like an Olympic endurance event: the everydayathon,"

confesses Jay Walljasper in the Utne Reader.

我们染上了狂热 ──

感觉竟然还不错。我们生活在忙乱中。“程度已经如此严重，我的生活排满了各种各样的活动，感觉就像是在进行奥运会耐力项目比赛：每日马拉松赛，”杰伊·沃加斯泼在《读者》上坦言。

10 All humanity has not succumbed equally, of course.(4) If you make

haste, you probably make it in the technology-driven world. Sociologists

have also found that increasing wealth and increasing education bring a

sense of tension about time. We believe that we possess too little of it.

No wonder Ivan Seidenberg, an American telecommunications executive, jokes

about the mythical DayDoubler program his customers seem to want: "Using

sophisticated time-mapping and compression techniques, DayDoubler gives

you access to 48 hours each and every day. At the higher numbers

DayDoubler becomes less stable, and you run the risk of a temporal crash

in which everything from the beginning of time to the present could crash

down around you, sucking you into a suspended time zone."

当然，并非人人同染此病。如果你奔忙不停，很可能你是奔忙在由技术所驱动的社会中。社会学家也发现，富裕程度和教育程度的提高带来时间的紧迫感。我们认为自己时间太少。难怪美国一位电信公司经理伊凡·塞登伯格拿子虚乌有、用户们却似乎颇为心仪的"一天变两天"程序开玩笑：“‘一天变两天’运用先进的时间安排、压缩技术，使你天天拥有48小时。时间比较多了，该程序就不很稳定，你会面临时间崩溃的危险，从有时间起到当前所有的一切都会倾倒在你身旁，把你吞入一个暂时不起作用的时区。”

11 Our culture views time as a thing to hoard and protect. Timesaving

is the subject to scores of books with titles like Streamlining Your Life;

Take Your Time; More Hours in My Day. Marketers anticipate our desire to

save time, and respond with fast ovens, quick playback, quick freezing and

fast credit.

我们的文化把时间看做可囤积、保护之物。省时是众多书籍的主题，如《提高生活效率》、《悠着点》、《我的一天不止24小时》。商人预见到我们一心省时的欲望，于是推出快速烤炉、快速回放装置、快速解冻以及快速贷款作为应对。

12 We have all these ways to "save time," but what does that concept

really mean? Does timesaving mean getting more done? If so, does talking

on a cellular phone at the beach save time or waste it? If you can choose

between a 30-minute train ride, during which you can read, and a 20-minute

drive, during which you cannot, does the drive save ten minutes? Does it

make sense to say that driving saves ten minutes from your travel budget

while removing ten minutes from your reading budget?

我们有那么多“节省时间”的方法，可省时这个概念真正意味着什么呢？省时是否意味着做得更多？如果是这样，那么在海滩用手机通话是节省还是浪费时间？如果你有两个选择：乘坐30分钟火车，其间你可以看书；开车20分钟，其间你不能看书。那开车是否算是省下10分钟？

13 These questions have no answer. They depend on a concept that is ill

formed: the very idea of timesaving. Some of us say we want to save time

when really we just want to do more -- and faster. It might be simplest to

recognise that there is time and we make choices about how to spend it,

how to spare it, how to use it and how to fill it.

这些问题并没有答案。它们取决于一个很不明确的概念，即省时这一观念本身。有些人说想节约时间，其实是想多做些事，而且要做得更快。也许，最简单的是要认识到，时间就在这儿，我们可以选择如何花时间，如何节约时间，如何利用时间，如何填补时间。

14 Time is not a thing we have lost. It is not a thing we ever had. It

is what we live in.

时间不是我们遗失的东西。时间不是我们曾拥有的东西。我们生活在时间之中。

Read aloud the following poem.

The True Meaning of A.S.A.P.

Lisa Englehardt

Ever wonder about the abbreviation A.S.A.P.?

Generally we think of it in terms of even more hurry

and stress in our lives.

Maybe if we think of this abbreviation in a different manner,

we will begin to find a new way to deal with

those rough days along the way.

There's work to do, deadlines to meet;

You've got no time to spare,

But as you hurry and scurry --

A.S.A.P.-- Always Say a Prayer.

In the midst of family chaos,

"Quality time" is rare.

Do your best; let God do the rest --

A.S.A.P. -- Always Say a Prayer.

It may seem like your worries

Are more than you can bear.

Slow down and take a breather --

A.S.A.P.-- Always Say a Prayer.

God knows how stressful life is;

He wants to ease our cares,

And He'll respond

A.S.A.P.-- Always Say a Prayer.

A.S.A.P.: abbr. as soon as possible

Read the following quotations. Learn them by heart if you can. You might need to look up new words in a dictionary.

If we could learn how to balance rest against effort, calmness against strain, quiet against turmoil, we would assure ourselves of joy in living and psychological health for life.

-- Josephine Rathbone

A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.

-- Anne Dillard

The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it.

-- Anon.

Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.

-- Natalie Goldberg

Read the following humorous story for fun. You might need to look up new words in a dictionary.

Two guys are playing golf -- a Japanese and an American. The Japanese man, getting ready to tee off, begins talking into his thumb. The American says, "What are you doing?" The Japanese man says: "Oh, don't worry. With microtechnology, I have a microphone inserted in my thumb. I was just recording a message." The two men go on playing golf. All of a sudden, the American man makes a funny sound that sounds amazingly like a fart. The Japanese man looks over at him. "Oh," says the American. "Don't worry, I'm just receiving a fax."