LUCY

LUCY
－－－Jamaica Kincaid

It was January again; the world was thin and pale and cold again; I was making a new beginning again.

I had been a girl of whom certain things were expected, none of them too bad: a career as a nurse, for example; a sense of duty to my parents; obedience to the law and worship of convention. But in one year of being away from home, that girl had gone out of existence.

The person I had become I did not know very well. Oh, on the outside everything was familiar. My hair was the same, though now I wore it cut close to my head, and this made my face seem almost perfectly round, and so for the first time ever I entertained the idea that I might actually be beautiful. I knew that if I ever decided I was beautiful I would not make too big a thing of it. My eyes were the same. My ears were the same. The other important things about me were the same.

But the things I could not see about myself, the things I could not put my hands on—those things had changed, and I did not yet know them well. I understood that I was inventing myself, and I was doing this more in the way of a painter than in the way of a scientist. I could not count on precision or calculation; I could only count on intuition. I did not have anything exactly in mind, but when the picture complete I would know. I did not have position, I did not have money at my disposal. I had memory, I had anger, and I had despair.

I was born on an island, a very small island, twelve miles long and eight miles wide; yet when I left it at nineteen years of age I had never set foot on three-quarters of it. I had recently met someone who was born on the other side of the world from me but had visited this island on which my family had lived for generations; this person, a woman, said to me, “What a beautiful place, ” and she named a village by the sea and then went on to describe a view that was unknown to me. At the time I was so ashamed I could hardly make a reply, for I had come to believe that people in my position in the world should know everything about the place they are from.

When I told Mariah that I was leaving, she sail, “It’s not a year yet. You are supposed to stay for at least a year. ” Her voice was full of anger, but I ignored it. It’s always hard for the person who is left behind. And even as she said it she must have known how hollow it sounded, for it was only a matter of weeks before it would be a year since I had come to live with her. The reality of her situation was now clear to her: she was a woman whose husband had betrayed her. I wanted to say this to her: “Your situation is an everyday thing. Men behave in this way all the time. The ones who do not behave this way are the exceptions to the rule.” But I knew what her response would have been. She would have said, “What a cliché.” She would have said, “What do you know about these things?” And she would have been right; it was a cliché, and I had no personal experience of a thing like that. But all the same, where I came from every woman knew the cliché, and a man like Lewis would not have been a surprise; his behavior would not have cast a pall over any woman’s life. It was expected. Everybody knew that men have no morals, that they do not know how to behave, that they do not know how to treat other people. It was why men like laws so much; it was why they had to invent such things—they need a guide. When they are not sure what to do, they consult this guide. If the guides give them advice they don’t like, they change the guide. This was something I knew; why didn’t Mariah know it, also? And if I were to tell it to her she would only show me a book she had somewhere which contradicted everything I said- a book most likely written by a woman who understood absolutely nothing.

The holidays came, and they did feel like a funeral, for so many things had died. For the children’s sake, she and Lewis put up a good front. He came and gone, doing all the things he would have done if he were still living with them. He bought the fir tree, bought the children the presents they wanted, bought Mariah a coat made up from the skins of small pesty animals who lived in the ground. She, of course, hated it, but for appearance’s sake kept her opinion to herself. He must have forgotten that she was not a sort of person who would wear the skin of another being if she could help it. Or perhaps in the rush of things he gave his old love his new love’s present. Mariah gave me a necklace made up of pretty porcelain beads and small polished balls of wood. She said it was the handiwork of someone in Africa. It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given me.

The New Year came, and I was going somewhere new again. I gathered my things together; I had a lot more than when I first came. I had new clothes, all better suited to this new climate now I lived in. I had a camera and prints of photographs I had taken, prints I had made myself. But mostly I had books- so many books, and they were mine; I would not have to part with them. It had always been a dream of mine to just own a lot of books, to never part with a book once I had read it. So there they were, resting nicely in small boxes—my own books, the books that I had read. Mariah spoke to me harshly all the time now, and she began to make up rules which she insisted me to follow; and did, for after all what else could she do? It was a last resort for her—insisting that I be the servant and she the master. She used to insist that we be friends, but that apparently not worked out very well, for now I was leaving. The master business did not become her at all, and it made me sad to see her that way. Still, it made me remember what my mother said to me many times: for my whole life I should make sure the roof over my head was my own; such a thing was important, especially if you were a woman.

On the day I actually left, there was no sun; the sky had shut if out tightly. It was a Saturday. Lewis had taken the children to eat snails at a French restaurant. All four of them liked such things—and just as well, for that went with the life they were expected to lead eventually. Mariah helped me put my things in a taxi. It was a cold goodbye on her part. Her voice and her face were stony. She did not hug me. I did not take any of this personally; someday we would be friends again. I was numb, but it was from not knowing just what this new life would hold for me.

PUT HANDS ON: understand easily
COUNT ON: depend on
CLICHE: an idea or expression that has been used too much
CAST A PALL: produce a dark covering; create sadness
PUT UP A GOOD FRONT: face a situation with pretended confidence
A LAST RESORT: a last possibility
DID NOT BECOME HER: was not appropriate for her

TWO KINDS

Two Kinds
---From The Joy Luck Club

My mother believed you could be anything you want to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.

“Of course you can be prodigy, too,” my mother told me when I was nine. “You can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky.”

America was where all my mother’s hopes lay. She had come here in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, two baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.

Every night after dinner, my mother and I would sit at the Formica kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children she had read in Ripley’s Believe It or Not, or Good Housekeeping, Reader’s Digest, and a dozen other magazines from people whose house she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.

The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign cities correctly.

“What’s the capital of Finland?” my mother asked me, looking at the magazine story.

All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown. “Nairobi!” I guessed, saying the most foreign word I could think of. She checked to see if that was possibly one way to pronounce “Helsinki” before showing me the answer.

The tests got harder-multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands predicting the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London.

One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember. “Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and … that’s all I remember, Ma,” I said.

And after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night, I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring back- and that it would always be this ordinary face- I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made highpitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.

And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me-because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or other thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not.

The Oyster

Up to this evening, which should have been the most delightful of all, everything had been delightful. “Delightful” was Gopal’s new word. “London is delightful,” he wrote home. “The college is delightful, Professor William Morgan is delightful and so is Mrs. Morgan and the little Morgans, but perhaps,” he added with pain, for he had to admit that the Morgan children were rough and spoiled, “perhaps not so delightful if you see them for a very long time… The hostel is delightful… I find my work delightful.” He had planned to write home that Paris was delightful. “We went to a famous French restaurant in the rue Perpignan,” he had meant to write, “it is called the Chez Perpignan. It is de-” Now tears made his dark eyes bright; he could not write that; it was not delightful at all.

Gopal’s family lived in Bengal; they were Brahmini Hindus and his mother kept the household to orthodox ways in spite of all he and his elder brother could do. Now Gopal saw her orthodox food: and flat brass platters of rice, the pile of luchis--flaky, puffed, pale gold biscuits—the vegetable fritters fried crisp, the great bowl of lentil puree, and the small accompanying bowls of relishes—shredded coconut or fried onion or spinach or chilis in tomato sauce or chutney, all to be put on the rice. He saw fruit piled on banana leaves, the bowl of fresh curd, the milk or orange or bel-fruit juice in the silver drinking tumblers; no meat or fish, not even eggs, were eaten in that house. “We shall not take life, ” said his mother. Gopal looked down at his plate in the Perpignan and shuddered.

He had come to Europe with shining intentions, eager, anxious to do as the Romans did, as the English, the French, as Romans everywhere. “There will be things you will not be able to stomach,” he had been warned; so far he had stomached everything. His elder brother Jai had been before him and had come back utterly accustomed to everything Western dishes; they ate meat, even beef, but not in their own home. “Not while I live,” said his mother.


Oyster: shellfish (used as food and usually eaten uncooked) some types of which produce pearls inside their shells 牡蛎，蠔
Orthodox: generally accepted
Chutney: hot-tasting mixture of fruit, vinegar, sugar and spices, eaten with curries, cold meat, cheese, etc. 酸辣酱
Hostel: a building that offers student rooms and meals at reasonable prices
Take life: kill
Shining intentions: the best intentions
As the Romans did: this refers to the saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
Stomach: accept, tolerate
relish: spicy or strongly-flavored appetizer served with plain food 开胃小菜

New words(2)

TIMBER
Timber is wood or trees grown for use in building.

ECCENTRIC
Eccentric people are strange and behave in an unusual manner.

ON RECORD
Facts or events on record are written down and preserved.

VAST
Something great in size is vast.

REEFS
Reefs are lines of rocks or sand near the surface of the sea.

THAW
When something frozen becomes soft or liquid it thaws.

MOSS
Mosses are small, flat, green or yellow plants without flowers that grow like a thin carpet on wet soil.

RANGE
A connected line or chain of mountains is a range.

SPECTACULAR
Something spectacular is sensational and striking to watch.

NATURAL PHENOMENON
An unusual event in nature is a natural phenomenon.

New words (1)

DESPERATELY
To suffer from extreme need of something is to need it desperately.

SKIDDED OFF
If a vehicle skidded off the road, it would have slipped sideways out of control.

UNTANGLED
When something is untangled, the twisted parts are made free.

TRAIL
A path across rough or wild country is a trail.

SLED DOG TEAM
A group of dogs working together to pull a small vehicle for sliding along snow is a sled dog team.

GRUELING
Something that is very hard and exhausting is grueling.

FRIGID
Extremely cold is frigid.

STAMINA
A person with stamina has a strong body or mind to fight tiredness and keep on going.

VIGOROUS
Exercise that demands a lot of force and energy is vigorous.

KENNEL
A place where dogs are kept is a kennel.

Idiom (1)

Down-to-Earth: practical and simple

For the birds: bad idea; worthless; stupid

Get one's kicks: to do something for fun or excitement

Go banana: to becoming excited

Have a ball: to have a lot of fun

Let something out of the bag: to reveal a secret

Don't desert me: don't leave me alone

Grew on someone: to gradually become better liked by someone
I didn't like him at first, but he is grew on me.

Early bird<--->Night owl
Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
The early bird catches the worm.

Cream of the crop: the best of the group

Give someone a shot: give someone a chance

Go to great pains: special effort
You went to great pains to prepare those delicious food.

Have something down cold: to know something very well

Judge a book by its cover: form an opinion based on appearance

On the ball: clever, capable and efficient

Once in a blue moon: rarely, not often

One in a million: special, unique, unusual

DEATH VALLEY

Death Valley doesn’t sound like a very inviting place. It is one of the hottest places in the world. The highest temperature ever recorded in there was 134 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the highest ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. And that was in the shade! Death Valley in California covers nearly 3,000 square miles. Approximately 555 square miles are below the surface of the sea. One point is 282 feet below sea level—the lowest point of the Western Hemisphere. In Death Valley, pioneers and explorers faced death from thirst and the searing heat. Yet despite its name and bad reputation, Death Valley is not just an empty wildness of sand and rock. It is a place of spectacular scenic beauty and home to plants, animals, and even humans.

In 1849 a small group of pioneers struggled for three months to get across the rough land. They suffered great hardships as they and their wagons traveled across the salt flats in the baking sun. They run out of food and had to eat oxen and leave their possessions behind. They run out of water and became so thirsty they could not swallow the meat. They found a lake and fell on their knees, only to discover it was heavily salted. Finally, week and reduced to almost skeletons, they came upon to a spring of fresh water and their lives were saved. When they finally reached the mountains on the other side, they slowly climbed up the rocky slopes. One of them looked back and said, “Goodbye, Death Valley.” That has been its name ever since.

Death Valley is the driest place in North America. Yet far from being dead, it is alive with plants and animals. They have adapted with this harsh region. In the salt flats on the valley floor, there are no plants to be seen. But near the edge, there are grasses. Farther away, there are some bushes and cactus. On higher ground there are shrubs and shrub-like trees. Finally, high on the mountainside, there are pine trees.

What is not visible are the seeds lodged in the soil, waiting for rain. When it does come, a brilliant display of flowers carpets the once barren flatlands. Even the cactus blossoms. It is the most common of all desert plants. As the water dries up and summer nears, the flowers die. But first they produce seeds that will wait for the rains of another year.

At noon on a summer day, Death Valley looks truly devoid of wildlife. But in reality, there are 55 species of mammals, 32 kinds of birds, 36 kinds of reptiles, and 3 kinds of amphibians. During the day, many seek shelters under rocks and in burrows. As night approaches, however, the land cools. The desert becomes a center of animal activity. Owls hunt for mice. Bats gather insects as they fly. The little kit fox is out looking for food, accompanied by snakes, hawks, coyotes, and bobcats. Many of these animals, like the desert plants, have adapted to the dry desert. They use water very efficiently. They can often survive on water supplies that would leave similar animals elsewhere dying of thirst.

Humans have also learned how to survive in this land. Little is known about the first people, the lake Mohave people, except that they hunted there 9,000 years ago. From 5,000 to 2,000 years ago, the Mesquite Flat people inhabited the region. Then the Saratoga people came. Finally, about 1,000 years ago, the earliest of the Shoshone natives moved in. To this day, a few Shoshone families live the winter months in the desert.

The natives knew where every hidden spring was. They also knew the habits of the desert animals, which they hunted. The natives, and later even the prospectors, ate every imaginable desert animals. They ate everything from the bighorn sheep to snakes, rats and lizards. They were often on the edge of starvation. In autumn they gathers nuts from the pine trees. Other foods they ate included roots, cactus plants, leaves and sometimes insects.

The early prospectors didn’t know the desert as well as the natives. Many died looking for gold and silver in Death Valley. Others did find the precious metals. Then a “boomtown” was born. First it consisted miners living in the tents. Then permanent buildings were built. But when the mine failed, the town that built up around it did too. Today the remains of these “ghost towns” are scattered about Death Valley. They have names like Skidoo, Panamint City, Chloride City, and Greenwater.

Going to Death Valley once means danger, hardship, and even death. Today, visitors can drive there in air-conditioned comfort. They can stay in hotels. They don’t have to worry about dying of hunger or thirst. They can look upon the hills, canyons, and cactus with appreciation rather than fear. They can admire the beauty of this strange land. They can leave with happy memories.

THE MYSTERY OF ROANOKE ISLAND

Everyone loves a mystery. Books, stories, movies, and television programs involving mysteries are very popular. Fictional mysteries are fun to try to solve before the author finally reveals the secret. However, there are many real-life mysteries that have never been solved. One of them is the mystery of the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke.

The story begins in 1585. An English explorer named Sir Walter Raleigh wanted to start settlements in the New World for his glory and that of his queen, Elizabeth, I. Raleigh sent 108 men to settle on Roanoke Island, off the coast of Virginia. However, these men were soldiers and didn’t know how to farm. They quickly ran out of food. By 1586 the settlers were sick and starving.

One day some English ships anchored near the island. The captains of these ships agreed to take the settlers back to English. The settlers brought back with them Indian corn and potatoes, which were unknown in English. Sir Walter Raleigh planted the potatoes on his estate in Ireland. Later they became a chief source of food for the Irish people.

Raleigh was still determined to start a colony in Virginia. This time he decided to include farmers and families who could build things and survive in their settlement. In 1587 he sent 150 men, women, and children in three ships across the sea. Many had sold everything they owned in hopes of a better life in the New World. The ships were on their way to Chesapeake Bay, where it was thought a settlement could be more successful than on Roanoke Island. However, the ships’ captain stopped at Roanoke and refused to take his passengers any farther. They had no choice but to settle on the island.

They repaired the old fort and began to build cabins. But they soon realized they would need many more supplies than they had brought with them. It was decided that their leader and governor, John White, should go back to England for help and more provisions. A week before he sailed, White’s daughter gave birth to a baby girl—the first English child to be born in America. Her name was Virginia Dare. As conditions on the island were difficult, some of the settlers want to move to another place. Before Governor White left, he told them that if they left the island, they should carve on a tree the name of the place where they were going. If they had troubles, they should put a cross above the name.

Upon reaching England, White discovered that England was at war with Spain. Every ship in the country was needed. He and Sir Walter Raleigh tried in every way to send ships to the stranded little colony across the sea. But it was not to be. Three years passed before White was able to return to Roanoke Island.

In August of 1590, the governor stepped ashore at Roanoke. He walked to the settlement with fear in his heart. Upon reaching it, he found only deserted ruins. The cabins had been destroyed and the ground was overgrown with high grass and weeds. He found rusted pieces of metal and moldy books. It was obvious the colony had been abandoned for at least a year.

White was deeply troubled. But then, at the entrance of the settlement, he saw the word CROATOAN carved in a tree. There was no cross above the word. Croatoan was the name of a nearby island Inhabited by a friendly native tribe. White was confident the settlers would be found.

The ship’s captain agreed to sail to Croatoan the next morning. But during the night, there was a terrible storm. The ship lost all but one anchor. The captain was more concerned for his ship than for the colonists, so he sailed away from the storm. But the storm followed and blew them far into the Atlantic. The captain refused to go back, so White unhappily was taken back to England.

Although several search parties were eventually sent to Roanoke and Croatoan, not one clue to the fate of the settlers was ever found. Governor White would never know what happened to his daughter and grandchild, or all the others who had so bravely made the journey with him.

Ironically, the fate of Governor White also became a mystery. It is not known where or when he died. There is a record that in 1606 a man named John White died “in parts beyond the sea”. It seems very likely that White died still searching for the men and women he had left with a promise of help, but was unable to save.

ALASKA—THE LAST FRONTIER

There is nothing small or ordinary about Alaska. It is America’s largest state. It has the highest mountain and the largest glacier in North America. Its chain of volcanoes is the longest in the world. It has vast regions of uninhabited land richly diverse in both geography and wildlife. It is a remarkable place known as the “Last Frontier.”

Alaska fits its name very well. It comes from the word alyeska, meaning “Great Land” in the language of its native Aleut people. Alaska covers 591,004 square miles. Rhode Island would fit into Alaska 480 times! The highest point in Alaska is 20,320-foot Mount McKinley. The 16 highest mountains in the United States are all in Alaska. There are also about 100,000 glaciers. The largest, Malaspina Glacier, covers 850 square miles. Alaska also has more than three million lakes and 3,000 rivers, much more than any other state.

Everything about Alaska seems to be big. The largest salmon on record was caught in 1985 in Alaska’s Kenia River. It weighed 97 pounds, 4 ounces. It brown bears, called Kodiak bears, are the world’s largest bears. Even the vegetables grown there are big. Cabbages have been known to weigh 95 pounds and carrots to be 3 feet long! If you took a trip through Alaska, it would take quite a long while to cover its vast territory. You’d have to take an airplane from place to place because much of Alaska doesn’t have roads.

Along the coast you will see thousands of islands, rocks, and reefs. You’d see glaciers and icebergs, which are huge pieces of glaciers that fall into the water. Glaciers cover nearly 29,000 square miles of Alaska. Most are in the south and southeast.

In south-central Alaska, you’d fly over the Alaska mountain Range and Mount McKinley. Thousands of visitors have climbed up Mount McKinley. Others have died trying. The youngest person to climb Mount McKinley was Taras Genet of Talkeetna, Alaska, who climbed it in 1991 when he was 12 years old.

No doubt you would visit several of Alaska’s national parks. In these protected lands there are glaciers, mountains, active volcanoes, lakes, rivers, forests, and wildlife of many kinds. Besides Kodiak bears, there are grizzly bears, polar bears, moose, caribou, wolves, porcupines, beavers, mountain goats, foxes, and squirrels. Alaska has 450 kinds of birds. In its waters, whales and dolphins swim along the coast. Seals, walruses, and see otters are also found there.

Part of Alaska lies within the Arctic Circle. The land there is called tundra. There are no trees because the soil is permanently frozen. This frozen soil, called permafrost, thaws on the surface during the summer, when it is covered with a thick layer of mosses, wildflowers, and grasses. People who live there have a special problem because of the permafrost. A house built on it sometimes causes it to thaw beneath the house. The thawed soil begins to sink down, and the house goes with it! Many arctic inhabitants build their houses on platforms so they can be moved from time to time.

If you lived in the arctic, you would why Alaska is also called the “Land of the Midnight Sun.” At Barrow, the northernmost point, the sun does not set from May 10 to August 2. There is daylight all that time. But from November 18 to January 24, Barrow has no sunlight. Then the average temperature is minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit. If you went to the arctic in the spring and autumn you’d see the northern lights. This is a natural phenomenon in which the night skies are filled with spectacular colors, also called the aurora borealis.

Alaska is a very different and special place, and so are its people. Alaska has a very small population for such a big place. Many Alaskan towns have fewer than 100 residents. One such town is Chicken, which has a population of 37. Many towns, like Chicken, have unusual names, such as Clam Gulch, Candle, Beaver, Deadhorse, King Salmon, and Eek. Many were named by the adventurous and often eccentric prospectors who came to Alaska looking for gold in the 1800s.

Most Alaskans live in the cities, such as Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, where there is work and a modern way of life. The population of Alaska is growing rapidly, and today about two-thirds of Alaskans were born elsewhere. They come from many countries to work in the oil, mining, timber, and fishing industries.

Native-born Alaskans include both native peoples and the descendants of the early settlers. The natives, which are the Eskimos, Aleuts, and Indians, migrated to Alaska from Siberia as far back as 15,000 years ago. Some of the natives still live the way their ancestors did, hunting and fishing in the wilderness. Others have modern lives in the cities. However, no matter where they live or when they got there or what ethnic group they belong to, all Alaskans have one thing in common. That is the splendors of the great land in which they live.

Pink Floyd

Have you ever watched TV series named "Friends"? If the answer is yes, maybe you still remember that Chandler said Pink Floyd? I have watched Friends so many times, still, i totally have no idea about Pink Floyd. I even thought that was some kind of celebrity, just guess.
One day, when i was sitting on the chair and watching Friends, i thought that i need to try to find out who is Pink Floyd. I used google, Wikipedia to find that Pink Floyd is a famous English band. And i found some beautiful musics from youtube, such as "wish you wer here","time","money", and so on.