大学英语综合教程 第二册 unit 6A

[00:00.00]How do some women manage to combine a full-time job with family responsibilities and still find time for doing other things?
[00:08.72]Adrienne Popper longs to be like them, but wonders whether it is an impossible dream.
[00:15.49]I'M GOING TO BUY THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE               Adrienne Popper
[00:20.61]Not long ago I received an alumni bulletin from my college. It included a brief item about a former classmate:
[00:30.04]"Kate L. teaches part-time at the University of Oklahoma and is assistant principal at County High School.
[00:38.71]In her spare time she is finishing her doctoral dissertation and the final drafts of two books,
[00:47.12]and she still has time for tennis and horse riding with her daughters.
[00:52.40]" Four words in that description undid me: in her spare time. A friend said that
[01:02.07]if I believed everything in the report, she had a bridge in Brooklyn she'd like to sell me.
[01:08.21]My friend's joke hit home. What an idiot I'd been!
[01:13.22]I resolved to stop thinking about Kate's incredible accomplishments
[01:18.18]and to be suitably skeptical of such stories in the future.
[01:22.91]But like a dieter who devours a whole box of cookies in a moment of weakness,
[01:28.89]I found my resolve slipping occasionally. In weak moments I'd comb the pages of newspapers and magazines
[01:37.75]And consume success stories by the pound:
[01:41.88]My favorite superwomen included a politician's daughter who cared for her two-year-old and a newborn
[01:49.82]while finishing law school and managing a company; a practicing pediatrician with ten children of her own;
[01:58.99]and a television anchorwoman, mother of two preschoolers, who was studying for a master's degree.
[02:07.14]One day, however, I actually met a superwoman face to face. Just before Christmas last year,
[02:15.08]my work took me to the office of a woman executive of a national corporation.
[02:21.19]Like her supersisters, she has a hus- band, two small children and, according to reports,
[02:28.40]a spotless apartment. Her life runs as precisely as a Swiss watch. Since my own schedule rarely succeeds,
[02:38.41]her accomplishments fill me with equal amounts of wonder and guilt
[02:43.66]On a shelf behind her desk that day were at least a hundred jars of strawberry jam,
[02:49.93]gaily fled with red-checked ribbons. The executive and her children had made the jam and decorated the jars,
[02:59.51]which she planned to distribute to her staffand visiting clients.
[03:04.69]When, I wondered aloud, had she found the time to complete such an impressive holiday project?
[03:12.05]I should have known better than to ask. The answer had a familiar ring: in her spare time.
[03:20.20]On the train ride home I sat with ajar of strawberry jam in my lap. It reproached me the entire trip.
[03:29.68]Other women, it seemed to say, are movers and shakers-- not only during office hours,
[03:37.18]but in their spare time as well. What, it asked, do you accomplish inyour spare time?
[03:45.57]I would like to report that I am using my extra moments to complete postdoctoral studies in physics,
[03:53.20]to develop new theories of tonal harmony for piano and horn,
[03:58.42]and to bake cakes and play baseball with my sons. The truth of the matter is,
[04:06.31]however, that I am by nature completely unable to get my act together.
[04:11.66]No matter how carefully I plan my time, the plan always goes wrong.
[04:17.80]If I create schedules of military precision in which several afternoon hours
[04:23.71]are given over to the writing of the Great American Novel, the school nurse is sure to phone at exactly the moment
[04:32.22]I put pencil to paper. One of my children will have developed a strange illness
[04:39.67]that requires him to spend the remainder of the day in bed,
[04:43.74]calling me at frequent intervals to bring soup, juice, and tea.
[04:49.04]Other days, every item on my schedule will take three times the num- ber of minutes set aside.