大学英语综合教程 第二册 unit 6A

[04:56.28]The cleaner will misplace my clothes. My order won't be ready at the butcher shop as promised.
[05:04.54]The woman ahead of me in the supermarket line will pay for her groceries with a check drawn
[05:11.07]on a Martian bank, and only the manager (who has just left for lunch) can OK the matter.
[05:19.29]"They also serve who only stand and wait," wrote the poet John Milton,
[05:25.36]but he forgot to add that they don't get to be superwomen that way.
[05:30.92]Racing the clock every day is such an exhausting effort that when I actually have a few free moments,
[05:38.26]I tend to collapse. Mostly I sink into a chair and stare into space while I imagine how lovely life would be
[05:46.75]if only I possessed the organizational skills and the energy of my superheroines. In fact,
[05:55.11]I waste a good deal of my spare time just worrying about what other women are accomplishing in theirs.
[06:02.58]Sometimes I think that these modern fairy tales create as many problems for women
[06:08.77]as the old stories that had us biding our time for the day our prince would come2.
[06:15.51]Yet superwomen tales continue to charm me. Despite my friend's warning against being taken in,
[06:24.10]despite everything I've learned, I find that I'm not only willing,
[06:30.97]but positively eager to buy that bridge she mentioned. Why?
[06:36.72]I suppose it has something to do with the appeal of an optimistic approach to life
[06:42.86]and the fact that extraordinary deeds have been accom- plished by determined individuals
[06:49.97]who refused to believe that "you can't" was the final word on their dreams.
[06:56.52]Men have generally been assured that achieving their heart's desires would be a piece of cake.
[07:02.48]Women, of course, have always believed that we can't have our cake and eat it too -- the old low-dream diett .
[07:12.61]Perhaps becoming a superwoman is an impossible dream for me,
[07:17.68]but life without that kind of fantasy is as unappealing as a diet with no treats.
[07:24.50]I know the idea of admiring a heroine is considered silly today;
[07:29.72]we working women are too sophisticated for that. Yet the superwomen I read about are my heroines.
[07:38.08]When my faith in myself falters,it is they who urge me on, whispering, "Go for it, lady !"
[07:46.39]One of these days I plan to phone my former classmate Kate
[07:51.25]and shout "Well done !" into the receiver. I hope she won't be modest about her achievements.
[07:58.41]Perhaps she will have completed her dissertation and her two books
[08:04.02]and moved on to some new work that's exciting or dangerous or both. I'd like to hear all about it.
[08:13.69]After that I'm going to phone the friend who laughed at me for believing all the stories I hear.
[08:20.85]Then I'll tell her a story: the tale of a woman
[08:24.92]who bought her own version of that bridge in Brooklyn and found that it was a wise investment after all.
[08:32.55]Language Sense Enhancement
[08:34.98]2 Read aloud the following poem
[08:38.79]I Look At Myself In The Mirror          Jacki
[08:44.09]I look at myself in the mirror,and what do I really see?A woman of forty-seven,or the true essence of me?
[08:55.09]I can see me in my twenties,the mother of children galore,and there is me in my thirties,scarred by the loss that I bore
[09:06.51]And there is me in my forties,older now,tolerant and wise marked by love and affection,and bags under my eyes
[09:18.11]So yes that's me in the mirror,me,as the person I am,and if I'm no more than an image,none of it matters a dam!
[09:30.04]3 Read the following quotations.Learn them by heart if you can.You might need to look up new words in a dictionary.
[09:40.02]One is not born a woman,one becomes one.                Simon de Beauvoir
[09:49.22]There is no female mind.The brain is not an organ of sex.As well speak of a female liver. Chalotte Peerkins Gilman
[10:02.85]What is a woman I assure you, I do not know I do not believe that anybody can know
[10:12.05]until she expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to humar skill.      Virqinia Woolf
[10:21.85]Men always want to be a woman's first love.
[10:27.77]Women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man's last romance.   Oscar Wilde
[10:39.56]4 Read the following humorous story for fun. You might need to look up new words in a dictionary
[10:49.56]My wife and her friend Raren were talking about their labor-saving devices as they pulled into our driveway.
[10:59.25]Karen said, "1 love my new garage-door opener."!I love mine too," my wife reprled;