College presents unique challenges and stressors. For college students, schoolwork can be a full-time job, and those who have to work outside of school must handle the stress of both jobs. Although the college years are often thought of as a break from the stress of the real world, college life has its own stressors, obvious source of stress include taking exams, speaking in public, and becoming comfortable with talking to professors. Students are often living independently of family for the first time while negotiating new relationships-with roommates, dating partners, and so on. Young people entering college are also faced with a less structured environment and with the need to control their own schedules. Though this environment has a number of advantages, students are faced with a greater need to manage their stress effectively.
大学生活带来了独特的挑战和压力。对大学生来说，学习可以是（生活的）全部，但边读书边打工的学生就得处理来自双方面的压力了。虽然一般人认为大学是远离现实社会压力的绝佳时机，但大学生活也有其自身特有的压力源，显而易见的压力源有考试、公开讲演和怎样与教授自如交谈等。学生们常常是第一次离开家独立生活，同时要处理新的人际关系——和室友相处、约会对象等。进入大学后，年轻人还将面对一个相对宽松的环境，需要培养自主安排时间的能力。虽然这样的环境有很多优点，但也为学生们处理由此带来的压力提出了更高的要求。
In addition to the traditional challenges of college, the new generation of students faces stressors that were not typical for college students in the past. According to the American Council on Education, only 40% of today’s college students enroll full-time immediately after high school. Once in college, more students now work to support their studies, and many go back to school after spending time in the working world. These students are likely to have additional pressures not characteristic of the typical college student. Further, more of today’s students are the first in their families to go to college. This may place additional pressure on these students to succeed. Perhaps as a result of some of these factors, rates of mental health problems among college students have increased dramatically. A study from the American College Health Association indicated that 10% of college students are diagnosed with depression. In another study, 53% of students reported feeling depressed at some point during their college careers and 9% have reported considering suicide. Although more people ate receiving cure for mental health problems than in the past, the vast majority are still not receiving adequate care. University counseling centers are typically understaffed and unable to handle the increasing number of college students seeking mental health service.
除了传统压力之外，新一代的大学生还面临着新的压力源。据美国教育委员
会统计，高中毕业后只有40％的学生会入学注册为全日生学习。一旦进入大学，更多的学生会选择打工来赚取学费，另一些人则工作一段时间后再到大学去学习。这些学生承受的压力比其他的大学生要大。进一步讲，如今的大学生大多是家中第一个上大学的人，这个现实将给他们的成功之路增加更多的压力。或许正是由于这些因素，大学生的心理健康问题日益突现。美国大学健康协会的研究结果表明有10％的大学生被诊断为抑郁症。另一项研究成果则表明，有53％的学生在大学期间都有过抑郁的感觉，还有9％的学生曾经想过要自杀。虽然与过去相比，现在有更多的人正在接受心理健康治疗，但是绝大多数人仍享受不到充分的治疗。大学心理咨询中心通常人手不足，难以应对不断增长的需要心理健康服务的学生人数。
Unit6 Feathers from a Thousand Li Away
The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look! —it is too beautiful to eat. 这位老太太至今记得，多年前，她在上海，曾傻乎乎地出了个大价钱，在菜市上买下一只“天鹅”。这只被小贩吹得天花乱坠的家禽，曾像丑小鸭般拼命伸着脖子，企图能成为一只真正的天鹅。而后来，它果真变得那么优雅、动人，简直让人舍不得宰了吃。
Then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousands of li wide, stretching their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: “In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect American English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for.”
后来，这个女人带着天鹅离乡背井，越江过海，直奔美国。在滔滔的海面上，她和它，都伸直了脖子朝美国的方向眺望着。“到了美国，我就要生个女儿，她会很像我。但在美国，她却无须仰仗丈夫鼻息度日。在美国，不会有人歧视她，因为，我会让她说一口流利漂亮的美式英语。她将应有尽有，无忧无虑。她会领略我的一番苦心，我要她成为一只比期望中还要好上一百倍的漂亮的天鹅!”在驶往美国的旅途中，她轻声对那只天鹅私语着。
But when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind. 然而她的脚一踩上这片新的国土，移民局便强令她与天鹅分手了。她无奈地向它挥扬着双臂，然而天鹅留给她的，只是一根羽毛。随后，她又对着必须填写的一大堆表格。她已经完全忘记了，为什么她要千里迢迢来到美国，还有，在自己身后，她舍弃的又是什么。
Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, “This feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions.” And she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect American English.
现在这个女人已垂垂老矣。她有了三个女儿。女儿已长大成人了，只会说英语，咽下的可口可乐要多于悲伤。好久以来，这个老妇一直想把这根天鹅羽毛留给女儿，并跟她说：“这根羽毛也许看似很普通，然而所谓千里鹅毛一片心呀!”如是冬去春来，年复一年，她一直期待着有一天，她能以流畅的美式英语，把这个故事告诉她的女儿。
Jing-Mei Woo 吴精美的故事
My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.
妈相信，在美国，任何梦想都能成为现实。你可以做一切你想做的：开家餐馆，或者在政府部门工作，以期得到很高的退休金。你可以不用付一个子儿，就买到一幢房子。你有可能发财，也有可能出人头地，反正，到处是机会。
“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.”
在我九岁时，妈就对我说：“你也能成为天才。你会样样事都应付得很出色的。琳达阿姨算什么? 她那女儿，只不过心眼多一点而已。”
America was where all my mother’s hopes lay. She had come here after losing everything: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.
妈将一切希望都寄托在美国这片土地上。她丧失了一切：双亲、家园、她的前夫和一对孪生女儿，但她从不悔恨过往。眼前，她有太多的打算，以便将生活安排得更好。
We didn’t immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple'. We’d watch Shirley’s old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, “Ni kan”— you watch. And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while saying, “Oh my goodness.”
至于我将成为哪方面的天才，我妈并不急于立时拍板定案。起初，她认为我完全可以成为一个中国的秀兰·邓波儿。我们看电视里秀兰·邓波儿的旧片子，好像当作培训片来看一样。每每这时，妈便会抬起我的手臂往屏幕频频挥动：“你看，”——这用的是汉语。而我，也确实看见秀兰在跳踢踏舞，或在演唱一支水手歌，有时，则将嘴唇撅成个圆圆的“O”字，说一声“哦，我的上帝。”
“Ni kan,” said my mother as Shirley’s eyes flooded with tears. “You already know how. Don’t need talent for crying!”
当屏幕上的秀兰双眼满噙着晶莹的泪珠时，妈又说了：“你看，你早就会哭了。哭不需要什么天分!”
Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to a beauty training school in the Mission district and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair as if I had done this on purpose.
立时，妈有了培养目标了。她把我带到附近一家美容培训班开办的理发店，把我交到一个学员手里。这个学生，甚至连剪刀都拿不稳，经她一番折腾，我的头发没有变成一头漂亮的卷发，反而成了一堆稀浓不均的黑鬈毛。妈将我拽出来，拉到卫生间，企图把我的头发弄湿再弄直，仿佛我是故意和她作对似的。
The instructor of the beauty training school had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. “Peter Pan\hair the length of a boy’s, with straight-across bangs that hung at a slant two inches above eyebrows. I liked the haircut and it made me actually look forward to my future fame.
美容培训班的指导老师不得不亲自出马，再操起剪刀来把我头上那湿漉漉的一团团剪掉。“彼得·潘的式样，近日是非常流行的，”那位指导老师向妈吹嘘着。我的头发，已剪成个男孩子样，前面留着笔直的刘海，离我眉毛两英寸高。我挺喜欢这个发型，它令我确信，我将前途无量。
In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying each one on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtains, waiting to hear the right music that would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity. I was Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air.
确实刚开始，我跟妈一样兴奋，或许要更兴奋。我憧憬着自己各种不同的天才形象，犹如一位已在天幕一侧摆好优美姿势的芭蕾舞演员，只等着音乐的响起，即踮起足尖翩然起舞。我就像降生在马槽里的圣婴，带着神圣而羞辱的哭声；我就是从南瓜马车上下来的灰姑娘，周围回响着动听的卡通音乐…
In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect. My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk for anything.
反正我觉得，我很快就会变得十分完美：父母会称赞我，我再不会挨骂，我会应有尽有，不用为着没有能得到某样心仪的东西而赌气不快。
But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. “If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good,” it warned. “And then you’ll always be nothing.”
然而看来，天才本身对我，颇有点不耐烦了：“你再不成才，我就走了，再也不来光顾你了，”它警告着，“这一来，你就什么也没有了。”
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 she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses 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.
每天晚饭后，我和妈就坐在厨房桌边，她每天给我作一些新的智力测试，这些测试题目，是她从《信不信由你》、《好管家》、《读者文摘》等杂志里收罗来的。我们的浴室里有一大堆这样的旧杂志，那是妈从她做清洁工的那些住户家里要来的。每周，她为好几户住户做清洁工。因此这里有各式各样的旧杂志，她从中搜寻着各种有关天才孩子的故事。
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.
开始这种测试的当晚，她就给我讲了一个三岁神童的故事，他能熟练地背出各州的首府，甚至大部分欧洲国家的名字。另一位教师证明，这小男孩能准确无误地拼出外国城市的名字。
“What’s the capital of Finland?” my mother asked me, looking at the magazine story.
“芬兰的首都是哪儿?”于是，母亲看着杂志上的故事开始问我了。
All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento 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.
天呀，我只知道加州的首府!因为我们在唐人街上住的街名，就叫萨克拉门托。“内罗毕!”只能瞎蒙了，我冒出一个莫名其妙的，所能想象得出的最奇特的外国名字。在告诉我答案之前，她开始查找，试图弄清楚这是不是“赫尔辛基”的另一种读法。
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.
测试的题目越来越复杂了：心算乘法，在一副扑克牌里抽出红心皇后，不用手而用头做倒立动作，预测洛杉矶、纽约和伦敦的气温。
One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes add then report everything I could remember. “Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundance and... that’s all I remember, Ma,” I said.
还有一次，妈让我读三分钟《圣经》，然后说出我所读过的内容。“现在，约沙法有丰厚的财富和荣誉…妈，我只记得这一句。”我说道。
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 high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.
再次看到妈失望的眼神之后，我内心对成才的激动和向往，也消失了。我开始憎恨这样的测试，每一次都足以满怀希望开始，以失望而告终。那晚上床之前，我站在浴室的洗脸盆镜子前，看到一张普普通通，毫无出众之处的哭丧着的脸，而且以后也一直会是这样——我哭了。多么难过和丑陋的女孩我尖叫着，跺脚，就像一只发怒的小兽，拼命去抓镜中那个丑女孩的脸。
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 rather 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.
随后，我似乎发现了自己真正天才的一面，眨眨眼睛，我清楚地看着镜中的女孩，她愤怒又强大，这个女孩就是我。此时我有了一个新的顽固的念头，或者说一个要（对母亲）说很多“不”的念头。我就是我，我不愿让她来任意改变我。我向自己起誓，我要永远保持原来的我。