小故事

11 Rules of Life
学校里学不到的11条生活规则
RULE 1. Life is not fair, get used to it.
规则1. 生活是不公平的；要去适应它。
RULE 2. The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
规则2. 这世界并不会在意你的自尊。这世界指望你在自我感觉良好之前先要有所成就。
RULE 3. You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
规则3. 高中刚毕业你不会一年挣4万美元。你不会成为一个公司的副总裁，并拥有一部装有电话的汽车，直到你将此职位和汽车电话都挣到手。
RULE 4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
规则4. 如果你认为你的老师严厉，等你有了老板再这样想。老板可是没有任期限制的。
RULE 5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it "opportunity".
规则5. 烙牛肉饼并不有损你的尊严。你的祖父母对烙牛肉饼可有不同的定义；他们称它为机遇。
RULE 6. If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about our mistakes, learn from them.
规则6. 如果你陷入困境，那不是你父母的过错，所以不要尖声抱怨我们的错误，要从中吸取教训。
RULE 7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents" generation, try "delousing" the closet in your own room.
规则7. 在你出生之前，你的父母并非像他们现在这样乏味。他们变成今天这个样子是因为这些年来他们一直在为你付账单，给你洗衣服，听你大谈你是如何的酷。所以，如果你想消灭你父母那一辈中的"寄生虫"来拯救雨林的话，还是先去清除你房间衣柜里的虫子吧。
RULE 8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
规则8. 你的学校也许已经不再分优等生和劣等生，但生活却仍在作出类似区分。在某些学校已经废除不及格分；只要你想找到正确答案，学校就会给你无数的机会。这和现实生活中的任何事情没有一点相似之处。
RULE 9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
规则9. 生活不分学期。你并没有暑假可以休息，也没有几位雇主乐于帮你发现自我。自己找时间做吧。
RULE 10. Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
规则10. 电视并不是真实的生活。在现实生活中，人们实际上得离开咖啡屋去干自己的工作。
RULE 11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
规则 11. 善待地位卑微的人。有可能到头来你会为其中一个工作。

重点讲解

重点讲解：
1. care about
关心；在乎；在意；
eg. I don't care about what happens.
我不在乎发生什么事。
eg. A selfish person does not care about other people's problem.
自私的人是不关心别人的困难的。
2. mess up
搞砸；弄糟；
eg. He got another chance and didn't want to mess up again.
他又获得一次机会，这次他再也不愿意把事情弄糟了。
eg. It also means that they'll have fewer excuses when they mess up.
这也意味着当他们陷入困境时将有更少的借口。
3. learn from
（从…中）吸取（教训）；
eg. One should learn from past mistakes so as to avoid falling into the same old trap again.
要从过去的错误中吸取教训，以免重蹈覆辙。
eg. We have good lessons to learn from the accident.
事故所引发的教训，发人深思！
4. do away with
消除；终止；废除；
eg. The long-range goal must be to do away with nuclear weapons altogether.
远期目标必须是将核武器尽数销毁。
eg. I want them to do away with this feudal custom.
我希望他们废除这一封建陋俗。
5. be divided into
（使）分开；（使）分散；（使）分裂；
eg. The physical benefits of exercise can be divided into three factors.
运动对身体的好处可以分为3个方面。
eg. In biological terminology life is divided into two groups: plants and animals.
在生物学术语中，生物分为两大类：植物和动物。
6. end up
最终；结果；到头来；
eg. Wasteful people usually end up in debt.
挥霍浪费者最后往往负债。
eg. People like that might end up losing everything they have.
那样的人到头来可能失去他们所有的每一件东西。

背景：
在比尔·盖茨写给高中毕业生和大学毕业生的书里，有一个单子上面列有11项学生没能在学校里学到的事情。比尔·盖茨在书中谈到让你感觉良好的“政治上正确”的教导培养出一整代不知现实为何物的年轻人，这种教育只能导致他们成为现实世界中的失败者。