【第一題】
It’s not that we are afraid of seeing him stumble, of scribbling a mustache over his career. Sure, the nice part of us wants Mike to know we appreciate him, that he still reigns, at least in our memory. The truth, though, is that we don’t want him to come back because even for Michael Jordan, this would be an act of hubris so monumental as to make his trademark confidence twist into conceit. We don’t want him back on the court because no one likes a show-off. The stumbling? That will be fun.
But we are nice people, we Americans, with 225 years of optimism at our backs. Days ago when M.J. said he had made a decision about returning to the NBA in September, we got excited. He had said the day before, “I look forward to playing, and hopefully I can get to that point where I can make that decision. It’s O.K., to have some doubt, and it’s O.K. to have some nervousness.” A Time/CNN poll last week has Americans, 2 to 1, saying they would like him on the court ASAP. And only 21 percent thought that if he came back and just completely bombed, it would damage his legend. In fact only 28 percent think athletes should retire at their peak.
Sources close to him tell Time that when Jordan first talked about a comeback with the Washington Wizards, the team Jordan co-owns and would play for, some of his trusted advisers privately tried to discourage him. “But they say if they try to stop him, it will onlyfirm up his resolve,” says an NBA source.
The problem with Jordan’s return is not only that he can’t possibly live up to the storybook ending he gave up in 1998 — earning his sixth ring with a last-second championship-winning shot. The problem is that the motives for coming back — needing the attention, needing to play even when his 38-year-old body does not — violate the verymyth of Jordan, the myth of absolute control. Babe Ruth, the 20th century’s first star, was a gust of fat bravado and drunken talent, while Jordan ended the century by proving the elegance of resolve; Babe’s pointing to the bleachers replaced by the charm of a backpedaling shoulder shrug. Jordan symbolized success by not sullying his brand with his politics, his opinion or superstar personality. To be a Jordan fan was to be a fan of classiness and confidence.
To come back when he knows that playing for Wizards won’t get him anywhere near the second round of the play-offs, when he knows that he won’t be the league scoring leader, that’s a loss of control.
Jordan does not care what we think. Friends say that he takes articles that tell him not to come back and tacks them all on his refrigerator as inspiration. So why bother writing something telling him not to come back? He is still Michael Jordan.
參考答案：
不是因爲我們害怕看到他會因失誤而給他輝煌的生涯畫上遺憾的一筆。從善意的角度說，我們想讓邁克知道，我們仍然欣賞他，至少在我們的記憶中，他仍然是英雄。事實上，我們不想讓他重返球場，即使他是邁克爾·喬丹。我們覺得這是個貿然之舉，我們不想看到自信的商標蛻變成一種自負的象徵。我們不想讓他重返球場，因爲沒有人喜歡賣弄。失誤呢?那將會很有趣。
但是我們是有着225年樂觀歷史的美國人，我們都是好心人。當喬丹幾天前宣佈他將在九月重返NBA時，我們曾爲之一振。宣佈的前一天，他說過：“我盼望能打球，並希望事情能如願以償。有些人懷疑，有些人緊張，都屬正常。”《時代》週刊和美國有線新聞網上週做的一項民意調查表明，每兩個美國人當中就有一個人希望喬丹儘快重返賽場。只有21%的人們認爲，如果他的重返導致一場徹底失敗，將會損害他的傳奇。事實上只有28%的人認爲運動員應該在他的運動巔峯時期引退。
與喬丹關係密切的人告訴《時代》週刊，當喬丹第一次談到重返它與其他人共同擁有的華盛頓奇才隊併爲之效力時，一些他最信任的'顧問試圖私下打消他的願望。“但他們說，如果試圖阻止他，只能鑑定他的決心，”一位NBA人士如是說。
喬丹復出所產生的問題不僅僅在於他不可能重現1998年的神話，那一年，他以一個精彩的最後一秒投籃，使球隊贏得了冠軍，也爲自己贏得了第六隻金指環。問題是他重返的動機——他需要人們的關注，需要在38歲體力不支時，仍然打球。這一切都有悖於他所創造的神話——一個展示絕對控制力的神話。如果說二十世紀的第一個球星巴比·魯斯是一個身材魁梧肥胖的魯莽之夫和酒鬼天才，喬丹則證明了剛毅所能帶來的優雅風度，並以此結束了二十世紀。巴比對觀衆的頤指氣使被喬丹無奈聳肩的魅力所取代。喬丹代表着成功，因爲他的名字沒有被他的政治傾向、他的觀點或是他的超級明星個性所玷污。喬丹迷就是典雅和自信迷。
【第二題】
Even after I was too grown-up to play that game and too grown-up to tell my mother that I loved her, I still believed I was the best daughter. Didn’t I run all the way up to the terrace to check on the drying mango pickles whenever she asked?
As I entered my teens, it seemed that I was becoming an even better, more loving daughter. Didn’t I drop whatever I was doing each afternoon to go to the corner grocery to pick up any spices my mother had run out of?
My mother, on the other hand, seemed more and more unloving to me. Some days she positively resembled a witch as she threatened to pack me off to my second uncle’s home in provincial Barddhaman — a fate worse than death to a cool Calcutta girl like me — if my grades didn’t improve. Other days she would sit me down and tell me about “Girls Who Brought Shame to Their Families”. There were apparently, a million ways in which one could do this, and my mother was determined that I should be cautioned against every one of them. On principle, she disapproved of everything I wanted to do, from going to study in America to perming my hair, and her favorite phrase was “over my dead body.” It was clear that I loved her far more than she loved me — that is, if she loved me at all.
After I finished graduate school in America and got married, my relationship with my mother improved a great deal. Though occasionally dubious about my choice of a writing career, overall she thought I’d shaped up nicely. I thought the same about her. We established a rhythm: She’d write from India and give me all the gossip and send care packages with my favorite kind of mango pickle; I’d call her from the United States and tell her all the things I’d been up to and send care packages with instant vanilla pudding, for which she’d developed a great fondness. We loved each other equally — or so I believed until my first son, Anand, was born.
My son’s birth shook up my neat, organized, in-control adult existence in ways I hadn’t imagined. I went through six weeks of being shrouded in an exhausted fog of postpartum depression. As my husband and I walked our wailing baby up and down through the night, and I seriously contemplated going AWOL, I wondered if I was cut out to be a mother at all. And mother love — what was that all about?
Then one morning, as I was changing yet another diaper, Anand grinned up at me with his toothless gums. Hmm, I thought. This little brown scrawny thing is kind of cute after all. Things progressed rapidly from there. Before I knew it, I’d moved the extra bed into the baby’s room and was spending many nights on it, bonding with my son.
參考答案：
即使我長大些，不再適合做這樣的遊戲，不再對母親說我愛她，我仍然相信自己是世上最好的女兒。難道不是嗎?每當母親吩咐，我不是總一路跑着到陽臺去查看曬在那兒的醃芒果?
當我步入少年，我好像變成了一個更乖更可愛的女兒。難道不是嗎?每天下午，當媽媽需要新的調料，我不是總放下手頭的工作去街角的雜貨店幫她買?
另一方面，我的母親對我的愛卻好像越來越少。有時她活像個巫婆，因爲她威脅如果我的學習成績還沒有起色，就要把我送到遠在巴哈馬鄉下的二叔家——這對於像我這樣心高氣奧德加爾各答女孩而言，將是比死亡更悲慘的命運。有時她又會讓我坐着聽她講有關“帶給家庭恥辱的女孩”的故事。顯然一個人會面對許多變壞的可能，因此母親決心讓我對每個可能都保持警惕。基本上，她對我想做的每一件事都持反對意見，從去美國學習到燙頭髮。她的口頭禪是“除非我死了”。很明顯，我對母親的愛遠遠超過了她對我的愛——如果她愛我的話。
當我結束了在美國的研究生學習並結了婚，我和母親的關係改善了許多。雖然偶爾她還對我的當作家的選擇表示懷疑，但總的來說她認爲我做的事情還算不錯。對於她我也這樣認爲。我們之間建立起一種循環：她從印度寫信給我，告訴我各種趣聞，並寄來我最喜歡的醃芒果;我從美國打電話給她，告訴她我都忙了些什麼事情，並寄去她最喜歡的香草布丁。我們的愛是對等的——至少在我的兒子阿南德出生前，我是這樣認爲的。
兒子的降生一下子打亂了我的平靜、規律、有秩序的生活，使我措手不及。出院後的六週裏，我一直被產後抑鬱症的陰影包圍着。 當夜裏我和我的丈夫抱着哭鬧不止的兒子，走來走去哄他睡覺，我開始認真考慮是否要“撤退”。我懷疑自己是否適合做母親。母愛——究竟是什麼?
