經(jīng)典英語背誦美文3篇
經(jīng)典英語背誦美文3篇
對英語作為外語而學(xué)的中國學(xué)生來說，英語閱讀的課堂教學(xué)在任何中學(xué)都被學(xué)習(xí)者認(rèn)為是一門很重要的課程。下面是學(xué)習(xí)啦小編帶來的經(jīng)典英語背誦美文，歡迎閱讀!
經(jīng)典英語背誦美文篇一
為母親祈禱
Dear God,
Now that I am no longer young, I have friends whose mothers have passed away. I have heard these sons and daughters say they never fully appreciated their mothers until it was too late to tell them.
I am blessed with the dear mother who is still alive. I appreciate her more each day. My mother does not change, but I do. As I grow older and wiser, I realize what an extraordinary person she is. How sad that I am unable to speak these words in her presence, but they flow easily from my pen.
How does a daughter begin to thank her mother for life itself? For the love, patience and just plain hard work that go into raising a child? For running after a toddler, for understanding a moody teenager, for tolerating a college student who knows everything? For waiting for the day when a daughter realizes her mother really is?
How does a grown woman thank for a mother for continuing to be a mother? For being ready with advice(when asked ) or remaining silent when it is most appreciated? For not saying:”I told you so”, when she could have uttered these words dozens of times? For being essentially herself—loving, thoughtful, patient, and forgiving?
I don’t know how, dear God, except to bless her as richly as she deserves and to help me live up to the example she has set. I pray that I will look as good in the eyes of my children as my mother looks in mine.
A daughter
經(jīng)典英語背誦美文篇二
在英國的海外留學(xué)生的生活(英語)
The following are excerpts from international students on the fun elements of their UK experiences:
Saiful Bahri Idris: Singapore
'I loved staying in halls of residence! One of the earliest rumours I heard about my college was that it had a 70% female population - to a healthy, then 20-year-old young man, those words could not have been sweeter. But that would be missing the point entirely.
The best thing about London is its mix of people. You meet people from almost every corner of the globe. Goldsmiths for example has such a diverse mix of people that you seem to encounter more foreigners than you do the British!'
Eszter Tanacs: Hungary
'Coughing and blowing nose are inevitable part of life in Britain, though not necessarily for the British. I really admire them for their ability to exist half-naked in freezing cold without even having goose bumps.
This may be a fortunate side effect of eating potatoes that are part of almost any kind of English meal. English food helped me become more 'positive' as well.
After two weeks of eating chips I wrote to my Mum for help and got a few recipes strictly without potatoes. Fortunately my housemates have no idea of my reputation as a cook ('bad'), nor about the usual taste of Hungarian food, so I earned quite a lot of compliments with my Hungarian dishes.'
Amos Akintayo Fatokun: Nigeria
'I was impressed by the receptions held when I first arrived, one by the Graduate School, and a series of others later by members of my laboratory and my co-supervisor. Although there were new kinds of delicacies for me to taste, nowadays cheese and wine parties are common.
Also I am fighting my addiction to shopping. I’m a shopoholic and have enjoyed shopping at Tescos. Safeway, Argos, IKEA, LIDL, Primark, the Watts Brothers, the University Bookshop, the KRK (for African food), the Salvation Army and Boots Pharmacy.'
經(jīng)典英語背誦美文篇三
Make Today Count(中英對照)
Despite the treatment, I felt well enough to drive home that afternoon. But the car was silent as grave. Wanda and I still could not talk to one another about our common problem -- my cancer. She was sitting in the front with me and looking fixedly out the window. Britty (Kelly's baby) was taking a nap, stretched out along the back seat.
“You're alive,” I suddenly thought to myself. “You are alive. For three months, you've known you have cancer, but you're still alive.”
As I steered the car along the rough highway, I began to think of what I had been doing to myself and my family. Without really knowing it, all of us had been celebrating a funeral -- mine -- and the funeral had not even taken place yet. I was still alive. I was not dead. I had some time. I was forty-three years old, I had a wife who loved me, I had two sons and two daughters.
“What have you got to lose by trying to live with this damned cancer?” a voice in my head asked me. Things couldn't get worse than they were now. The strain under which the family was living was already taking its toll. School had started, and Tammy had brought home failing slips in several of her classes. Mark was sullen much of the time, and Lori was quiet and subdued. No one in my family seemed happy any longer. We had had cancer as a part of our family way of life for more than three months, and no one in our household had mentioned the word once during all that time. What had life been for me since my cancer had first been diagnosed? Tumors... curses... tears... loneliness... nightmares... thoughts of suicide... whispers... silence. I had been blaming God for all my problems. But now I knew it was up to deal with them.
I began to notice how beautiful the autumn day was. The sun was out. The leaves had just begun to turn; they shone orange, and yellow, and red. Red?winged blackbirds were perched on fence posts. Farmers were out in their fields, preparing for another season. This was life. I was part of it. And I had been depriving myself of it. I stopped the car.
“Wanda,” I blurted out. “We've got to talk about it. I have cancer. Cancer! I'll probably die of it. But I'm not dead yet. We have to talk about it.”
Wanda turned, stared at me intently,and moved closer to me on the seat. “Are you sure you want to?” she asked.
“Yes, I'm sure. We have to face it together. I know you haven't told me the way you really feel. I don't know how we can help each other if we don't talk about it. I've just been moping around the house and making everyone miserable.”
She nodded. “None of us wanted to worry you.”
“Let's go home and have a barbecue tonight,” I said to her. “We haven't had one in a long time. And we'll have to tell the children. We're just wasting time, and I don't want to go on living like this any longer.”
There, I had said it. It was out in the open. Wanda's face seemed to light up, I hadn't seen her like that for more than three months. We kissed as if we really meant it for the first time since I had been told I had cancer. I started the car again, and we drove home.
That evening, I lighted the charcoal in the barbecue grill that had been standing idle for months on our back porch. Wanda bought spareribs at the supermarket, and the whole family had a meal that really tasted like a meal. I even had three beers. (I paid for that indulgence the next morning. My neck felt as if someone had put a clamp on it. I was nauseated, my legs hurt, and I felt very weak. Which was enough to persuade me never again to drink beer immediately after a treatment.)
Around nine o'clock, Wanda took Britty upstairs to bed, and I took Tammy, Mark, and Lori out to the back porch. Our porch is small, with room only for a few chairs and a couch. But the view is open all the way down to the Mississippi River. The stars were out that night, and the full moon threw its sparkles on the surface of the water. I sat down on the couch, the three children around me.
“I think it's time you knew what's wrong with me,” I started. “This may take a while for me to explain, but you all should know.” I hesitated for a moment -- it was not going to be easy to tell them this. Then I looked at the moon, took a deep breath, and continued. “The doctors have told me that I have cancer. Cancer is a disease that destroys tissues inside your body. That's why I've been sick so much. The doctors say that in all probability unless something else happens first, I will die of cancer.”
Tammy and lori began to cry. Mark sat motionless.
“But I'm not dead yet. Your mother and I went to lowa City today so I could start treatments. We'll have to make the best of it. I'll tell you when things are good and when they're bad, but I want you three to help me live with this cancer. There will be bad days for us, but we can have good days, too. We don't have to like death, but we don't have to be terrified by it, either.”
Finally, it was out in the open. Now, everyone knew except Britty; Wanda and I both felt he was too young to understand. I hugged each child. Tammy and Lori still had tears in their eyes. Mark was still silent. But now he accepted the fact that I had cancer. I had told him. He believed me. He no longer felt his mother had lied to him that day in June at the hspital.
When I went upstairs to our bedroom, I had one more thing to do before going to bed. I took a piece of paper from the desk in my studio, and wrote the word ‘death’ on it. This was my death that I was spelling out. I had to face it, just as my family did. I looked at that piece of paper for about five minutes ?? looked and looked and looked. Then I slowly put it back in the desk drawer and got ready for bed. Wanda had been sleeping in the den ever since she had begun to have nightmares. But that night, for the first time in a long time, we slept in the same bed together.
Soon after the first chemotherapy treatment, I asked Wanda to help me clean up the studio. The desk,the bookcases, and the typewriter were deep in dust, but we finally managed to make the room spotless. I hadn't written anything for a long while.
Now I began to write again. One of my first pieces was about a Christmas I remembered. I was seven years old, it was during the Great Depression, and we were living on a rundown farm. In times as hard as those, I didn't think I would get any presents. A blizzard had developed on Christmas Eve, and I had snuggled into a featherbed to keep warm, praying that I would get just a little something for Christmas. When I woke the next morning and went downstairs, I found a decorated Christmas tree in the front room, and underneath it, a pair of lace?up boots, a red fire engine, and a sack of candy.
“I have seen many other snowfalls,” I wrote, “but for some reason I always remember that night when the blizzard came on Christmas Eve. Whenever I see the snow coming down and hear the wind begin to howl, I remember a dream that came true.”
I submitted the story to the local Burlington newspaper -- the Hawk - Eye -- for a winter writing contest and received a first prize for it. That was my first Christmas present of the year. And others came, too. Wanda and I had only a little money, although we had been able to make ends meet with the Social Security disability payments and Veterans Administration checks we had been receiving. But Christmas 1973 turned out to be one of the warmest our family ever had, thanks to the generosity of a few friends, particularly those at the factory where Wanda had worked. We received cash, hams, turkeys, and countless boxes of candy. Wanda bought a few presents for the children. Most important, the entire family was together.
The day after Christmas, I decided it was time for me to write about the struggles of a cancer patient. Before I knew that I had cancer, I had thought of it as similar to leprosy -- a disease that rotted people slowly -- and visibly -- away. Life with cancer didn't have to be that way, and I wanted people to know this. Of course, I didn't have all the answers, but I wanted to show that cancer be approached with openness, and that dying people did have sothing to live for. Although I had read about all the money being spent o cancer research, I had heard very little about the emotional rehabilitation of cancer patients and their families. The void was obvious. No matter how the problem of cancer is handled in a family, all the members of the family are bound to be affected in some way.
I spent two days writing and editing the piece. “Once,” I wrote in it, “I asked how there could be a God who would let so many terrible things happen. Now I ask myself how I can doubt the existence of God... When I hear a child's laughter on a summer evening,or see around me the miracle of life itself. When I hold my hand to my chest and feel the beat of my heart and realize this is life and I am part of it, I know there has to be a God. When I think to myself how luckly I was to have such an understanding person as my wife, Wanda, I know good things happen. When someone does a kind thing for me, I know this is all part of this mircalce of living.”
“On Christmas a Burlington woman called to tell me her husband had been told recently he had lung cancer. She wanted to know if I would come to their house and talk to him. He felt he would like to just sit down and talk to someone with the same problems he had.”
“The thought came to me that there should be some kind of organization of people with incurable diseases. These people could help each other, and I am going to work on this...”
I sent the story to the Hawk?Eye, and the editors decided to use it in the Sunday, January 6, edition. The story was carried on page 2, along with a picture of me looking out from our back porch and another of me taking my pills. The day the story appeared, I received several telephone calls from other cancer patients, telling me how strongly they supported my idea of forming an organization. So I arranged for a gathering at the local Elks Club on January 25. With the help of a little publicity from the local newspaper, eighteen cancer patients and members of their families, including Wanda and me, met that night in the upstairs meeting room.
One of the first things I told the group was that I didn't think we were there to cry on one another's shoulders. We weren't there to find out who was the most seriously ill. We were there to share our mutual problems and to try to work them out so that we could live as close to normal lives as possible. We went around the table introducing ourselves and telling our stories as a way to break the ice. After some discussion, we decided we should try to get together once a month to talk with one another and to listen to speakers who could help us face our illnesses.
Several days before the meeting, it occurred to me that if we were going to start a group, we ought to have a name. I had three suggestions: Live Each Day Fully; Live for Today; or Make Today Count.
When I put the suggestions to a vote, the other seventeen hands were raised in support of my choice.
The vote was for Make Today Count.
那天下午，盡管剛剛接受了治療，我還是感覺能親自駕車回家。車?yán)锼酪话愕募澎o，我和婉達(dá)不談我們共同的問題——我患了癌癥。她坐在我旁邊，凝視著窗外。布瑞蒂正躺在車后座打盹兒。
“你還活著，”我突然想起，“你還活著。三個月了，你知道自己身患癌癥，可是還活著!”
汽車在崎嶇的公路上奔馳，我開始想，這段時間我對自己，對我的家庭做了什么：大家并未真正意識到，實際上卻是在舉行一次喪禮——我的“喪禮”——當(dāng)然喪禮并沒有舉行，因為我還活著，我沒有死。我還有時間，我才43歲，有一個愛我的妻子，還有兩個兒子，兩個女兒。
“為了承受這該死的癌癥你遭到了多大的損失?”一個聲音在我的腦海中輕聲問著。情況不能比現(xiàn)在更糟了。在我的癌癥重壓之下全家人都開始出現(xiàn)問題。開學(xué)以后泰米帶回了幾科不及格的壞消息，馬克成天郁郁寡歡，洛瑞也一聲不響，悶悶不樂，全家誰也不再開心。3個月來，癌癥成了家庭生活的一部分，但卻沒有一個人提到過“癌癥”這個詞。自從我被確診為癌癥后，我的生活成了什么樣子?老想到瘤子……而后咒罵……眼淚……孤寂……噩夢……考慮自殺……自語……沉默……。為了癌癥罵上帝不公平，但是現(xiàn)在，我知道應(yīng)該由我自己來應(yīng)對一切了。
我開始注意到車窗外的秋日是多么美國。太陽出來了，樹葉開始變色，閃著或澄色、或金色、或紅色的光輝。紅翼黑鳥靜靜地停落在圍欄上，農(nóng)民們正在地里為下一個收獲的季節(jié)耕耘著……。這就是生活，我也是其中一部分，但我卻把自己隔絕了!我把車停了下來。
“婉達(dá)，”我說“我們應(yīng)該談?wù)劊一剂税┌Y，是癌癥呀!我極有可能因此而死，但現(xiàn)在還沒有死，我們必須好好談?wù)劇?rdquo;
婉達(dá)轉(zhuǎn)過頭來，一動不動地看著我，接著她的身子向我靠得更近了。“你真想談嗎?”她問道。
“是的，我真想。我們倆要一起面對它。我知道你并沒有告訴你真正的感覺。如果不談，我不知道我們怎樣才能互相幫助。我成長在家里無精打采地閑蕩，只會讓家里人都很痛苦。”
她點了點頭，“我們不想讓你擾心。”
“我們回去今晚開個野餐會，”我說“我們有好一陣子沒有開過了。我們得和孩子們談，我們現(xiàn)在是在浪費生命，我再也不想這樣生活了。”
我就這樣講了出來了，完全敞開了。婉達(dá)的臉上似乎露出笑容，3個月來始終未曾看到過的笑容。我們互吻了，自從我被告之患有癌癥以來，這似乎是我們第一次真正意義上的吻。我重新啟動了汽車，直奔家中。
那天晚上，我點烯了燒烤爐里的煤球，那個燒烤爐已經(jīng)在我們的后陽臺上閑置了好幾個月了。婉達(dá)在超市里買了點排骨，全家人圍坐在一起吃了一頓真正意義上的晚餐。連我都喝了3瓶啤酒(第二天早晨我就為此付出了代價。 我的脖子痛得仿佛有人在上面夾了一把鐵鉗子。我惡心想吐，腿痛，感到虛弱極了。從此以后我再也不敢在治療后立即喝啤酒了。)
大約9點鐘，婉達(dá)帶著布瑞蒂上樓睡覺了。我領(lǐng)著泰米，馬克和洛瑞來到后陽臺。我們的后陽臺很小，只容得下幾張椅子和一個沙發(fā)，但從陽臺可以眺望密西西比河。那天晚上，星光燦爛，滿月的清輝灑在河面上。我坐沙發(fā)，3個孩子圍在我周圍。
“我想是該你們知道我出了什么問題，”我說，“這可能要花點時間來說清楚，但是你們都應(yīng)該知道。”我停了一會兒，告訴他們這一切并不那么輕而易舉。我抬頭看了看天上的月亮，深深地吸了一口氣，繼續(xù)說道：“醫(yī)生說我得了癌癥。癌癥是一種破壞體內(nèi)組織的疾病。這也正是為什么近來我這么虛弱的原因。醫(yī)生說除非有什么別的情況發(fā)生，否則我肯定會死于癌癥。”
泰米和洛瑞開始抽泣，馬克一動不動地坐著。
“但是我還沒有死，今天你媽媽和我去了愛瓦城，以便開始我的化療。我們只能盡力而為，不管情況變好還是變壞我都將告訴你們。我希望你們3個能幫我慢慢適應(yīng)癌癥。等待我們的將是艱苦的日子，但是也會有好日子。盡管我們不喜歡死亡，但也不要被死亡嚇倒。”
一切終于公開了。現(xiàn)在，除了布瑞蒂以外所有的人知道了，婉達(dá)和我都覺得她太小了，還不能理解。我擁抱了每個孩子。泰米和洛瑞眼里仍含著淚。馬克仍舊沉默著，但是現(xiàn)在他接受了這個事實：他爸爸身患癌癥。我告訴了他一點，你也相信了這一點，他也不再覺得6個月份在醫(yī)院里的那一天，他媽媽對他說了假話。
這天晚上，我上樓回臥室。在上床睡覺之前我又做了一件事，我從書房的桌子里取了一張紙，在上面寫了一個“死”字。這就是我的死亡，我正寫出來的死亡，我必須面對它，我的家庭也一樣要面對它。我看著那張紙約有5分鐘——看呀、看呀、看呀……。然后，我慢慢地把它放回到抽屜里準(zhǔn)備上床睡覺。婉達(dá)自從做噩夢以來一直睡在那小屋里。這天晚上，我們倆長時間來第一次睡在一張床上。
第一次化療后不久，我就讓婉達(dá)幫著我收拾書房。寫字臺上，書架上，還有打字機上都布滿了一層厚厚的灰塵，最后我們把書房收拾得一塵不染。我很久沒有寫點什么了。現(xiàn)在，我又要開始寫作了。我的第一篇作品是關(guān)于我記憶中的一個圣誕節(jié)。那年我7歲，正趕上30年代的經(jīng)濟大危機。我們住在一個破敗的農(nóng)場里。在那種艱苦的年代里，我根本不敢奢望能得到什么圣誕禮物。圣誕節(jié)前夜里刮了一場暴風(fēng)雪，我蜷縮在羽毛褥床取暖，心理暗暗盼著自己能得到哪怕一點點的圣誕節(jié)禮物。第二天一早，我醒來后一下樓就發(fā)現(xiàn)前屋里放有一棵裝飾好的圣誕樹，樹下面有一雙系帶靴、一輛紅色的玩具消防車，還有滿滿一袋子糖。
“下雪天見過很多”我寫道“但是，不知為什么，我總是記得那個刮著暴風(fēng)雪的平安夜。每當(dāng)我看到雪花紛飛聽到風(fēng)聲嗚嗚時，我總會記起那個夢想成真的平安夜。”
我把這個故事寄給了伯靈頓當(dāng)?shù)氐膱蠹?mdash;—《鷹眼》，作為參加冬季寫作競賽的作品，結(jié)果竟得了一等獎。這是我這一年的第一份圣誕禮物。隨后其他的禮物也紛至沓來。婉達(dá)和我沒有多少錢，盡管我們靠著失業(yè)救濟金和退伍軍人撫恤金勉強能維持生計，但是1973年的圣誕節(jié)卻成了我們?nèi)易钚腋５囊粋€圣誕節(jié)。感謝幾位朋友的慷慨解囊，特別是幾位婉達(dá)原來的同事。我們收到了現(xiàn)金、火腿、火雞，還有數(shù)不清的盒糖。婉達(dá)給孩子們買了一些禮物。最為重要的一點是，全家人團聚在一起。
圣誕節(jié)次日，我覺得自己應(yīng)該寫一寫自己作為一個癌癥患者的奮斗歷程。在我得知自己患癌癥之前，我想象癌癥和麻風(fēng)病一樣，都是慢慢而明星地破壞人體直至其死去。身患癌癥并不定就是那樣。我想讓人們知道這一點。誠然，我并沒有問題的全部答案，但是我想證明癌癥可以寬闊的胸杯來對待。并且，即使離近死亡的人也應(yīng)有生活目的。我讀到為癌癥研究花了多少錢的材料，但卻極少聽到有關(guān)癌癥患者及其家人情感恢復(fù)正常的消息。很顯然，這問題被忽視了，成了一片蒼白，無論這種家庭如何處理這問題的，全家都必然在某種程度上受到癌癥的影響。
我花了兩天時間來寫作、編輯這篇文章。我寫道，“我覺提出這樣的問題，有這樣一個上帝嗎?讓如此多的悲劇發(fā)生，現(xiàn)在我問自己，當(dāng)你在一個夏日的夜晚聽到孩子們的笑聲時，當(dāng)你看到自己周圍的生活奇跡時……，你怎么能懷疑上帝的存在?意識到這就是生命，而我就是生命一部分時，我明白肯定有一個上帝。當(dāng)我想到有那樣一位善解人意的妻子自己是多么幸運。我知道這都是生活奇跡的一部分。”
“圣誕節(jié)時，伯靈頓地區(qū)一位女士給我打電話說，她丈夫已被告知患有肺癌。她想知道我是否可以上她家里和她丈夫談?wù)?。她覺得他很愿意坐下來和同病相憐的人談?wù)劇?rdquo;
我突然靈機一動：身患絕癥的人們應(yīng)該有一個組織，好讓大家互相支持，互相幫助。我決定立即行動。
我把這個想法寄給了《鷹眼》編輯部決定在1月6日星期日版上采用它，刊登在第二頁上，還附有兩張照片：一張是我正從我們的后陽臺上眺望密西西比河，另一張是我正在服藥。文章發(fā)表的當(dāng)天，我就接到好向個癌癥患者打來的電話，對我這個想法表示強烈支持。1月25日我安排在當(dāng)?shù)卮壬苹ブ鷷娒妗．?dāng)?shù)孛襟w稍加宣傳，癌癥患者和他們的家庭成員共十八人——包括我和婉達(dá)——當(dāng)天晚上在慈善互助會樓上的會議室里見面了。
一開始，我告訴這個特殊的群體，我們來這里并不準(zhǔn)備相擁而泣、抱頭痛哭的，我們也不是要發(fā)現(xiàn)誰的癌癥是最嚴(yán)重的。我們來這里是為了討論我們所面對的各種各樣的問題并盡力解決它們，是為了盡力過上正常生活。
為了打破沉默，我們圍著桌子轉(zhuǎn)，各人自述自己的情況。經(jīng)過討論，我們決定今后每月至少聚會一次，這次聽聽能幫助我們面對癌癥的講話。
這次聚會的前幾天，我想到我們?nèi)缫闪⒁粋€組織，就應(yīng)該有一個名字。我提供了三個可考慮的名字：“充實地過好每一天”、“為今天而生活”、“把握今天”。
當(dāng)我交付表決的時候，另外十七只手齊刷刷地舉起來贊成我的選擇。
我們十八個人的一致選擇是：“把握今天。”
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