剧作家Aaron Sorkin雪城大学2012毕业演讲_高中英语语法

剧作家Aaron Sorkin雪城大学2012毕业演讲

1983年毕业后那个夏天，我搬到纽约，开始艰苦的写作生涯。我做过许多赖以糊口的工作，包括酒保、收票员、电话推销员、豪华轿车司机、穿着麋鹿装在商场里发传单。我曾遇见一位雪城大学的学姐，我问她近况如何，她认为雪城大学对她早期职业生涯提供了什么帮助。她说，“嗯，事实上，毕业三年后，你就会开始把学校所教的全都忘光；但一旦到了这个阶段，你就会开始渐入佳境。”我忍不住大笑，因为我觉得这十分荒谬，也有部分原因是我想约她出去。但我还是认为她的想法并不正确。

As a freshman drama student—and this story is now becoming famous—I had a play analysis class—it was part of my requirement. The professor was Gerardine Clark. If anybody was wondering, the drama students are sitting over there. The play analysis class met for 90 minutes twice a week. We read two plays a week and we took a 20-question true or false quiz at the beginning of the session that tested little more than whether or not we'd read the play. The problem was that the class was at 8:30 in the morning, it met all the way down on East Genesee, I lived all the way up at Brewster/Boland, and I don't know if you've noticed, but from time to time the city of Syracuse experiences inclement weather. All this going to class and reading and walking through snow, wind chill that's apparently powered by jet engines, was having a negative effect on my social life in general and my sleeping in particular. At one point, being quizzed on "Death of a Salesman," a play I had not read, I gave an answer that indicated that I wasn't aware that at the end of the play the salesman dies. And I failed the class. I had to repeat it my sophomore year; it was depressing, frustrating and deeply embarrassing. And it was without a doubt the single most significant event that occurred in my evolution as a writer. I showed up my sophomore year and I went to class, and I paid attention, and we read plays and I paid attention, and we discussed structure and tempo and intention and obstacle, possible improbabilities, improbable impossibilities, and I paid attention, and by God when I got my grades at the end of the year, I'd turned that F into a D. I'm joking: it was pass/fail.