留學美國：A Freshman All Over Again 再做大學新鮮人

　　Belgrade Lakes, Me.
　　
　　緬因州，貝爾格萊德湖。
　　
　　Thirty-six years ago, my mother and father pulled up in front of a dormitory at Wesleyan University in a cream-colored Oldsmobile Omega. “At last!” my mother declared. “College!”
　　
　　36年前，我父母開著一輛米色的奧茲莫比爾歐米茄小汽車，來到了衛(wèi)斯理大學(Wesleyan University)的一排宿舍樓前面。“終于到了！”我媽媽宣布說。“上大學了！”
　　
　　From the back seat, I glowered at her. Then I looked out the window and glowered at the ivy. It was clear enough: I was going to die here.
　　
　　我坐在車后排，恨恨地看了她一眼。接著我望出車窗，又恨恨地看了一眼常春藤。事情再明顯不過了：我肯定要死在這兒。
　　
　　My father unlocked the trunk. It contained a suitcase, a stereo, a box of records by the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead, a leatherbound journal, a psychedelic poster of the cover of “The Fellowship of the Ring,” a copy of Coffin &Roelofs’s “Major Poets,” a three-legged milking stool and a bong shaped like one of the statues on Easter Island.
　　
　　我爸爸打開了車尾行李箱。里面放著一只箱子，一部立體音響，一盒奧爾曼兄弟(Allman Brothers)與“死之華”(Grateful Dead)樂隊的唱片，一本皮面日記本，一張關(guān)于《護戒使者》(The Fellowship of the Ring)封面的迷幻味十足的海報，一本由科芬(Coffin)和羅洛夫斯(Roelofs)編輯的《主要詩人》(Major Poets)，一張三條腿的小圓凳，還有一桿貌似復(fù)活節(jié)島雕像的大麻煙槍
　　
　　。
　　
　　It still wasn’t clear how I’d snuck past the dean of admissions. I’d been rejected for early decision, then deferred in the spring. When they finally let me off the wait list in July, it felt as if admissions had accepted me out of sheer exhaustion.
　　
　　我自己也沒鬧明白是怎么溜過了招生辦公室主任那一關(guān)的。最早一批錄取，我沒上榜；然后被延遲到了春季招生批次。到了七月份他們最終才把我從備選名單上選了出來，這讓人覺得，他們只是因為被纏得心煩意亂才收下了我
　　
　　。
　　
　　We found my room, Butterfield A 132 B. There was a desk in one corner. My mother looked at it with tears in her eyes. “Right here,” she said, “is where all the magic is going to happen!”
　　
　　我們找到了我的房間，巴特菲爾德A號樓132B室。房間一角擺著張書桌。我媽媽眼含淚水，上上下下打量著這間宿舍，“就在這里，奇跡將要發(fā)生！”她說。
　　
　　An elegant, feline man appeared in the door. He had a shaved head. “So I’m Bruce,” he said. He pronounced it Bruuuuuce. “Your R.A. There’s Heineken in the fridge. There’s pizza in the lounge. Welcome to college.”
　　
　　一個穿著講究的男人出現(xiàn)在門口，他動作跟貓一樣輕巧，剃了個光頭?！拔医胁剪斔?，”他說。他把“魯”字拖得很長：布魯——斯?！拔沂撬奚峁芾韱T。冰箱里有喜力啤酒。休息室有披薩。歡迎來到大學?！?br> 　　
　　Later that day, I went into Bruce’s room to ask for his assistance with something and found him handing an ounce of pot to an older-looking person, who in turn gave my R.A. a wad of bills. Bruce introduced me to his guest, a member of the college administration.
　　
　　那天晚些時候，我去了布魯斯的房間，請他幫點忙，結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)他正把一小撮大麻交給一個看起來年紀有點大的人，后者遞上了一疊鈔票。布魯斯向我介紹了他的這位客人，原來他是學校的一位行政人員。
　　
　　O.K., I thought. So this is different.
　　
　　好吧，我心里想。所以上大學真是不一樣啊。
　　
　　I’m thinking about all of this now because in a week’s time my wife and I are dropping our firstborn son off at Vassar, where he will begin his freshman year (or “first-year experience,” as we are now supposed to call it).
　　
　　現(xiàn)在這一幕重新在我腦海里回旋，因為一周之內(nèi)，我和我妻子（本文作者在2002年接受變性手術(shù)成為女性——譯注）就要送大兒子去紐約瓦薩學院(Vassar)，在那里，他將開始自己的大一學年（現(xiàn)在更多人將之稱為“第一年體驗”）。
　　
　　After nearly 25 years as a college professor, I am at last a participant in the ritual of the station wagons. Don DeLillo describes the annual unpacking in “White Noise”: “the controlled substances, the birth control pills and devices; the junk food still in shopping bags,” and the parents, standing “sun-dazed near their automobiles, seeing images of themselves in every direction.”
　　
　　我當了快25年大學教授，現(xiàn)在總算可以參與迎新儀式了。唐·德里羅(Don DeLillo)在《白噪音》("White Noise")一書中這樣描述每年一度新生入學時打開的行李：“管控藥物，節(jié)育藥物和器具；購物袋里裝著的垃圾食品”，至于新生家長，他們“站在車子旁，被太陽曬昏了頭，無論往哪個方向走，都能看到自己的影子?！?br> 　　
　　Back in ’76, my parents and I had a dignified farewell on the lawn of Butterfield. My father, a reserved, diffident man, shook my hand. Then they walked away. I’d be home for Thanksgiving, and until then, I was Bruce’s problem. In some ways, that was the first and most important thing I learned at college —what life was like without them.
　　
　　回到1976年，父母與我站在巴特菲爾德宿舍樓的草地上，莊嚴地道了別。我爸爸是個含蓄羞怯的男人，他只是跟我握了握手，然后兩人轉(zhuǎn)身走開。我要到感恩節(jié)時才能回家，在這期間我一直給布魯斯添麻煩。在某種程度上，這是我上大學學到的第一件、也是最重要的一件事情——沒有父母的人生會是什么樣。
　　
　　It’s different now. At Colby College, where I teach English, I see my students talking to their parents on cellphones —some of them three and four times a day. Occasionally, when things aren’t going well, a parent will Skype me. (“What can Charlie do to improve his grades?” one anxious parent asked me. “Fewer drugs,” I suggested.) Parents and children follow one another’s progress on Facebook. They post photos of the campus lobster bake on Instagram. They tweet. They text. They Tumbl.
　　
　　如今一切都不同了。在我教授英語的科爾比學院(Colby College)，我發(fā)現(xiàn)學生們常常跟家長用手機聊天——有些人一天要跟父母通三四次話。當學生遇到問題時，家長會在Skype上找到我。(“查理怎樣才能提高成績？”一位焦慮的家長這樣問我?！吧汆舅?，”我建議。)家長與子女會在Facebook上關(guān)注彼此的近況。他們在Instagram上貼學校做的烤龍蝦照片。他們發(fā)推特。他們發(fā)短信。他們也用Tumblr。
　　
　　There are times when I want to tell my students that if they want to learn anything at college, their first step should be defriending their parents. Write them a nice letter, on actual paper, once every week or so, but on the whole: let go. Stop living in their shadows, and start casting your own.
　　
　　有時候我真想告訴我的學生們，假如他們想在大學時學到點東西，第一步就是（在Facebook上）果斷取消對父母的關(guān)注?？梢越o他們好好寫封信，在真正的紙上手寫，保持大概每周一次的頻率，但是僅此而已吧：是時候放手了。別再活在父母的陰影下，開始投射你自己的影像。
　　
　　But now I know exactly how impossible this is. Before I became a college parent, it was easy to come up with rules of disengagement for my students’ mothers and fathers. Now that I am one myself, I finally know what it is parents are going through —not just letting go of a child but of an entire chapter of their lives.
　　
　　但現(xiàn)在我明白了，這一點幾乎不可能做到。在我的孩子上大學前，我可以輕輕松松地要求學生家長跟孩子劃清界限。而現(xiàn)在，我自己也成了他們中的一員，這才真正理解了家長們的感受——他們不僅要告別孩子，還要揮別人生中重要的篇章。
　　
　　Late in the day so many years ago, long after I thought my parents had headed back to Devon, Pa., I went for a walk. I wandered around the brownstones for a while, stared up at the facade of Olin Library. I realized I was a long way from home.
　　
　　很多年前的那一天，當我覺得父母已經(jīng)開車回到賓夕法尼亞德文市的家了，過了一會兒，我出去遛彎兒。我圍著校園里的幾幢赤褐色大樓走了一會兒，盯著歐林圖書館(Olin Library)的正面看了看。我突然意識到，自己離家很遠很遠了。
　　
　　That was when I caught sight of my parents, coming back from the president’s reception. When I saw them approaching, my first thought was, Oh, no. Not another farewell.
　　
　　就在這時，我一眼瞥見了爸爸媽媽，他們剛從校長招待會上回來。當我看到他們向我走過來時，心里的第一個念頭是，噢，不要啊，別再來一次離別。
　　
　　They just smiled and wrapped their arms around me. I did not want them to go. I was not ready to begin this new life, in this new place, without them.
　　
　　而他們只是微笑著上前雙臂環(huán)繞著我。我不想讓他們走。我還沒準備好，要在這個陌生的地方，沒有他們的陪伴，開始一段新的生活。
　　
　　My father kissed me on the cheek. “You’ll be fine,” he said.
　　
　　爸爸親了下我的臉頰?！澳銜傻贸錾?，”他說。
　　
　　Jennifer Finney Boylan, a professor of English at Colby College, is a guest columnist. Nicholas D. Kristof is off today.
　　
　　Jennifer Finney Boylan是英語教授，客座專欄作家。