美語情景對話 第315期:Boarding School 寄宿學校

I've been at boarding school since the age of 8, which is pretty you.g if you think about it. The reason I went there was because my family were living abroad and they thought it would probably be better for me to go to school in England. It was really fun actually. At sort of 8 to 13, my first school, I had a great time. I loved it. I hardly ever missed my parents. We had so much to do. This school was great. They organized all these things for us to do. Obviously we were there over the weekend. Some of the kids went home at the weekend. Some of the kids went home everyday but us that had to stay over the weekend, we always had like loads of stuff to do. There were rules obviously, but we were given a pretty free hand within the sort of school grounds. We were left to do our own thing. We had our own like common areas. We could bring in our music, we could, it was, you know, it was great and sort of the only bad memory I really have of that is having to say goodbye to my parents all the way in Holland where we lived and I would have to say goodbye to them at the end at the airport and then fly over by myself to England and get picked up by an aunt and taken to school which was, that was the only sort of thing I can remember that was bad about it, but obviously as you get older, and I moved on to my secondary school, what we call it in England, yeah, I started to like it less and less, obviously as you get older, you sort of get more opinions about things, about people, how people should be, brought up, about the sort of freedom you should be given, especially from the ages of maybe 13 to 16. You're very opinionated and think you know best, but the school I went to was very rules orientated. It was very strict, and yeah, as sort of other people of a similar age to me, started going out, you know to clubs, going out to pubs, and doing what kids normally of that age do, we were stuck at school and had to bed at like quarter past 10 on a Saturday night, which I think for a 17, 18 year old kid is pretty unnatural. It's not a very sort of, I mean at that age I don't think it's a natural environment for children to be in. When I say children, you're not really a child anymore at that age. You should be learning to, you know, cook for yourself, wash your own clothes, look after yourself, but of course all of this is done for you at school. However, I have to say now, now that I'm living in a different country at the moment. I'm living in Japan away from all my friends, away from my family, and it really isn't a problem for me at all. I sort of just slipped into life here very easily cause I so used to living alone.

我從8歲開始上寄宿學校，如果你考慮一下的話，那真的是非常小的年紀。我去寄宿學校的原因是我家人都住在外國，他們認爲我在英國上學比較好。實際上這很有趣。8歲到13歲時，我在第一所學校過得非常開心。我很少想念父母。我們在學校裏有很多事情做。這所學校非常棒。他們會爲我們組織所有的事情。顯然我們週末也會在學校裏。一些孩子會在週末回家。也有些孩子每天都回家，但是我們週末也必須待在學校裏，我們有大量的事情要做。顯然學校有規定，不過我們也得到允許可以在校園裏自由行動。他們會讓我們自己做事情。我們有自己的公共區域。我們可以演奏音樂，你知道，那很好，唯一的糟糕記憶就是在荷蘭和父母分別，我們住在荷蘭，我不得不在機場和父母分別，然後獨自飛往英國，一個阿姨會去英國機場接我然後把我送去學校，那就是我記得的唯一不好的事情，不過顯然，隨着年齡逐漸長大，我升上了初中，這是我們在英國的說法，我變得越來越不喜歡學校，在漸漸長大以後，你對事情、人們會有更多的想法，人們應該如何長大，還有應該獲得的自由，對這些都會有自己的看法，尤其是在13歲到16歲時想法特別強烈。這時你會固執己見，而且認爲你最瞭解某件事情，但是我上的那所中學有嚴格的規定，跟我年齡相仿的同學開始出去玩，他們會去俱樂部，酒吧，做些那個年齡的孩子通常會做的事情，而我們即被關在學校裏，週六晚上9點40必須上牀睡覺，我想這個規定對17、8歲的孩子來說非常不正常。在那個年齡時我認爲那並不是孩子們的自然環境。在那個年紀已經不再是孩子了。你應該學會自己做飯，自己洗衣服，自己照顧自己，但是當然，所有這些事情學校都會幫學生們完成。我得說，現在我住在一個完全不同的國家，我生活在日本，遠離所有的朋友，遠離家人，可是這對我來說完全不是問題。我很容易就適應了這裏的生活，因爲我已經習慣一個人生活了。

重點講解：
1. hardly ever
幾乎不；幾乎沒有；
eg. We ate chips every night, but hardly ever had fish.
我們每晚吃炸薯條，但幾乎從不吃魚。
eg. I have hardly ever been out of this city.
我幾乎未曾離開過這個城市。
2. give sb. a free hand
自行決定權；自由行動權；
eg. He gave Stephanie a free hand in the decoration.
他放手讓斯蒂芬妮全權負責裝修一事。
eg. He was inclined to give them a free hand.
他傾向於放手讓他們幹。
3. be left to do sth.
是leave sb. to do sth.的被動式，表示聽任（某人做某事）；聽（某人）自便；
eg. One of the advantages of a department store is that you are left to yourself to try things on.
逛百貨公司的其中一個優勢是顧客可自行試穿衣服。
eg. He can be left to work on his own.
工作可交給他一個人去做。
4. say goodbye to
道別；
eg. He wanted to say goodbye to you.
他想跟你說聲再見。
eg. We went on holiday at such short notice that I didn't say goodbye to Eric.
我們動身去休假之前十分倉促，我來不及向埃裏克告別。
5. bring up
養育；撫養；養大；
eg. She brought up four children.
她養大了4個孩子。
grandmother and his father brought him up.
是他的祖母和父親把他養大的。
6. used to doing sth.
習慣做某事；
eg. I'm not used to eating so much at lunchtime.
我不習慣午飯吃那麼多。
eg. She was used to having her orders instantly obeyed.
她習慣了讓人即刻服從她的命令。