雙語財經新聞 第53期:如果時間就是金錢(2)
Retail Therapy
It all seems harmless enough: making a quick stop for coffee on your way to the office; grabbing a bite at the salad place and perhaps running an errand7 at the pharmacy during your lunch hour; doing a little grocery shopping or making other necessary stops after work. Add all that up and mix it in with more discretionary retail outings, and that’s nearly six and half hours per week that the average woman spends buying stuff. (Unsurprisingly, men roll in at a lazy four hours weekly in the shopping category.) And that doesn’t even take Into account8 the immeasurable hours we spend browsing and fondling and mulling over and justifying various buys; this is simply the time we spend making purchases at cash registers. I’ll not touch on the financial implications of this particular statistic — let’ s just say it’s a miracle economic recovery is still described as sluggish.
這看上去沒什麼壞處:比如，在你去辦公室的路上稍作停留,買杯咖啡;趁着中 午用餐的時間品嚐一下沙拉,或者跑到藥店買藥什麼的;下班之後到雜貨店買點東 西，或者停下來做些其他事情。將上述所說的加起來，再將他們和更多的隨意的購 物參觀放鬆加在一起，大概一週花上6.5個小時，這大概就是女性平均買東西的時 間(不必吃驚，就連懶惰的男性消耗在購物上的時間一週也有4個小時)。而且，這當 中還不包括我們在購物時瀏覽的時間、在喜愛的物品上停留的時間，以及用來證明 買這些東西是有價值的時間,還有很簡單的在收銀櫃臺前的時間花費,我無法說明 這些詳細的統計量在金融業有怎樣的含義——我只能說，經濟復甦還在緩慢進行 中，這真是個奇蹟。The Idiot Box
電視機
Nothing drains our time reserves like the television. We’ve all been guilty of turning on the TV to catch the last quarter of the game or check to see who’s still on the island and who isn’t — and next thing you know, it’s 2 a.m. That seems like an extreme scenario — or maybe not, if you consider that the average American spends three hours a day watching TV. Twenty-four hours in a day have officially become twenty-one — I thought we needed more time, not less.
沒有什麼能比電視機更能榨乾我們存儲的時間的了。我們帶着罪惡感打開電 視機去看最新一季的比賽，或者去查看一下島上誰還活着誰巳經死亡——下一件 事你知道的，天啊,已經凌晨2點了 ！這是個相對極端的場景，或者說，還不止如此， 如果你考慮到美國人平均一天看3小時電視的話。如此一來，一天的24小時已變成 21小時~我覺得我們需要更多的時間，而不是更少。Something to Cry About
爲某些事哭泣You may not have shed many tears in the last few days, but on average, women over the age of nineteen cry for two hours a week. What sets us off? Just about anything, apparently — without even taking into account the usual hormonal fluctuations that often cause us to weep if we look at a puppy from the right top causes of tearful female outbursts are weepy movies, relationship worries, breaking up, and the death of a loved one — and, of course, pain and simple exhaustion can weaken our tear ducts，strongholds.
在生命的最後幾天,你或許不會流太多的眼淚,但超過19歲的女性平均一週得 哭上2小時。是什麼惹我們情緒爆發了?任何事情都有可能,很明顯的如果我們 直面一個幼小的動物，我們甚至無需考慮是慣常的荷爾蒙激素波動造成的我們哭 泣。能讓一位女性眼淚決堤的“主犯”是催人落淚的電影,折磨人的關係,破裂的感 情,以及一位摯愛之人的去世——當然,疼痛和純粹的筋疲力盡的感覺也能讓女性 的淚腺變得脆弱。Between the TV, Facebook, deciding what to wear, shopping, daydreaming, and weeping, it’s a wonder we get anything done at all. My rudimentary math skills suggest that the average American woman spends roughly 3,311 hours each year indulging in all of these activities at least to some extent. There are 8,766 hours in a year. That means that almost half our time is “wasted,” sucked into the vortex of our modern world and all of its tempting distractions. Or you could just call it “living.”
穿梭在電視、臉譜網、決定穿什麼、購物、白日夢和哭泣的循環之中，如果我們還能有時間做成任何事情，那還真是一個奇 跡。我蹩腳的數學才能所得出的數據是:美 國女性一年平均從某種程度上最少花 上3311小時沉浸在上述這些活動中。1年總 共有8766個小時，這就意味着一年有一半的 時間是被浪費掉的’被無情地捲入現代社會 和充滿誘惑力娛樂的漩渦中。或者，你姑且 能將其稱之爲“生存”。
