【英语语言学习】我在马拉拉的旅游经历
时间:2018-12-28 作者:英语课 分类:英语语言学习
英语课
Hello everyone. Thank you for being here. I’m so honored and humbled 2 to have this opportunity.
Truthfully when I was asked to speak here I was so nervous, and then I thought, the theme of today is ‘Start Now’, so perhaps looking back at my journey I can share three lessons that I’ve learned that have been invaluable 3 to how I’ve lived my life. And I hope that these are useful to those of you who are starting something now as well.
The first lesson is that knowledge is best acquired through human connection. I was born in Pakistan, my parents came from a humble 1 origin, my father was orphaned 4 when he was 7 years old, and my mother was married to my father before she ever got to go to college.
So my parents worked very very hard and gave us the best education that we could afford. That meant that I had a privileged upbringing. But all around me, I could sense that something in my society was crumbling 5. There was rising poverty, gender 6 imbalance, extremism and religious radicalism 7 and terrorism. I didn’t understand it, but I thought, perhaps I can go to those who live this truth.
So at the age of 14, I began volunteering in women’s prisons — in those prisons where women who had been convicted of crime but also their children. Children born in captivity 8 who had never seen the outside world. They had no one else. I understood there what it meant to be discarded before you were ever born. And the conditions that lead to hatred 9, violence and resentment 10.
When I was 16, my best friend died in an earthquake, because the building in which he lived was made from faulty material. I dealt with my grief by spending the next year volunteering in an earthquake relief camp. I was the only female volunteer, so that meant that any issue relating to women or girls was brought to me.
For the next year I was taking women to the hospital because breast milk had frozen inside them, or spending the morning inside a hot tent, chatting away with girls, knowing that we could not go outside because their fathers and brothers had told them they could not be visible. That’s when I understood what it meant to be a woman in the hardest circumstances in the world feeling that my very existence is a source of shame.
The lessons that I learned in these places, from these people, I could never have found in school or in books, and these were the lessons that guided my decision and my character for the rest of my life. So to those of you who are seeking knowledge, I urge you, go to the heart of it. Find the people who live that reality everyday and approach them with empathy. You will learn more than you can ever imagine.
The second lesson that I learned in life, was that you have the power to influence anything that you are truly passionate 11 about. When I was 18 years old, I got a scholarship to go to Stanford University. I was thrilled, my world opened up for me. My mind brimmed with new ideas and possibilities and I finally had a frame of reference with which to understand my own madness. My professors told me I was a social entrepreneur, and I finally felt like I fit in.
But on the other side, my society was descending 12 into chaos 13 day by day. Almost everyday there was news of a terrorist attack. Radicalism was seeping 14 through society. I didn’t know what to do but I felt fearful. I would sleep with my phone on full volume, waiting that dreaded 15 phone call that would tell me that my family had been hurt.
In my sophomore 16 year, while watching the news, I found a video. A young girl from the Swat Valley, only 11 years old, was speaking out against the violence. In her area, the Taliban had banned female education, but she didn’t want to stop going to school. So when no one was speaking, she did, and she said, “Save my school. This is my request to the world. Save my Swat Valley.”
Her voice haunted me. She lived only three hours from where I grew up and it could have been me. I knew I had to help her but I didn’t know how. So I reached out to her father, I said to him, “What can we do?”
That summer I returned back to Pakistan with a plan. I would host a summer camp, and I would bring to that summer camp girls like Malala. I would give them access to the world that I knew. To the networks, the resources, the people, the mentors 17 that could help them be more effective activists 18. And that’s what I did. It was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life. And the girl who I arranged all of this for was no other than 11-year-old Malala.
What this taught me was that anything I wanted to change, I had the power to affect. Sitting in my dorm room at Stanford, sipping 19 my Jamba Juice, I had found a way to affect the life of a girl in the Swat Valley. This girl would go on to become the most powerful voice for peace in the entire world only 5 years later.
The truth is, there are no superheroes. There’s just us! We are the ones that we have been waiting for. So the third and final lesson that I’d love to share with you, is that there are critical moments in your life where you have to make a decision about who you are, and in those moments let your heart guide you.
It was 2012, I had graduated from Stanford, I had an offer to join McKinsey & Company, which was a dream job for any Stanford graduate. So I took the job and I flew to Dubai. It was an exciting year, I learned exponentially, and I knew that as long as I stayed on track my career was secure.
One year in, I had just landed in Egypt. I turned on my phone and I saw a text that would move the Earth. It said, “Malala has been shot.” I remember sitting in that plane and repeating in my head, “Oh my god, what have they done! What have they done!” They had stopped her on her way back from school and shot her in the head at point-blank range. She was critically wounded. Everyday we prayed that she would make it through the night.
But it wasn’t just me and others who cared about Malala who were grieving. Across the world, people had been shaken by her story. There were vigils, protests in all parts of the world. And when people weren’t praying or hoping, they were angry. They were angry that in the 21st century, a girl could be shot in the head for going to school. I knew then that what Malala had inspired was the beginning of a movement that would change the face of our world.
I left my career and flew to Birmingham to be with Malala when she was airlifted there for treatment. I arrived the same day as her family. She survived, and that to me is the greatest miracle that I have ever witnessed or will ever witness. It is what I remain grateful for everyday: that Malala survived with no brain damage.
But as I sat with her and told her, “Malala, so many people are praying for you and they want to help you. What do I tell them?”
She looked at me and said, “I’m okay. Can you ask them to help the other girls?”
That’s when I knew that not only had Malala inspired a movement, but she was going to continue her struggle no matter what it took against all odds 20. But now she had a greater platform than ever before. She was no longer fighting a battle in the Swat Valley, she was fighting a battle for girls all over the world. And she needed people she could trust to help her.
I had a decision to make then. Would I go back to my job? Or would I stay with Malala and try and figure out what this meant? Try and help her change the world and get girls in school. I wasn’t ready, I was terrified, but it was now or never and I took the leap. And honestly speaking, I’ve never looked back.
You see there are moments when we make decisions that shape our destiny. And in those moments we have to listen to our intuition. Our heart already knows where we are meant to go, it will never lead us astray.
I’d like to end my talk with this statement that has come to embody 21 this movement that Malala has inspired. And I end with it because it holds one — well, it holds all of these truths for me. It’s a statement that people across the world have said without us asking. And it is, “I am Malala.”
So I end with that saying, I’m Malala, not because I am her, but because I understand what it means to be a girl who struggles, due to that human connection, and because I too struggle. I am Malala, because I take control of my destiny and I decide to change what I believe must be changed. And I’m Malala, because I make that decision today, and everyday, from the core of my heart.
Thank you.
Truthfully when I was asked to speak here I was so nervous, and then I thought, the theme of today is ‘Start Now’, so perhaps looking back at my journey I can share three lessons that I’ve learned that have been invaluable 3 to how I’ve lived my life. And I hope that these are useful to those of you who are starting something now as well.
The first lesson is that knowledge is best acquired through human connection. I was born in Pakistan, my parents came from a humble 1 origin, my father was orphaned 4 when he was 7 years old, and my mother was married to my father before she ever got to go to college.
So my parents worked very very hard and gave us the best education that we could afford. That meant that I had a privileged upbringing. But all around me, I could sense that something in my society was crumbling 5. There was rising poverty, gender 6 imbalance, extremism and religious radicalism 7 and terrorism. I didn’t understand it, but I thought, perhaps I can go to those who live this truth.
So at the age of 14, I began volunteering in women’s prisons — in those prisons where women who had been convicted of crime but also their children. Children born in captivity 8 who had never seen the outside world. They had no one else. I understood there what it meant to be discarded before you were ever born. And the conditions that lead to hatred 9, violence and resentment 10.
When I was 16, my best friend died in an earthquake, because the building in which he lived was made from faulty material. I dealt with my grief by spending the next year volunteering in an earthquake relief camp. I was the only female volunteer, so that meant that any issue relating to women or girls was brought to me.
For the next year I was taking women to the hospital because breast milk had frozen inside them, or spending the morning inside a hot tent, chatting away with girls, knowing that we could not go outside because their fathers and brothers had told them they could not be visible. That’s when I understood what it meant to be a woman in the hardest circumstances in the world feeling that my very existence is a source of shame.
The lessons that I learned in these places, from these people, I could never have found in school or in books, and these were the lessons that guided my decision and my character for the rest of my life. So to those of you who are seeking knowledge, I urge you, go to the heart of it. Find the people who live that reality everyday and approach them with empathy. You will learn more than you can ever imagine.
The second lesson that I learned in life, was that you have the power to influence anything that you are truly passionate 11 about. When I was 18 years old, I got a scholarship to go to Stanford University. I was thrilled, my world opened up for me. My mind brimmed with new ideas and possibilities and I finally had a frame of reference with which to understand my own madness. My professors told me I was a social entrepreneur, and I finally felt like I fit in.
But on the other side, my society was descending 12 into chaos 13 day by day. Almost everyday there was news of a terrorist attack. Radicalism was seeping 14 through society. I didn’t know what to do but I felt fearful. I would sleep with my phone on full volume, waiting that dreaded 15 phone call that would tell me that my family had been hurt.
In my sophomore 16 year, while watching the news, I found a video. A young girl from the Swat Valley, only 11 years old, was speaking out against the violence. In her area, the Taliban had banned female education, but she didn’t want to stop going to school. So when no one was speaking, she did, and she said, “Save my school. This is my request to the world. Save my Swat Valley.”
Her voice haunted me. She lived only three hours from where I grew up and it could have been me. I knew I had to help her but I didn’t know how. So I reached out to her father, I said to him, “What can we do?”
That summer I returned back to Pakistan with a plan. I would host a summer camp, and I would bring to that summer camp girls like Malala. I would give them access to the world that I knew. To the networks, the resources, the people, the mentors 17 that could help them be more effective activists 18. And that’s what I did. It was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life. And the girl who I arranged all of this for was no other than 11-year-old Malala.
What this taught me was that anything I wanted to change, I had the power to affect. Sitting in my dorm room at Stanford, sipping 19 my Jamba Juice, I had found a way to affect the life of a girl in the Swat Valley. This girl would go on to become the most powerful voice for peace in the entire world only 5 years later.
The truth is, there are no superheroes. There’s just us! We are the ones that we have been waiting for. So the third and final lesson that I’d love to share with you, is that there are critical moments in your life where you have to make a decision about who you are, and in those moments let your heart guide you.
It was 2012, I had graduated from Stanford, I had an offer to join McKinsey & Company, which was a dream job for any Stanford graduate. So I took the job and I flew to Dubai. It was an exciting year, I learned exponentially, and I knew that as long as I stayed on track my career was secure.
One year in, I had just landed in Egypt. I turned on my phone and I saw a text that would move the Earth. It said, “Malala has been shot.” I remember sitting in that plane and repeating in my head, “Oh my god, what have they done! What have they done!” They had stopped her on her way back from school and shot her in the head at point-blank range. She was critically wounded. Everyday we prayed that she would make it through the night.
But it wasn’t just me and others who cared about Malala who were grieving. Across the world, people had been shaken by her story. There were vigils, protests in all parts of the world. And when people weren’t praying or hoping, they were angry. They were angry that in the 21st century, a girl could be shot in the head for going to school. I knew then that what Malala had inspired was the beginning of a movement that would change the face of our world.
I left my career and flew to Birmingham to be with Malala when she was airlifted there for treatment. I arrived the same day as her family. She survived, and that to me is the greatest miracle that I have ever witnessed or will ever witness. It is what I remain grateful for everyday: that Malala survived with no brain damage.
But as I sat with her and told her, “Malala, so many people are praying for you and they want to help you. What do I tell them?”
She looked at me and said, “I’m okay. Can you ask them to help the other girls?”
That’s when I knew that not only had Malala inspired a movement, but she was going to continue her struggle no matter what it took against all odds 20. But now she had a greater platform than ever before. She was no longer fighting a battle in the Swat Valley, she was fighting a battle for girls all over the world. And she needed people she could trust to help her.
I had a decision to make then. Would I go back to my job? Or would I stay with Malala and try and figure out what this meant? Try and help her change the world and get girls in school. I wasn’t ready, I was terrified, but it was now or never and I took the leap. And honestly speaking, I’ve never looked back.
You see there are moments when we make decisions that shape our destiny. And in those moments we have to listen to our intuition. Our heart already knows where we are meant to go, it will never lead us astray.
I’d like to end my talk with this statement that has come to embody 21 this movement that Malala has inspired. And I end with it because it holds one — well, it holds all of these truths for me. It’s a statement that people across the world have said without us asking. And it is, “I am Malala.”
So I end with that saying, I’m Malala, not because I am her, but because I understand what it means to be a girl who struggles, due to that human connection, and because I too struggle. I am Malala, because I take control of my destiny and I decide to change what I believe must be changed. And I’m Malala, because I make that decision today, and everyday, from the core of my heart.
Thank you.
1 humble
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低
- In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见,他将在选举中获胜。
- Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。
2 humbled
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的
- A computer would have been invaluable for this job.一台计算机对这个工作的作用会是无法估计的。
- This information was invaluable to him.这个消息对他来说是非常宝贵的。
3 orphaned
[计][修]孤立
- Orphaned children were consigned to institutions. 孤儿都打发到了福利院。
- He was orphaned at an early age. 他幼年时便成了孤儿。
4 crumbling
adj.摇摇欲坠的
- an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
- The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。
5 gender
n.(生理上的)性,(名词、代词等的)性
- French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语,所有的名词都有性。
- Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。
6 radicalism
n. 急进主义, 根本的改革主义
- His radicalism and refusal to compromise isolated him. 他的激进主义与拒绝妥协使他受到孤立。
- Education produced intellectual ferment and the temptations of radicalism. 教育带来知识界的骚动,促使激进主义具有了吸引力。
7 captivity
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚
- A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
- He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。
8 hatred
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨
- He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
- The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。
9 resentment
n.怨愤,忿恨
- All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
- She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。
10 passionate
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的
- He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
- He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。
11 descending
n.混乱,无秩序
- After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后,城市一片混乱。
- The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。
12 seeping
v.(液体)渗( seep的现在分词 );渗透;渗出;漏出
- Water had been slowly seeping away from the pond. 池塘里的水一直在慢慢渗漏。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Chueh-hui could feel the cold seeping into his bones. 觉慧开始觉得寒气透过衣服浸到身上来了。 来自汉英文学 - 家(1-26) - 家(1-26)
13 dreaded
adj.令人畏惧的;害怕的v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的过去式和过去分词)
- The dreaded moment had finally arrived. 可怕的时刻终于来到了。
- He dreaded having to spend Christmas in hospital. 他害怕非得在医院过圣诞节不可。 来自《用法词典》
14 sophomore
n.大学二年级生;adj.第二年的
- He is in his sophomore year.他在读二年级。
- I'm a college sophomore majoring in English.我是一名英语专业的大二学生。
15 mentors
n.(无经验之人的)有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的名词复数 )v.(无经验之人的)有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的第三人称单数 )
- Beacham and McNamara, my two mentors, had both warned me. 我的两位忠实朋友,比彻姆和麦克纳马拉都曾经警告过我。 来自辞典例句
- These are the kinds of contacts that could evolve into mentors. 这些人是可能会成为你导师。 来自互联网
16 activists
n.(政治活动的)积极分子,活动家( activist的名词复数 )
- His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
- Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》
17 sipping
v.小口喝,呷,抿( sip的现在分词 )
- She sat in the sun, idly sipping a cool drink. 她坐在阳光下懒洋洋地抿着冷饮。
- She sat there, sipping at her tea. 她坐在那儿抿着茶。