book1 unit4 in-class reading : Fresh Start

I first began to wonder what I was doing on a college campus when my parents drove off, leaving me standing pitifully in a parking lot. I decided I wanted nothing more than to find my way safely to my dorm room. It seemed that everyone on campus was watching me. My plan was to keep my ears open and my mouth shut and I hoped no one would notice I was a freshman.

The next morning I found my first class and marched in. Once I was in the room, however, another problem awaited me. Where to sit? After much hesitation I chose a seat in the first row and to the side.

"Welcome to Biology 101," the professor began. Oh, God, I had thought it was a literature class. A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I groped for my schedule and checked the room number. I was in the right room but the wrong building.

So now what? Get up and leave in the middle of the lecture? Wouldn't the professor be angry? I knew everyone would stare. Forget it. I settled into my chair and tried to look as serious as a biology major might be.

After class I felt a little hungry, and I hurried to the cafeteria. I piled my tray with sandwiches and was heading for the seat when I accidentally stepped in a large puddle of ketchup. My food tray tipped and I lost my balance. As my rear end met the floor, I saw my entire life pass before my eyes; it ended with my first day of college classes.

In the seconds after my fall I thought how nice it would be if no one had noticed. But as all the students in the cafeteria came to their feet, cheering and clapping, I knew they had not only noticed, they were determined that I would never forget it.

For the next three days I dined alone on nothing more than shame, and some junk food from a machine placed outside my room. On the fourth day, I thought I needed some real food badly. Perhaps three days was long enough for the campus population to have forgotten me. So off to the cafeteria I went.

I made my way through the food line and tiptoed to a table. Suddenly I heard a crash that sounded familiar. I looked up to find that another poor soul had met the same fate as I had. My heart went out to him as people began to cheer and clap as they had for me. He got up, hands held high above his head in a victory clasp, grinning from ear to ear. I expected him to slip out of the cafeteria as I had, but instead he turned around and began preparing another tray. And that's when I realized I had been taking myself far too seriously.

Who cared whether I dropped a tray, where I sat in class, or even whether I showed up in the wrong lecture? Nobody. This wasn't like high school. In college, it didn't matter. This was my big chance to do my own thing.

Once I realized that I had no one's expectations to live up to but my own, I relaxed. I began to view college as a wonderful experiment. I dressed a little differently, I discovered a taste for jazz, and I decided I liked going barefoot.

I gave up trying to act my way through college and began not acting at all. College, I decided, was probably the only time I would be completely forgiven for any mistakes ( including stepping in puddles of ketchup and dropping food trays ). So I used the opportunity to make all the ones I thought I'd ever make.

Three years after graduation, I'm still making mistakes. And I'm even being forgiven for a few.

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accidentally
await
barefoot
cafeteria
campus
clasp
completely
crash
differently
dine
dorm
expectation
freshman
grin
grope
hesitation
jazz
junk
junk food
ketchup
literature
opportunity
pitifully
puddle
rear
rear end
relax
safely
schedule
seriously
slip
sweat
tiptoe
tray

break out
come / get / rise to one's feet
do one's own thing
far too
in the middle of
live up to somebody's expectations
lose one's balance
nake one's way
nothing more than
settle in / into
show up
take something / somebody seriously
view ... as 

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The title of unit4 is Fresh Start

The main idea of writing and translation of unit4 is 词义的引申：1、将词义抽象化；2、将词义作具体化引申；3、根据语境对词义作具体化引申。