On My Way to the Best Two Weeks of My Life

By Duncan Tam

什么？！妈妈又给报了个不知所以然的暑期夏令营？一想到蚊虫肆虐的露营点、天天面对着一群愚蠢的同伴、做着小儿科的游戏就欲哭无泪。能做的都做了：撒娇装可怜、每天虔诚地祈祷、出门时故意丢三落四……可是到底能不能改变妈妈这一“宏大”计划呢？

“Please don’t leave. I really don’t want to be here.” I said to my mother as she helped me unpack my clothes in the boys’cabin.1. unpack: 打开包裹；cabin: 小木屋。

“This place is such a waste of my time. I need to make the most of2. make the most of: 充分利用。my summer,” I said as she walked to the car to drive away.

This waste of time was Greenwood Music Camp: a two-week long summer camp in the middle of the mosquito-infested,unheated, internet-less woods of Western Massachusetts.3. mosquito-infested: 蚊虫滋生的；Massachusetts: 马萨诸塞州，位于美国东北部。At this two-week hell-session, I would have to sleep on rockmattresses in a dusty wooden cabin.4. session: 一段时间； mattress: 床垫。At this stupid camp, I would suffer through a fortnight of rubbing elbows with stupid campers and stupid counsellors, eating stupid food, playing stupid games during stupid nights, playing stupid music.5. 在这次愚蠢的夏令营期间，我将忍受两周这样的日子：天天跟愚蠢的露营伙伴和辅导员们在一起，吃着愚蠢的食物，在愚蠢的夜晚玩着愚蠢的游戏，弹奏愚蠢的音乐。fortnight: 两星期；rub elbows with: 与……交往；counsellor: 辅导员。

I didn’t even like playing stupid music. It had been my mom’s idea to make me start playing the stupid viola6. viola: 中提琴。and her idea to send me to this stupid camp. My mom had always been rather delusional7. delusional: 妄想的。about my viola career. Though, like any mother, she loved to believe that I was special and unique, my outlook on8. outlook on: 对……的看法。viola was neither special nor unique. Like most children instrumentalists9. instrumentalist: 乐器演奏者。,I did not like practicing, I did not like lessons, and I did not like performing. I may have been marginally better than the average unwilling player, but that was only due to my mom’s unprecedented vigour to make me practice.10. 也许我比一般不愿意学习乐器的孩子要好一点，但这只因为我妈妈热情高涨，我非练不可。marginally:略微地；unprecedented: 史无前例的；vigour: 活力。She insisted that I “actually do enjoy playing,” and that I “just don’t know it yet”. I assume she must have been inspired by some TED11. TED: technology，entertainment，design的首字母缩写，即技术、娱乐、设计，美国的一家私有非营利机构，以它组织的TED大会著称，并能免费与世界分享这些演讲。talk on “The Power of Suggestion” and hoped that if she told me enough times how much I enjoyed viola, I would enjoy viola.

“I’ll stay, but I won’t have fun!” were my last words to her before she left.

I had not, by any means, only started complaining that day. A series of fits and tantrums had all led to this moment.12. fit:（强烈感情）发作，冲动； tantrum:发脾气。My resignation and approach to the impending threat of Greenwood had come in three stages.13. resignation: 顺从，听任；impending:即将发生的。

My mother had at first mentioned the Stupid Idea of sending me to Greenwood in November of the previous year. At first, I ignored the idea of “this camp in Massachusetts” as it was a whole summer away.Even though the camp sounded terrible, it was months away at the time, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. My mother always had ambitious plans that never ended up happening. I therefore thought that “this camp in The Middle of Nowhere, Massachusetts” would eventually fizzle out, much like her plans to visit the Coliseum, repaint our fence, and start taking yoga.14. 因此我以为妈妈这个“不知在马萨诸塞州何方的夏令营”的想法也会不了了之，如同她之前要去罗马斗兽场旅游、给篱笆重新刷漆，以及练瑜伽之类的计划一样。fizzle out:终成泡影，毫无结果；Coliseum:罗马斗兽场；repaint: 重新刷漆；yoga: 瑜伽。

A week before the dreaded day, after months of pushing Greenwood to the back of my mind, it dawned upon me that I was really going to go to this camp in the forest.15. dreaded: 可怕的；dawn upon: 使开始明白。It was then that I entered my second phase of resistance16. resistance: 反抗。. I began searching for an alternative17. alternative: 替换物，替代品。to Greenwood. I wracked my brain18. wrack one’s brain: 绞尽脑汁。to try to remember anything she had ever said she wanted me to do. I offered to repaint our fence, to read all the books on the “Suggested Books for Summer Reading” list my school had sent us, or to mow all of our neighbours’ lawns for free (that would reflect well on her as a parent).19. mow: 割草；lawn: 草坪。These plans were all farfetched20. farfetched: 牵强的。.

“Mom, I could… I could… just stay at home and go to that drawing camp you wanted me to go to.” I suggested, grasping at straws21. grasp at straws: 抓住救命稻草，（为求脱离困境等）做最后的绝望挣扎。.

“But someone would have to drive you to the drawing camp! I’d be at work,” she responded, humoring22. humour: 迎合，迁就。me.

“I could walk every day—it’s only an hour walk each day. I could handle that.”

When I woke up the morning of my departure, I became desperate.23. departure: 出发；desperate: 令人绝望的。During this phase, I became more religious24. religious: 虔诚的。than I had ever been. If there was truly a God, he surely would not allow me to suffer at this Tarzan25. Tarzan: 泰山，美国电影《人猿泰山》中的主人公名。camp. On the car ride to the camp,I prayed for something—anything to help me escape my certain doom26. doom: 厄运。. I wished for a closed-road sign to impede our path, an earthquake, and a freak blizzard.27. impede: 阻碍；freak: 不寻常的；blizzard: 暴风雪。

I did anything to slow our trip. I “left” a bag at home that I only “remembered” 30 minutes into our journey, I read the directions incorrectly to my driving mother, and spilled28. spill: 使溢出。soda on myself when we stopped for lunch.

As I watched my mother, driving our car, bump away,shaky on the gravel,29. bump: 颠簸行进；gravel: 砂砾。I realized she had won. By being silent and imperturbable30. imperturbable: 冷静的。, she had survived all of my attacks. I had finally surrendered31. surrender: 屈服。when I had allowed her to shut the car door with me not inside.

I turned around, crying, ready to sulk my way through what would be—though I through my hysterical sobbing did not know it at the time—the best two weeks of my life.32. 我转过身，开始大哭，做好了整个营期都要郁闷的准备，但我不知道的是，在我歇斯底里的哭泣之后，我将迎来一生中最美好的两周。sulk:生闷气；hysterical: 歇斯底里的。