奥巴马开学演讲致辞中英版(6)

　　我们需要你们每一个人都发挥天赋、技能和才智，帮助老一辈人解决我们面临的最棘手问题。如果你们不这样做，入股你们辍学，你们不仅放弃了自己，也放弃了自己的国家。

　　Now, I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

　　我当然明白读好书不是件容易的事，我知道你们中的许多人在生活中面临着各种问题。很难把精力集中在专心读书上。 I get it. I know what it's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us the things that other kids had.

　　我明白这一点，我有亲身感受。我父亲在我两岁时就离开了家庭，是我母亲一个人将我拉扯大，母亲不得不工作并时

　　常为支付生活费而苦苦挣扎。但有时仍无法位我们提供其他孩子享有的东西。

　　There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn't fit in.

　　有时我渴望生活中能有一位父亲。有时我也会感到孤独无助，感觉到与周围的环境格格不入。

　　So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

　　我并非总是想我应该做到的那样专心学习，我做过许多自己觉得丢脸的事情，也惹出许多不该惹的麻烦。我的生活岌岌可危，随时可能急转直下。

　　But I was -- I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have a lot of money. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.