My room at home was too small for me. I barely had room for all the little knickknacks I'd collected over the years. There were so many things I had to pack away in boxes and store in closets all over the house. Oftentimes I didn't quite remember exactly where everything was.
我在家里的房間很小，偏偏我平時又喜歡搜集一些可愛的小玩意，幾年下來，各種各樣小玩意就漸漸擺滿了我的房間。對那些擺放不下的東西，我只好忍痛將他們打包放進紙箱里，然后再塞進家里大大小小的儲物柜里面，通常情況下我都不記得這些東西的具體存放位置。
There were all the notes my girlfriends and I passed throughout junior high, along with all the goofy poems my first boyfriend paid his friends to write and passed along to me as his originals. I also had a separate box for rose petals collected from past birthdays, Valentine's Days, anniversaries, and proms. I kept all my pictures in neatly organized albums on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. I had jewelry that I never wore but I thought I might someday need stashed away all over my room. I also saved birthday and Christmas cards, leaves that had fallen from the trees the previous fall, and medals I won for participating in piano recitals. On another shelf of my bookcase I even had a brick I found on the playground at my elementary school.
在這些小玩意當中，有我和初三的女伴們互傳的小紙片，還有我的第一任男朋友的蹩腳情詩－－還不是他自己寫的，是他掏腰包請他的朋友代寫的，然后大言不慚地跟我說是他自己寫的。我還有一個專門放玫瑰花瓣的箱子，花瓣都是我在歷年的生日、情人節、各種周年紀念日和舞會上收集回來的。我還把照片整理成相冊，整整齊齊地放在書架的底層上。我還留著一些自己從來都沒戴過的首飾，想著哪一天要把它們好好藏在房間的每一個角落。我仍然保存著各式各樣的生日卡和圣誕卡，去年秋天的落葉，還有我參加鋼琴演奏會時贏回來的獎牌。在書架的另外一層甚至還擺著一塊磚頭，那還是我上小學的時候在操場上拾回來的。
I'm not exactly sure why I saved everything, but I have some sort of idea. I never wanted to forget the great times I'd had growing up. I always feared I'd become one of those adults who couldn't relate to children because they simply couldn't remember having been children themselves. I wanted to remember the flowers my brother gave me when no other boy would. I wanted to someday look back at pictures of my first trip to Panama City. For some strange reason, I wanted to remember the day my playmates and I found that broken brick on the playground and thought our school was being broken into.
我也不清楚為什么自己要保留這些東西，我只能說一些模糊的理解，我覺得是想讓自己銘記成長過程中的美好時光。有些成年人不能理解孩子的想法，因為他們根本不記得自己也曾是一個孩子，而我總是害怕會變成這樣的人。當沒有其他男孩子送花給我的時候，哥哥送了花給我，我想永遠記住那些花兒。我也希望可以通過看照片回想起自己第一次去巴拿馬城的情景。我還記得那天我和玩伴在操場上發現那塊爛磚頭的時候，我們還以為學校遭打劫了呢。我也說不出為什么，我就希望當自己看回這塊磚頭的時候，我還能回想起當時的想法。
So I kept my life stored away in my bedroom, tucked neatly into boxes, stacked high up in my closet, on display on my bookcases, stashed discreetly away in my underwear drawer in hopes I'd never forget anything. I loved my room because it was all about me. I didn't have to share it with anyone else. My memories didn't have to mingle with a sibling's or roommate's. My room at home was just that ... my room, full of my things.
于是我將我的生活點滴就這樣儲存在我的臥室里，整整齊齊地疊放在箱子里，高高地堆放在儲物柜里，或是陳列在書架里，小心翼翼地藏在存放內衣的抽屜里，惟恐自己遺漏了什么。我很喜歡自己的房間，因為它處處充滿了我的氣息。我不用與任何人共用房間，我的回憶也不會與兄弟姐妹或室友的相混雜。我在家的房間是我自己私人的世界，到處都是我自己的東西。
Now that I'm away from home, enrolled in college, and sharing ten cubic feet with another girl, my old bedroom doesn't seem so small. I try my hardest to make my half of the room personal to me, but in a space so small, that proves almost impossible. Occasionally her books will find their way to my half of the desk, or her shoes will be near my closet. Sometimes crumbs from the crackers she's eating litter my half of the carpet, and every so often, her hair brush begins to hang around with mine.
后來我考進了大學，也就離開了家，和一個女孩共住一間十立方英尺的宿舍，現在我再也不覺得家里的房間小了。我竭盡全力地維護屬于自己的一半領地，可地方實在太窄了，事實證明我的努力都是徒勞的。有時候她的書會很自然地出現在我的半邊桌子上，或是我的鞋柜里冒出她的鞋子。有時候，在她吃餅干的時候，餅干屑還會掉落在我的半邊地毯上。她的梳子也開始和我的梳子混在了一起。
I don't have room for all the little memories I cherish. I only brought a handful of pictures from home, left behind all my yearbooks, as well as my dried flowers and "who loves who" notes. Perhaps the worst part about the whole ordeal is that I don't have room to start any new collections. The threat is there that I won't have anything to remind me of my college years. That's a really scary thought for me. This place where I sleep and study isn't my room. It's just a room.
由于沒有地方擺放所有記載著珍貴記憶片段的物品，我也沒有從家里帶來年鑒和干花，也沒有拿來寫著“誰愛誰”的紙條，只帶了一疊相片過來。我想開始收集其它東西，卻沒有地方存放，這可是這段苦難最慘痛的部分啊。而由此造成的危害是：我將沒有能讓自己記起大學歲月的物品。想到這，我就心慌意亂。我睡覺和學習的這個地方不再是屬于我的天地；它只是一個房間而已。
404 South Carrick Hall is just a place to sleep, study, and watch my roommate watch TV. It's filled with textbooks, CD-ROMs, and dishes ... things that aren't supposed to be in a bedroom. There's only room for one stuffed animal and three posters which have a hard time staying on brico-block walls. I hate the fact that there's a microwave and refrigerator in the room where I sleep, and I hate that I'm responsible for filling them.
南卡爾克宿舍404房只是一個睡覺、學習和看著我室友看電視的地方。房間里擺滿了課本、光碟和盤子，盡是一些不應該出現在臥室里的東西。剩下的空間只夠放一只毛公仔和三張海報，要呆在粗糙的墻壁上，這些海報可真夠嗆的。我討厭把微波爐和電冰箱擺在我睡覺的地方，也討厭自己總要往里面塞放食物。
Maybe even worse than my new room's lack of personality is the lack of privacy it offers. Occasionally, and especially during home-coming, my roommate comes in after I've gone to sleep. She doesn't mean to wake me up, but when she starts her nightly contact-removal ritual, I can't help but hear what seems like thousands of different cleaning solution bottles bumping around the sink. I've been known to bother her too. During the day when I'm trying to study, my typing interferes with her enjoyment of "The Loveboat," "Days of Our Lives," and "Another World."
我的新居沒有個性，這已經夠糟糕了，但更糟糕的是我老是要受到干擾。有時候，尤其在晚上室友回宿舍的時候她總要把我從夢中吵醒。她也不是故意要吵醒我，可是她每晚睡前例行的“脫隱形眼鏡儀式”總讓我心煩意亂，我覺得仿佛有上千瓶的隱形眼鏡清洗液在洗手盆里搖來晃去。當然了，我也有干擾她的時候。當我集中精神學習的時候，我打字的聲音也讓她很掃興，這樣她就不能專注地追那些肥皂劇，像《愛之舟》、《我們的生活》和《異度空間》。
My roommate is not the only one who deprives me of privacy and makes 404 a room that is not really my own. The girls next door to me see me as a back-up grammar check when their computers don't catch every mistake. I can't lock them out because it's not my room to lock. I can't say, "Go away," because they've gotten to be really good friends and I can't be rude to people I care about.
我的室友剝奪了我的私人空間，使404室不能真正成為我自己的房間，而她也不是唯一這樣做的人。隔壁的女孩們把我當作后備的“語法檢測器”，當她們的電腦不能找出文章的每處語法錯誤時，她們就跑來求救。我不能要她們吃閉門羹，因為這不只是我的房間，我不能把它緊鎖。我也不能對她們說：“走開”，因為她們都是我要好的朋友，我不能粗魯地對待那些我所關心的人。
The lack of privacy thing really bothers me. Not only do I live in a room that acts as a bedroom, study, kitchen, living room, and bathroom, I don't even get to be miserable in it by myself. Sometimes misery does not love company. Rather, it is created by company. If I can't decorate my room to my liking, I should at least be able to suffer in it alone. But dormitories are not for being alone - I've been told - they're about learning to get along with others. (Maybe I'll see the positive results of this nightmare when I'm giving advice to my own children when they begin college, but for the moment, I'm completely oblivious to them.)
沒有私人空間真的讓我很苦惱。我住的房間既是臥室，也是書房、廚房、起居室和衛生間，而且我還不能一個人在里面痛苦受罪。有時候，一個痛苦的人是不喜歡別人陪伴的。其實痛苦往往就是源于陪伴。如果我不能按照自己的喜好裝飾房間，至少也得讓我獨自呆在里面受苦啊。但已經有人告訴過我了，宿舍不是你獨處的地方，而是讓你學會和別人相處的地方。(也許到了將來某一天，在我給開始上大學的兒女提建議的時候，我可以意識到住宿舍的好處。可現在在我看來，住宿舍就是一場噩夢，我沒有發現其中的任何好處。)
There is some good news, however. Though she annoys me to no end, sometimes my roommate is just the person I want to see. I didn't get to know her habits so well without her taking in a few of mine. She oftentimes knows what I'm going to say even before I do, and most of the time she knows exactly when not to say anything to me at all. She's friend as well as foe, and I'd probably miss her if she left. The same sentiments apply to my neighbors. It's really quite flattering that they, even if somewhat mistakenly, consider me some sort of grammar goddess.
然而，好處還是有的。對于我的室友，雖然我總是不勝其煩，但有時她正是我想見到的人。如果她沒有接納我的一些習慣，我也不會對她的習慣了如指掌。通常，我還沒開口她就知道我要說什么了；而且，在我不想和人答腔的時候，她都能感受到，并做到緘口不言。她集朋友和敵人于一身，如果她離開了，我就會掛念她。對于我的隔壁宿舍的鄰居們，我也有同樣的感覺。她們把我當作－－即使是“誤”當作－－語法女神，我還是覺得非常榮幸。
And perhaps most important is the next thought. While I don't live in a room that's completely mine anymore, and probably won't ever again, I do find comfort in the knowledge that somewhere there's a pink, green, and white bedroom with a brick on the bookshelf, a diary in the underwear drawer, and an air of privacy that belongs strictly to me. It may not be my room as often as I'd like, but it will wait for me, just like I sit and wait for it.
也許接下來的想法才是重要的：雖然現在我不住在完全屬于我的房間里，也許以后也不會，可是我相信在某個地方有個完全屬于我的私人空間－－臥房是粉紅色、綠色和白色相間的，書架上放了一塊磚頭，內衣抽屜里面還放著一本日記本，想到這些我就覺得油然欣慰。這個房間不總是如我所愿，可它會等著我這個主人，正如我現在在宿舍里坐著等它。
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