1 -?Guiding Questions:
(1) How would you define “failure”?
Failure is a relative concept, for it depends on our own value and metrics. If our life goal is to be rich, then struggling in poor means failure.
(2) How?failures?could be a blessing in disguise? Please include a story of yours.
Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something.
Five years ago, I failed the?the national entrance examination for postgraduate. It was a shock to me since I was quite confident about my ability to take an exam. But now, I think that failure is good for my development for the reason that I stop viewing myself as a special talented person and change busloads of bad habits unawareness before.
(3) Who/What made us tend to avoid failure?
Avoiding failure comes from our education system, our overbearing or critical parents and mass media. Our education system and overbearing or critical parents tend to punish those who don't do well and try new stuff. On the other hand, all the mass media constantly expose us to stellar success after success, while not showing us the thousands of hours of dull practice and tedium that were required to achieve that success.
(4) Do you have any “VCR?questions”? And what are they?
Now my "VCR questions" is "How could I start my plan of English training?" After finishing this chapter, I think that what I need to do is shut up and do it
(5) Have you done “do something” recently?? or are you going to do some “do something”?
I have attended reading clubs to improve my English since I want to teach children English in the future. I also need to take actions on learning English teaching skills before the month end.
2 - Expressions
(1) right out of the gate
原文：...?and I got to?experience it right out of the gates.
意思是“立刻涝登，一出門就”震庭，“一畢業(yè)就”医增。表示從頭做起，從底層開始做起，可替換的表達(dá)有“right from the start”, “from the very beginning”。
(2)?Second Coming of Tesla
原文：To them, the fact that I could program the VCR without looking at the instruction manual made me the Second Coming of Tesla.
Tesla指的是尼古拉·特斯拉，是個(gè)物理學(xué)家肾砂，他是交流電、無線電巴粪、無線遙控通今、火花塞、X光乃至水電的重要?jiǎng)?chuàng)造者和推動(dòng)者肛根，公認(rèn)為是電力商業(yè)化的鼻祖。特斯拉還有另一個(gè)意思漏策，特斯拉(Tesla)公司派哲。特斯拉(Tesla)公司是一家美國電動(dòng)車及能源公司，產(chǎn)銷電動(dòng)車掺喻、太陽能板芭届、及儲(chǔ)能設(shè)備。文中該指的是物理學(xué)家尼古拉·特斯拉感耙。
Second Coming of 指的是“ ... 的復(fù)出褂乍；...的再現(xiàn)”。W.B. Yeats有一首詩就叫做 The Second Coming(《基督再臨/二度圣臨》)：
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
(3) in a daze
原文：I walked around in a daze for years, asking myself dumb VCR questions:..
意思：If someone is in a daze, they are feeling confused and unable to think clearly, often because they have had a shock or surprise. 迷惑即硼。
daze相近意思的詞有stupefaction, confusion, mental confusion, confusedness, muddiness, disarray逃片。
