< Sometimes Things just Don't Go as Planned.>
A few weeks ago, I've received a call from one of my family members, the auntie who looked after me for a while during childhood when my parents were too occupied with their work or in some evening when there's no sign of me returning home. There's only one place they would find me and my auntie's place is a corner house at the end of a dark alley but lined with exuberant trees towering high, flowers in full blossom with rainbow-like colors dazzling all the pedestrians happening to make their way into there. With the tone of urgency and great sorrow, I could smell things didn't go well and here came after the demise of my second uncle who was quite distant from our family since he'd been busy climbing the corporate ladder and buying his way up to secure his position at the company. Sorry to defame a deceased individual like so; what's more, he's one of my closest relatives in life in the same neighborhood when I was in primary school. Throughout his life, he had been pursuing a multitude of interests for family and himself, but it ended up going to the drain after he's diagnosed with the lymph cancer at the final stage, the terminal type. Surprisingly, he rejected all plausible treatments to save him some torments or excruciating complications after the chemo. And the days after he was admitted to the hospitalization, things came to pretzel-like twists and his health condition dramatically deteriorated, worse than the physician had previously predicted according to the spread of the malignant tumors into other internals.
I have tried to avoid the occasions like this: Funeral is the occasion full of people swarming into the space embellished with floral decorations and long strips of sheets in white printed with honorary languages to glorify a person's achievement in his or her prime time(despite the fact that the person could do very little to the benefits for the society)paying the last respect for the deceased on the cause of courtesy or the traditional value that people given with the same family name shall be gathered together to show their grief to one's family and relatives. But as the member of relatives, you were expected to greet a great number of people strange to you or oddly standing beside you with no idea who the elderly lady kept weeping with tissue papers(by the way, she could be the professional "Funeral Mourner" to moan and sob dramatically walking around the wooden coffin loaded with the body sealed by the nails as the Taoism doctrine stipulated. In brief, it's a chaos and very few understood what to do and how to act when bunches of people looked terribly pale, weary, and almost fainted in the middle of the ritual. I also burst into tears when the well-trained host guided the family members to bow to the people coming all the way to our deceased family members or relatives. It's just like the repetitive scenes in the movie: People arrive at the shrine with the photo glued up there for you to tell whose funeral is, you need to hold the burning incense for seconds with three nods as the way of communicating with his or her spirit in heaven. My elder brother told me to say " Farewell, uncle, this is Brian, I am here to help you settle down for what you've left behind. We'll be watching over you remaining wife, children, and relevant business when you were away in heaven." That crept me over, but I still did it without hesitation. That's what we've been proclaiming " Our family Stick Together Regardless!" When we were born, we came to the world with nothing in hand. Since we've been working so hard to earn our share of benefits, it's widely acknowledged nothing can be taken away when we took the last breath." My heart sank in the whole process of participating in my second uncle's funeral and it served as wake-up call: What I've been doing in my life and whether I've brought joy in my family's life or not?" I couldn't help but ponder over it. Life is short, and how long have we spent dwelling on the past living in someone's life without realization. Things don't always go as the way we've thought about for long, right? Embrace what you are already have, and love people walking past you. You never know what will befall on us until the day God decides to take us back in the great heaven above. Don't be mad if you are not a Christian, I love your belief, and your God in all names.
「可以幫我去銀行跑跑腿嗎?」、「借錢?我都泥菩薩過江－自身難保了。」、「你拋棄式眼鏡不要戴太久! 」、「老是熬夜，難怪妳老是眼睛紅通通喔!」、「這杯咖啡也太燙了，我可是貓舌頭耶!」、「我真不敢相信那個歌手在演唱會對嘴。」、「千萬不要跟黃牛買票，這樣會助長歪風!」，這些標註字彙和片語都是同學已經學會的了嗎?
(A)跑跑腿: run an errand for something
She ran some errands in the bank during lunch break. (她趁午休時間到銀行處理點事情。)
(B) 泥菩薩過江: be caught up in someone's dramas.
After getting married, I found it really hard to talk to friends about my concerns because they were all caught up on their own dramas. (結婚後，要找到可以傾吐困擾的朋友少之又少，因為他們自己都有一堆事情要處理，根本自身難保。)
(C)拋棄式眼鏡: disposable contact lenses
There're a wide variety of disposable contact lenses available in the shops but it's a different story in American, for all consumers need to receive a formal eye-examination before an optometrist hands you the prescribed contacts. (在商店裡都有各式各樣的拋棄式眼鏡可選購，可是在美國你必須接受正式的驗光步驟，才可以拿到有度數的拋棄式隱形眼鏡。)
(D) 眼睛紅通通: blood-shot eyes
This year drew near to an end and most workers might either take work home or work overtime in their own cubicles till midnight. (今年要進入尾聲，許多上班族不是把工作帶回家繼續忙，不然就是在辦公室隔間裡奮鬥到半夜才回去。)
(E) 黃牛:scalper
Taiwanese tend to wait in the long line for some tickets, especially for concert tickets. Unfortunately, some scalpers attempted to purchase tickets in bulk and resell them on the internet with exorbitant prices. (台灣人常大排長龍買票，特別是演唱會的票；
(F) 做作: pretentious
People in Belgium consider French accent in Paris relatively pretentious. (比利時人認為法國人的法文腔調相當做作。)還記得老師在"薯條"的由來提到:比利時其實才是薯條的故鄉，而且也因為以法語為官方語言，才會有後來誤傳的現象呢!(rumor has it that the origin of French fries were rooted in Belgium instead of France. It's a controversial issue for long!)
<名人英文開講時間>:一向爭取人權和種族平等權力文明的美國社會，對於同性婚姻和相關法案仍存在相當大的爭議。目前為科技龍頭蘋果公司首席執行長公開出櫃，認為自己身為公眾人有其必要來為真正的平等和正義發聲，在許多人心中投下了震撼彈!
Throughout my professional life, I've tried to maintain a basic level of privacy. I come from humble (卑微的) roots, and I don't seek to draw attention to(吸引目光) myself. Apple is already one of the most closely watched companies in the world, and I like keeping the focus on our products and the incredible things our customers achieve with them.(回顧我的專業生涯中，我總對基本隱私相當重視。出身清寒，我也並不尋求太多關注，而蘋果電腦公司早已是世界上前景看好的公司之一，我也很喜歡專注於公司產品和客戶使用後能獲得的絕妙效果。)
At the same time, I believe deeply in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, who said: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" I often challenge myself with that question, and I've come to realize that my desire for personal privacy has been holding me back from doing something more important. That's what has led me to today.(在同時我也深信馬丁路德‧金恩博士曾說過:：「在人生最需持續和努力關注的問題就是"你曾為別人做過些什麼嗎?"」) 我常這麼自省且問著自己這件事情，也同時意識到在渴望更多個人隱私，讓我退怯而不去做更有意義的事情。這也是今天讓我站在這裡的原因。
For years, I've been open with many people about my sexual orientation (性取向). Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I'm gay, and it doesn't seem to make a difference in the way they treat me. Of course, I've had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation (創新) and knows it can only flourish (繁盛) when you embrace (擁抱) people's differences. Not everyone is so lucky.
While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged (承認) it either, until now. So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.(多年來我都和許多人公開我的性向，許多在蘋果公司的同事也知道我是同性戀者，但這並不改變她們對我的態度。當然，我也是非常幸運可以在這個熱愛創意和創新的公司上班，而且在包容彼此間的差異下更加壯大。但並不是每個人都像我這樣幸運。我從不否認我的性向，但我也從未公開承認，直到說話的這個當下。我想說的是:身為同性戀者我相當的驕傲，而且我認為身為同性戀者是上帝給我最棒的禮物之一。)
Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority (少數) and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It's made me more empathetic (有同理心的), which has led to a richer life. It's been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity (困境) and bigotry (偏執). It's also given me the skin of a rhinoceros (犀牛), which comes in handy when you're the CEO of Apple.(這讓我體察到少數族群的身分也可以讓我多了份挑戰去感受其他少數族群每日所經歷過的掙扎。這讓我變得更有同理心，也導向我更豐富的人生。每每感到人生的艱苦和難過，我也從中拾獲自信，去走出自己的道路，從困挫中學會堅強和些頑固。我常戲稱在擔任蘋果首席執行長時，這一切一切的過去讓我可以像有著犀牛皮般百毒不侵。)
The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out (出櫃) have helped change perceptions (觀感) and made our culture more tolerant. (從孩提時期開始，這世界變了很多。美國社會也提倡平等婚姻權和許多公眾人物勇敢出櫃改變社會觀點，也讓我們的文化更兼容並蓄。)Still, there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict (驅逐) tenants (房客) for being gay, or where we can be barred from visiting sick partners and sharing in their legacies. Countless people, particularly kids, face fear and abuse every day because of their sexual orientation(性向).(現行律法中有許多州，讓雇主可以僅因性向開除員工；甚至有些房東可以"依法"驅離同性戀房客，甚至也不能探視生病的伴侶或得到任何遺產。無數的人們，尤其是孩子每天都因為自己的性向而活在恐懼和暴力中。)I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice (犧牲) of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with (接受) who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy. The company I am so fortunate to lead has long advocated (倡導) for human rights (人權) and equality for all. We stood for marriage equality in our home state of California. We'll continue to fight for our values, and I believe that any CEO of this incredible company, regardless of (不顧) race, gender, or sexual orientation, would do the same. And I will personally continue to advocate for equality for all people until my toes point up.(公司可貴地倡導平等，而加州國會也如同我們支持同性婚禮立法及通過任何不受歧視的平等法案。在我們公司中任何的高級主管都會做一樣的事情，不管種族、性別、或性向，全力支持人權和提倡平等，直到盡了最後一份力氣。)
『本專刊內容由王軒老師提供，並與本社編輯部共同策畫製作』