Hillbilly Elegy - Jan 28

The Marine Corps replaced it with something else, something that ________(厌恶借口).

“________(付出你的全部)” was a catchphrase, something heard in health or gym class.

But there’s something powerful about realizing that you’ve ________(低看自己)—that somehow your mind confused lack of effort for inability.

A few days after my twenty-third birthday, I ________(第一次买贵重物品) I’d ever made.

I witnessed ________(飞机失事后的严重后果) into a residential neighborhood.

Not long after I moved to Columbus, one of my best friends began working as ________(促销主管) for a local radio station, so I always knew what was happening around town and always ________(知道/了解) the city’s best events, from local festivals to VIP seating for the annual fireworks show.

My closest friends had already graduated or were about to, but many stayed in Columbus after graduation. Though I didn’t know it, I was witnessing a phenomenon that social scientists call “________(人才流失)”—people who are able to leave struggling cities often do, and when they find a new home with educational and work opportunities, they stay there.

________(without exception/every person in a group), all of them had found careers outside of their hometowns, and none of them had any interest in ever going back.

Now I paid my own bills and earned As in every class I took at my state’s ________(龙头大学).

I knew that Ohio State was ________(要么行动要么闭嘴) time.

I didn’t want to ________(做一份与我的“出身”相符合的工作).

Though the ________(退伍账单) paid for a significant chunk of my education, and Ohio State charged relatively little to an in-state resident, I still needed to cover about twenty thousand dollars of expenses on my own.

He was a good man, and I liked his politics, so when constituents called and complained, I tried to ________(解释他的立场).

After a few months at the Ohio Senate, as my bills piled up and I found fewer and fewer ways to ________(让我的收支平衡) (one can ________(鲜血) only twice per week, I learned), I decided to get another job.

He sternly told me that I should focus on my education and not ________(让打工分散注意力，阻碍我[的学习]).

I smiled, shook his hand, and said thanks, but I did not ________(听从他的建议).

I liked staying up late to work on assignments, waking up early after only three or four hours of sleep, and ________(表扬自己) for being able to do it.

I ignored him and kept on living as though ________(白加黑能治百病).

After a week of this, ________(我的尿液变成了恶心的棕色), and ________(我的体温高达华氏103°). I realized I might need to take care of myself, so I ________(喝了点泰诺), drank a couple of beers, and went to sleep.

I didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings, but the past had created rifts that would likely never go away.

I never confronted these demands head-on.

Addicts are ________(最为脆弱) during ________(情感上的艰难时刻), and I knew that I had the power to save her from at least some bouts of sadness.

The senators and policy staff debating the bill had little appreciation for the role of payday lenders in ________(地下经济) that people like me occupied.

To them, payday lenders were ________(像鲨鱼般的掠夺者), charging high interest rates on loans and exorbitant fees for ________(兑现支票).

One Friday morning I ________(拖延支付我的租金支票), knowing that if I waited another day, the fifty-dollar ________(滞纳金) would ________(产生/生效).

On that day, a three-day payday loan, with a few dollars of interest, enabled me to avoid ________(一大笔透支费).