Chapter 8 Lost in games

Frosty has a special talent. She can hear people's thoughts when she wants to. 霜妹拥有一种特别的天赋：她若有意探听，便可听到别人脑海里的意念和心声。 One day about a month ago… 大约一个月前的某一天… That morning when my alarm went off, I woke up thinking about a video game. I was not feeling comfortable and had a little fever. 那天早上，闹钟一响我便醒了，满脑子都装着电子游戏。我有点发烧，身体不太舒服。 I had been feeling sick for several weeks. Mum had taken me to see a doctor when I had complained of a stomach ache the week before. The doctor had taken my temperature and checked my throat and X-ray. He then had said that I didn't seem to have the common cold, the flu or any other illness and didn't need to take any medicines. The doctor had advised me to take some physical exercise. 我已经生病好几个星期了。之前的那个星期，我抱怨胃疼，妈妈便带我去看了医生。医生给我量了体温，检查了喉咙，还照了x光。他说我这不像是普通感冒，也不是流感，更不像是其他疾病，不必吃药。他建议我多多锻炼身体。 It was true that I had stayed in my room all by myself too much. Mum had agreed with the doctor's advice that I should go out and have more activities. 我确实把自己关在房间太久了。妈妈赞成医生的建议，让我走出家门，多多参加活动。 I used to be an active person. At school, I had taken part in a training program practising basketball for fun. I had played the drums and wanted to learn guitar in a school band. I had joined a chess club and a chalk drawing club as well. But later on I found that my interests were changing. These things started getting boring to me. 我曾经非常活跃。在学校，出于乐趣，我参加过篮球训练项目；我还打过鼓，也曾想加入学校乐队，学弹吉他；我还加入了国际象棋俱乐部，粉笔画俱乐部。但后来，我发现自己的兴趣爱好一直变来变去，这些东西也开始变得乏味无趣。 Outside of school, like so many others, I had enjoyed going to the theatres from time to time to watch comedies and western cartoon movies. At times I had gone to piano and violin concerts with Mum and Frosty to listen to the musicians play. But then I did not get pleasure from these things any more. 在校外，我也和很多人一样，喜欢时不时去趟剧院，看场喜剧电影或西方卡通电影。有时，我还会和妈妈、霜妹一起去听钢琴、小提琴音乐会，聆听音乐家的演奏。但后来，我再也无法从这些事中得到一丝愉悦了。 I used to enjoy reading. I had read poems, the classics and especially fiction. Some of the novels that I had read a lot of pages. But then I started to get fed up with reading. 我曾经喜欢阅读。我读诗歌、读经典著作，还特别喜欢读小说，其中一些小说都是厚厚的一大本。但后来，阅读开始让我心生厌倦。 I also used to join some weekly church events and had done volunteer work helping disabled people. But then my loving spirit seemed to disappear. I began to hate things and quarrel with others. 过去，我还会参加教堂每周举行的活动，做过很多志愿工作，帮助残障人士。但是后来，我的爱心似乎消失得无影无踪。我开始有所憎恶，与人争吵。 So what had happened to me? To be honest, I had stayed in my room playing video games too much. It might play a big role in changing me. 所以我是怎么了？说实话，我总把自己关在房间里，一场接着一场打游戏。这可能是改变我的重要原因。 I turned off the alarm and got out of bed. I was thinking about a popular video game, but I knew I had to do my schoolwork. I needed to prepare for unit tests in biology and geography. I also had homework due the next day. It was for a composition course. After turning on the tape player to play some pop songs, I began to write. I finished five passages and checked the spelling and grammar in 30 minutes. Then I was thinking about the video game again. 我关了闹钟起床，脑中还在惦记着一款热门游戏，但我知道该写作业了。我需要准备生物和地理的单元测试，第二天还有作文课作业要交。我打开磁带机，一边听着流行音乐，一边写作业。半个小时我就写完了五个段落，并检查了拼写和语法。然后，我又想起了电子游戏。 Maybe I could take a break. I turned on the video game on my computer. At the moment, Frosty was walking into my room… 或许我可以稍稍休息一会儿。我便打开了电脑上的游戏。那时，霜妹走进了我的房间……