《ellen-杜兰大学毕业典礼演讲(中英-两版)》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《ellen-杜兰大学毕业典礼演讲(中英-两版)（5页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、Ellen 杜兰大学演讲Thank you, President Cowan, Mrs. President Cowen; distinguished guests, undistinguished guests - you know who you are, honored faculty and creepy Spanish teacher. And thank you to all the graduating class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover and have splitting headaches and havent
2、 slept since Fat Tuesday, but you cant graduate til I finish, so listen up. When I was asked to make the commencement speech, I immediately said yes. Then I went to look up what commencement meant. Which would have been easy if I had a dictionary, but most of the books in our house are Portias, and
3、theyre all written in Australian. So I had to break the word down myself, to find out the meaning. Commencement: common, and cement. Common cement. You commonly see cement on sidewalks. Sidewalks have cracks, and if you step on a crack, you break your mothers back. So theres that. But Im honored tha
4、t youve asked me here to speak at your common cement. I thought that you had to be a famous alumnus - alumini - aluminum - alumis - you had to graduate from this school. And I didnt go to college here, and I dont know if President Cowan knows, I didnt go to any college at all. Any college. And Im no
5、t saying you wasted your time, or money, but look at me, Im a huge celebrity. Although I did graduate from the school of hard knocks, our mascot was the knockers. I spent a lot of time here growing up. My mom worked at (? 估计是某家商店的名字) and I would go there every time I needed to steal something out of
6、 her purse. But why am I here today? Clearly not to steal, youre too far away and Id never get away with it. Im here because of you. Because I cant think of a more tenacious, more courageous graduating class. I mean, look at you all, wearing your robes. Usually when youre wearing a robe at 10 in the
7、 morning, it means youve given up. Im here because I love New Orleans. I was born and raised here, I spent my formative years here, and like you, while I was living here I only did laundry six times. When I finished school, I was completely lost. And by school, I mean middle school, but I went ahead
8、 and finished high school anyway. And I - I really, I had no ambition, I didnt know what I wanted to do. I did everything from - I shucked oysters, I was a hostess, I was a bartender, I was a waitress, I painted houses, I sold vaccuum cleaners, I had no idea. And I thought Id just finally settle in
9、some job, and I would make enough money to pay my rent, maybe have basic cable, maybe not, I didnt really have a plan, my point is that, by the time I was your age, I really thought I knew who I was, but I had no idea. Like for example, when I was your age, I was dating men. So what Im saying is, wh
10、en youre older, most of you will be gay. Anyone writing this stuff down? Parents? Anyway, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and the way I ended up on this path was from a very tragic event. I was maybe 19, and my girlfriend at the time was killed in a car accident. And I passed the acc
11、ident, and I didnt know it was her and I kept going, and I found out shortly after that, it was her. And I was living in a basement apartment, I had no money, I had no heat, no air, I had a mattress on the floor and the apartment was infested with fleas. And I was soul-searching, I was like, why is
12、she suddenly gone, and there are fleas here? I dont understand, there must be a purpose, and wouldnt it be so convenient if we could pick up the phone and call God, and ask these questions. And I started writing and what poured out of me was an imaginary conversation with God, which was one-sided, a
13、nd I finished writing it and I looked at it and I said to myself, and I hadnt even been doing stand-up, ever, there was no club in town. I said, Im gonna do this on the Tonight Show With Johnny Carson- at the time he was the king - and Im gonna be the first woman in the history of the show to be cal
14、led over to sit down. And several years later, I was the first woman in the history of the show, and only woman in the history of the show to sit down, because of that phone conversation with God that I wrote. And I started this path of stand-up and it was successful and it was great, but it was har
15、d, because I was trying to please everybody and I had this secret that I was keeping, that I was gay. And I thought if people found out they wouldnt like me, they wouldnt laugh at me. Then my career turned into - I got my own sitcom, and that was very successful, another level of success. And I thou
16、ght, what if they find out Im gay, then theyll never watch, and this was a long time ago, this was when we just had white presidents - this was back, many years ago - and I finally decided that I was living with so much shame, and so much fear, that I just couldnt live that way anymore, and I decided to come out and make it creative. And my character would come out at the same time, and it wasnt to make a political statement, it wasn
