Drinking Water and Failure at Life/飲料水、また人生自体を失敗する人

火曜日に奨学金を貰う為に試験を受けてみる。テストの内容には、俺がまだ勉強していない内容も有るので、今週末、月曜日まで、受験生生活を送る事にした。今日は、飯を食う時とランニングした時以外は部屋を出とらん。（ランニングも必要だよ。運動しないやつは勉強を上手に出来ない。）

でも流石に疲れて来た。だからちょっとブログでも書こうかと。

I'm in the middle of cramming for a test on Tuesday.  If I do well on it, I can get delicious cash payments every month for the next six months.  Unfortunately for me, some of the stuff in the test is stuff I haven't studied yet, so I'm in the midst of going over the chapters in the textbook I haven't done yet in the hope that I'll at least be sort of familiar with that stuff when it comes up on the test.  Actually, thinking back on it, I think this may be the first time in my life I've ever crammed for a test.  It kind of sucks.  I don't know how people I knew did this all the time in high school and college.

 蛇口からそのまま水が飲めると言う事を考えた事が有るのか？もしかして考えた事が無い人も少なくないかも。でも、台湾ではそれが出来ない。と言うか、飲む事が出来ない訳ではない。台湾の水道の水はそこまで汚くない。俺なら飲んだ事が有る。でもしない方がいいと言われている。そのため、大学の施設や寮などにこういう飲料水機械が普段に設備されている。熱湯と、お水と、まあまあ暖かいお湯、三つとも出して呉れる。これが寮に有るのは本当に助かる。もし無かったら、外の飲料水の自動販売機で瓶を満たすか、コンビニで買うしか無い。
At any rate, I'm taking a break from studying, so I'll introduce you to the exciting world of drinking water machines!  We in NYC rarely think about the fact that delicious, potable water comes out of our taps, fresh from the Catskills upstate.  It's pretty cool.  However, it's not like this everywhere in the world.  Even in the US, while tap water is considered potable just about everywhere, in some places it tastes a lot better than in others.  And outside the US, tap water is sometimes not meant for drinking.  In Taiwan everyone recommends that you not drink the water.  It's not horribly dangerous or anything.  You can use it to brush your teeth, you can even drink it if you want, it's just not recommended that you use it as your primary source of drinking water.  For that we have machines like the one above.  Public buildings, like the ones at the university here, just about always have these.  My dorm also has one on each floor.  It dispenses water in three flavors: cold, hot and boiling.  That last one means it can be used to make instant ramen, the easiest of foods on this earth to make.

昨日、水を汲みに行った時、この風景を見た。（「汲みに行った」っておかしいかな。でも現代的には合っているだろう。）上の写真にも、下の写真にも見えると思うけど、インスタントラーメンの麺が散らかっている。というのは、誰か、この寮に住んでいる人の中に、つまり、大学試験を受かって進学した人間の中には、インスタントラーメンすら失敗せずに作れない人も居るって意味に成る。なんで！？インスタントラーメンを作るの失敗するのか？誰？マジで誰？お願いね。小学校に戻ってもう一回義務教育を受けて呉れん？なんでこがん麺の散らかっとっと？どうしてこがん状況に成ったと？というか、片付けろ。腹立つさぁ。
And yet, what do we have here?  Look carefully at the two photos.  Do you see instant ramen noodles scattered about?  What we have here is the ultimate in Failure At Life.  Some guy--in college, possibly graduate school--went to the machine to make instant ramen, and was unable to do so without experiencing failure.  Look at the photos again.  There's failure everywhere, scattered all over the machine's drain and the floor in the form of instant ramen noodles.  How do you fail at instant ramen!?  If you can't make instant ramen right, then what can you do?  Anything?  (At the very least, if you're a moron and get noodles everywhere, could you at least clean up after yourself?  Or call your mom and have her come down and do it for you.)

ああ！すっきりした！勉強頑張ろう！
At any rate, thank you for reading my kvetch.  I need to get back to studying now though.