美国教授“最后一课”感动千万人

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美国教授“最后一课”感动千万人

张放

看到下面一则报道，内心受到触动。于是，赶快找来视频内容，并在新浪博客篇幅允许的氛围内，把前面的部分内容给翻译过来。供大家先感受感受。报道内容我做了部分改动_____张放按

（华盛顿综合电）美国一名电脑系教授兰迪·波斯在获知自己患上末期癌症几周后，发表了励志感人的讲座“最后一课”，因而举世闻名。他所任教的卡耐基·梅隆大学说，波斯于上个星期五（也就是2008年7月25日）在维吉尼亚州的家中，因胰脏癌并发症逝世，终年48岁。医生在去年8月诊断他只剩下3到6个月的生命时间，不过，他却比医生所预测的多活了5个月。波斯从1997年起，就在卡耐基·梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)担任电脑科学系讲师。他也是虚拟科技的先锋，并且还撰写了《世界百科全书》的“虚拟科技”条目。
　　
波斯去年9月18日，在得知自己患上晚期胰脏癌，生命只剩下几个月之际，在卡耐基·梅隆大学做了“最后一课”的讲座。卡耐基·梅隆大学时常会邀请校内教授，针对“如果只能讲最后一堂课，要把什么智慧留给世人”的课题发表演讲。波斯接下任务后不久，就知道自己患上了重病。面对几百名学生，同事及朋友，波斯在演讲里侃侃而谈，他谈自己学习到的人生哲理。他原本希望把演讲录下来留给自己三个年幼的孩子日后观看，作为他们人生的指引。没想到，演讲录像被人放在网上，立即吸引了大批网民浏览。截至上星期五为止，单单是YouTube视频的点击率，已经有超过500万人次。卡耐基·梅隆大学说，目前已有几千万美国人在网上观看了波斯的演讲。

波斯在全长76分钟的演讲中，以积极语调及幽默的言语谈及自己童年时的梦想，包括撰写《世界百科全书》中的条目、体验零吸引力的环境及成为橄榄球联盟球员。这些梦想大多数都实现了，不过，无法实现的梦想却让他学习到更多。《洛杉矶时报》报道说：“那次的演讲让他闻名世界。……他让人看到了他如何鼓励同事及学生继续完成伟大的事迹。由于他演讲时的真挚，因此许多人大受感动。”

他在同家人度最后一个万圣节时，带领妻子和三个孩子打扮成卡通人物“超人特工队”队员。他一直很快乐地走到了上周五的日子，完成了自己的全部人生之旅。正如他自己所说：“我们无法改变命运，只能决定要如何过日子。”

下面就是他在视频及前一部分的文字内容和我的匆忙下翻译的译文。
   
It’s wonderful to be here. What Indira didn’t tell you is that this lecture series used to be called the Last Lecture. If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be? I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it.
能在这里真太棒了。不过主持人没告诉你们的是，这个系列讲座题目，之前是定为“最后一课”的。就是，人临终前给大家上的最后一课，这课里你会讲什么内容。我想，这下见鬼了，我终于找对了地方，可他们又改名了。（叫“旅程系列”）。

So, you know, in case there’s anybody who wandered in and doesn’t know the back story, my dad always taught me that when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce them. If you look at my CAT scans, there are approximately 10 tumors in my liver, and the doctors told me 3-6 months of good health left. That was a month ago, so you can do the math. I have some of the best doctors in the world. 所以，你看，我就怕万一有人随便走进来，却不知道背景故事就不好了。我父亲总是教导我说，如果有事情在眼前，没有办法忽略的话，那就把事情合盘托出好了。大家看一下给我做的电脑CT，我的肝脏里有大概十个肿瘤了，医生跟我说，我的身体还能保持健康状态3到6 个月。说这话时是一个月前的事儿，所以诸位可以算一下我还有多长时间保持健康状态。给我看病的那些医生，都是世界上最好的医生了。

So that is what it is. We can’t change it, and we just have to decide how we’re going to respond to that. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you. And I assure you I am not in denial. It’s not like I’m not aware of what’s going on. My family, my three kids, my wife, we just decamped. We bought a lovely house in Chesapeake, Virginia, near Norfolk, and we’re doing that because that’s a better place for the family to be, down the road. And the other thing is I am in phenomenally good health right now. I mean it’s the greatest thing of cognitive dissonance you will ever see is the fact that I am in really good shape. In fact, I am in better shape than most of you. So anybody who wants to cry or pity me can come down and do a few of those, and then you may pity me.
所以，情况就是这样。没法改变了，我所能做的，就是要决定如何因应这个现实。人不能改把手里的牌给换掉，而只能把打牌的方法给改变一下喽。所以，如果有人看我不够沮丧或没有愁容满面的话，抱歉，让诸位失望了。不过，我向你们保证，我不是眼不见为净，不是不知道我的身体里正发生着什么事。我的家人，三个孩子，太太，我们刚刚搬了家。我们在弗吉尼亚州诺福克附近的切萨皮克，买了一幢漂亮的房子。之所以要这么做，是因为那里更好，更适合我们家的未来。另外的原因就是，我现在仍然健康如常。我是说，这种状况是诸位看到的最了不起的事情，我现在身体非常好。事实上，现在的我，比你们大部分人都更都健康。所以要是有人想哭，或可怜我，可以先下来做几个这个附卧撑，然后可怜我不迟。

All right, so what we’re not talking about today, we are not talking about cancer, because I spent a lot of time talking about that and I’m really not interested. If you have any herbal supplements or remedies, please stay away from me. And we’re not going to talk about things that are even more important than achieving your childhood dreams. We’re not going to talk about my wife, we’re not talking about my kids. Because I’m good, but I’m not good enough to talk about that without tearing up. So, we’re just going to take that off the table. That’s much more important. And we’re not going to talk about spirituality and religion, although I will tell you that I have experienced a deathbed conversion: I just bought a Macintosh！ Now I knew I’d get 9% of the audience with that. But, all right, so what is today’s talk about then? It’s about my childhood dreams and how I have achieved them.
好吧，那么，今天我们不谈点什么呢？我们不谈点癌症吧。因为我已花了太多时间谈它，已经没兴趣了。如果在座的诸位，有谁说有什么辅助草药或神奇疗法的话，求你了，请别过来。我们也不谈比实现童年梦想更重要的事，也不谈我妻子，不谈我孩子。因为我还健康，问题是我还没健康到谈起他们会不崩溃的状态。所以，就干脆把谈他们的话题搁置不提罢。做到这一点，非常非常重要。另外呢，我们也不谈精神与宗教，不过，我要告诉诸位的是，我已在我的病榻上，做了皈依：刚买了台苹果电脑！现在我知道了，这样说，我会得到在座的9％的听众的支持。好了，言归正传吧。那么，今天到底我要谈些什么呢？就谈童年梦想，以及如何实现那些梦想的事情吧。

I’ve been very fortunate that way. How I believe I’ve been able to enable the dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons learned. I’m a professor, there should be some lessons learned and how you can use the stuff you here today to achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older, you may find that enabling the dreams of others thing is even more fun.
这一点上，我一直很幸运。我要谈为什么我相信我一直能使别人的梦想成为现实，我也要从某种程度上谈些经验教训。我是个教授，本来就该有些经验教训的，这样诸位也可以用今天听到的，去实现你的梦想，或者使别人实现梦想。等你老时，你可能会发现，帮别人圆梦，也许更让人乐在其中。

So what were my childhood dreams? Well, you know, I had a really good childhood. I mean, no kidding around. I was going back through the family archives, and what was really amazing was, I couldn’t find any pictures of me as a kid where I wasn’t smiling. And that was just a very gratifying thing. There was our dog, right? Aww, thank you. And there I actually have a picture of me dreaming. And I did a lot of that. You know, there’s a lot of wake up’s! It was an easy time to dream. I was born in 1960. When you are 8 or 9 years old and you look at the TV set, men are landing on the moon. Anything’s possible, and that’s something we should not lose sight of, that the inspiration and the permission to dream is huge.
那么我的童年梦想是什么呢？这个么，要知道，我的童年时光非常幸福。我是说，没开玩笑，当我回首往事，看家里的收藏时，我惊喜地发现，我居然找不到任何一张我小时候不带笑容的照片。这真是太让我感到满意的一件事了。这是我们家的狗，对吧？噢，谢谢。事实上，我居然有张憧憬梦想的照片。我做了很多梦。当然，也有很多梦醒时分！那时太容易梦想了。我是1960年出生的。到八九岁时，就看电视。播放的是人类登月啊，一切都有可能啊，天下无难事什么事都能做到啦，这个也值得一看，梦想激情巨大。

So what were my childhood dreams? You may not agree with this list, but I was there. Being in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia – I guess you can tell the nerds early. Being Captain Kirk, anybody here have that childhood dream? Not at CMU, no. I wanted to become one of the guys who won the big stuffed animals in the amusement park, and I wanted to be an Imagineer with Disney. These are not sorted in any particular order, although I think they do get harder, except for maybe the first one.
那么，我的童年梦想到底是什么啊？你可能对我下面列的单子不认同，但我当时就有这样的梦想啊。（我的梦想有：）体验零重力，参加全美橄榄球联盟，给《世界百科全书》写篇文章__我想很早我就表现出了有点古怪的一面喽。还有当柯克船长，在座诸位有谁也有过这个童年梦想吧？卡耐基·梅隆大学里没有，没有。我当时还想成为游乐园里赢得大毛绒玩具动物的那个人，也想过成为迪士尼的“幻想工程师”。这单子并不按什么特定顺序排列，尽管我觉得每个梦想实现起来都很不易，可能第一个梦想除外吧。

OK, so being in zero gravity. Now it’s important to have specific dreams. I did not dream of being an astronaut, because when I was a little kid, I wore glasses and they told me oh, astronauts can’t have glasses. And I was like, mmm, I didn’t really want the whole astronaut gig, I just wanted the floating. So, and as a child, prototype 0.0.
好，就说说（第一个梦想）体验零重力吧。究竟有什么具体梦想，这很重要。当时，我没有梦想成为宇航员，因为我从小就戴眼镜。他们告诉我说，哦，宇航员是不戴眼镜的。我想，嗯，其实我也并不一定真想当什么宇航员喽，我想要的，就是自由飘浮吧。因此，作为一个孩子，原型0.0。

But that didn’t work so well, and it turns out that NASA has something called the Vomit Comet that they used to train the astronauts. And this thing does parabolic arcs, and at the top of each arc you get about 25 seconds where you’re ballistic and you get about, a rough equivalent of weightlessness for about 25 seconds. And there is a program where college students can submit proposals and if they win the competition, they get to fly. And I thought that was really cool, and we had a team and we put a team together and they won and they got to fly. And I was all excited because I was going to go with them.
但那东西不灵。后来知道美国宇航局有种用来训练宇航员的飞机，叫“呕吐彗星”。它以抛弧线飞行，从每个弧顶起，大约25 秒的时间，开始弹道式俯冲，大致相当于失重25 秒。宇航局有个项目，大学生可以就此项目提出各种建议，如果建议得到高分，就能上去飞一把。当时我觉得，这太“酷”了。我们就组织个团队，整个团队一起往上拼，结果赢得高分，获准去飞。我太兴奋了，因为我将跟他们一起去飞啊。

And then I hit the first brick wall, because they made it very clear that under no circumstances were faculty members allowed to fly with the teams. I know, I was heartbroken. Right. I was like, I worked so hard! And so I read the literature very carefully and it turns out that NASA, it’s part of their outreach and publicity program, and it turns out that the students were allowed to bring a local media journalist from their home town. And, Randy Pausch, web journalist. It’s really easy to get a press pass!
接下来，我首先遇到了难题。宇航局明文规定，教员不能跟学生团队一起飞。我知道，我伤心透了。我想，我投入了那么多心血！所以，我逐条又把规定读了一遍，原来宇航局有一个推广宣传项目，允许学生从家乡带名当地媒体记者。好了，兰迪·波斯，网站记者。弄个记者通行证，那是很容易的事情！

So I called up the guys at NASA and I said, I need to know where to fax some documents. And they said, what documents are you going to fax us? And I said my resignation as the faculty advisor and my application as the journalist. And he said, that’s a little transparent, don’t you think? And I said, yeah, but our project is virtual reality, and we’re going to bring down a whole bunch of VR headsets and all the students from all the teams are going to experience it and all those other real journalists are going to get to film it.
于是我就打电话给宇航局说，我要知道把文件传真过去的地点是哪儿。那边问，你要给我们传真什么文件？我说，是我当团队顾问的辞职书，还有当记者的申请书。他说，你不觉着这么办有点太露骨了吗？我说，没错，但我们的项目是个虚拟现实，我们还得带去一大堆虚拟现实头盔，所有要去的学生都要全部感受一下。还有那些真的记者得把一切给拍下来啊。

Jim Foley’s going on you bastard, yes. And the guy said, here’s the fax number. So, and indeed, we kept our end of the bargain, and that’s one of the themes that you’ll hear later on in the talk, is have something to bring to the table, alright, because that will make you more welcome. And if you’re curious about what zero gravity looks like, hopefully the sound will be working here. There I am. You do pay the piper at the bottom. So, childhood dream number one, check.
下面坐着的我哥们儿，吉姆·法利要不行了，好。就听那边的人说，那你记一下传真号码吧。所以，的确，我们得到了想要的一切，这一点是等一会儿在我的演讲中，你们会听到的主题之一，就是手上要有货，这样你就会更受欢迎。如果你对零重力会是什么样子感到好奇的话，我估计下面这个声响会帮助你弄清楚它是怎么回事的。这是我。我得为自己的行为付出代价。结果，童年第一个梦想，画钩结束。

OK, let’s talk about football. My dream was to play in the National Football League. And most of you don’t know that I actually – No. No, I did not make it to the National Football League, but I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish.
好吧，咱们再谈谈橄榄球。我那时的梦想，是要参加全国橄榄球联盟。你们大部分人根本不知道我实际上——哦，不，还是不说了。我没能实现参加全美橄榄球联盟的梦想。但从这梦想中，我得到的收获，恐怕比我全部实现了的梦想中得到的还要多。

I had a coach, I signed up when I was nine years old. I was the smallest kid in the league, by far. And I had a coach, Jim Graham, who was six-foot-four, he had played linebacker at Penn State. He was just this hulk of a guy and he was old school. And I mean really old school. Like he thought the forward pass was a trick play. And he showed up for practice the first day, and you know, this big hulking guy, we were all scared to death of him.
我有一个教练。我是9 岁时开始训练的。球队里，当时我最小。我有个名叫吉姆·格雷厄姆的教练，他身高六英尺四，他以前在宾夕法尼亚州立大学打线卫。他大块头，又很传统。我是说，他非常古板。因为他认为前传球，那就是在使诈计。第一天练习时他来了，他块头那么大, 我们见了都怕得要死。

And he hadn’t brought any footballs. How are we going to have practice without any footballs? And one of the other kids said, “Excuse me coach, but there’s not football.” And Coach Graham said, “Right, how many men are on a football field at a time?" "Eleven on a team, twenty-two. ” Coach Graham said, “All right, and how many people are touching the football at any given time?" "One of them. ” And he said, “Right, so we’re going to work on what those other twenty-one guys are doing.” And that’s a really good story because it’s all about fundamentals. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.
他手上没带任何橄榄球来。没球怎么练呢？有个小孩子就说，“对不起, 教练，我们没球啊。”教练格雷厄姆就说，“是啊，每次球场上要上多少人呢？”“一方11个人，总共22个人。”教练格雷厄姆说，“好，那全场的每时每刻，有几个人在摸球？”“22个人中，只有一个人在摸。”他说，“对，所以，那咱们就把精力集中到其他这21个人上面，看这21个人应该怎么做。” 这是一个很精彩的故事，因为它讲的都是最基本的。最基本的，最基本的，还是最基本的事情。必须先把基本的练好，否则玩花拳秀腿肯定不行。

And the other Jim Graham story I have is there was one practice where he just rode me all practice. “You’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you’re doing push-ups after practice.” And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said, “yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he?” I said, “yeah.” He said, “that’s a good thing.” He said, “when you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up.” And that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. Is that when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
吉姆·格雷厄姆还有个段子。有一次训练，他就盯上我了。“你这样做不对，这样做还不对，回去再做一遍，你这可不成，训练结束后，再做些俯卧撑吧。”后来训练结束，过来一位助理教练，他说，“教练格雷厄姆对你挺严格，是吧？”我说，“是啊。”他说，“这是好事。”他说，“假如你搞砸了，可边上连个多说你几句话的人都没有的话，那就意味着，人家已经把你放弃了。”这成为了我一生铭记的话：就是说，当你看到自己把事情搞糟了，却没人劳神批评你时，你的处境就很不妙了。有人在边上批评你，那说明人家仍然爱你，在意你。

教师之友网

（续前《美国教授“最后一课”感动千万人 第一部分》）
After Coach Graham, I had another coach, Coach Setliff, and he taught me a lot about the power of enthusiasm. He did this one thing where only for one play at a time he would put people in at like the most horrifically wrong position for them. Like all the short guys would become receivers, right? It was just laughable. But we only went in for one play, right? And boy, the other team just never knew what hit ‘em them. Because when you’re only doing it for one play and you’re just not where you’re supposed to be, and freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, boy are you going to clean somebody’s clock for that one play.
格雷厄姆教练走了以后，又来了位教练，叫赛特利夫，正是他教会我懂得了什么叫激情的力量。他偶尔会这样做：把场上所有选手都安排在最不恰当的位置。比如，让所有矮个儿都充任接球手什么的，对吧？那效果太搞笑了。不过，我们就这么着打了一场比赛，对吧？天哪，给对手真来个措手不及。因为，你只这么着打一场比赛，你又根本不打平时的位置，那就意味着，你已经无所顾忌了，因为你没有什么损失的了。哎呀，这样的比赛中，就只剩下痛扁对手了。

And that kind of enthusiasm was great. And to this day, I am most comfortable on a football field. I mean, it’s just one of those things where, you know, if I’m working a hard problem, people will see me wandering the halls with one of these things, and that’s just because, you know, when you do something young enough and you train for it, it just becomes a part of it. And I’m very glad that football was a part of my life. And if I didn’t get the dream of playing in the NFL, that’s OK. I’ve probably got stuff more valuable. Because looking at what’s going on in the NFL, I’m not sure those guys are doing so great right now.
由此带出的那种激情太棒了。直到今天此时，我仍然会感到，只要身在橄榄球场地，就十分惬意。我意思是说，橄榄球已经成了我的一个东西，我是说，如果我遇到什么难题要冥思苦索时，你就会发现我在很多走廊里，拿个橄榄球，走来走去。就是因为，你知道，人在年轻时做过什么很有趣的事情，再为此受过什么训练的话，那这个事情就会成为生活中的一个自然组成部分。我很高兴的是，橄榄球成了我生命中的一部分。假如我当时没有梦想要到全国橄榄球联盟打球的话，那橄榄球也就不算什么了。可能我会弄点更有价值的事情做吧。因为只要看看现在橄榄球联盟里发生的一切，我也不觉得那些伙计们玩得有多好。

OK, and so one of the expressions I learned at Electronic Arts, which I love, which pertains to this, is experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And I think that’s absolutely lovely. And the other thing about football is we send our kids out to play football or soccer or swimming or whatever it is, and it’s the first example of what I’m going to call a head fake, or indirect learning. We actually don’t want our kids to learn football. I mean, yeah, it’s really nice that I have a wonderful three-point stance and that I know how to do a chop block and all this kind of stuff. But we send our kids out to learn much more important things. Teamwork, sportsmanship, perseverance, etcetera, etcetera. And these kinds of head fake learning are absolutely important. And you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere.
好，那么我从电子艺术公司里学了个词儿，我很喜欢，也跟今天的讲座相关，就是：“所谓经验，就是你渴望求得而不成的收获”。我想，这个表述太有可爱了。另外还是橄榄球的事儿，我们把孩子送去打橄榄球，或踢足球，或练游泳，或干什么运动项目，这其实就是我称为“障眼法”，或叫“间接学习”的第一个例子。事实上，我们本身并不是想让孩子们打橄榄球。我是说，是啊，我的获三分的触地姿式很带劲儿，我也很会玩膝下阻挡，还会玩很多这种小技巧。但是，我们让孩子去学橄榄球，其实是要他们学更重要的东西：团队合作，体育精神，毅力，等等，等等。当然，橄榄球的那些技法学习还是绝对重要的。注意留意就是了，那些技法在哪儿都能发现。

All right. A simple one, being an author in the World Book Encyclopedia. When I was a kid, we had the World Book Encyclopedia on the shelf. For the freshman, this is paper. We used to have these things called books. And after I had become somewhat of an authority on virtual reality, but not like a really important one, so I was at the level of people the World Book would badger. They called me up and I wrote an article, and this is Caitlin Kelleher [shows slide of Caitlin wearing VR headset manipulating a 3D world], and there’s an article if you go to your local library where they still have copies of the World Book. Look under V for Virtual Reality, and there it is. And all I have to say is that having been selected to be an author in the World Book Encyclopedia, I now believe that Wikipedia is a perfectly fine source for your information because I know what the quality control is for real encyclopedias. They let me in.
好，说下一个梦想。很简单，想当《世界百科全书》作者。我还小时，书架上就摆着《世界百科全书》了。对大一学生来说，它们只是纸。（笑声）我们以前把这些东西叫做书。只是当我成了虚拟现实的某种权威时，其实根本不是什么真正权威，我就一下了成了《世界百科图书》要打扰的人了。他们给我打电话，然后，我就写了篇文章，画面上这位叫凯特琳.凯乐荷。你要是到当地图书馆查，找到有的图书馆还收藏这百科全书的话，那你就可以看到这篇文章，看V 字母下面的“虚拟现实”词条，它就在那里。我要说的是，我居然给选为《世界百科全书》作者，那我现在相信，“维基百科”对诸位来说，绝对是个优质的资讯来源，因为，我知道，现实版的《百科全书》的质量控制水平是什么样的。他们让我去写的。

All right, next one. At a certain point you just realize there are some things you are not going to do, so maybe you just want to stand close to the people. And I mean, my god, what a role model for young people. I mean, this is everything you want to be, and what I learned that carried me forward in leadership later is that, you know, he wasn’t the smartest guy on the ship. I mean, Spock was pretty smart and McCoy was the doctor and Scotty was the engineer. And you sort of go, and what skill set did he have to get on this damn thing and run it?
好，下一个梦想。（笑）人有时侯会意识到，有些事情是不能去做的，所以，你可能就是想跟那些做了那些事的人站在一起而已。我是说，天哪，我真成了年轻人的楷模。（笑）我是说，这就是你要成为的一切。我学到的，后来又因此使我成为领袖的是，其实，他不是船
上最聪明的家伙。我是说，有个斯波克相当聪明，有个麦科伊是个医生，还有斯科特是个工程师。我就会想，他到底有什么能耐，就当了船长还指挥着一切呢？

And, you know, clearly there is this skill set called leadership, and, you know, whether or not you like the series, there’s no doubt that there was a lot to be learned about how to lead people by watching this guy in action. And he just had the coolest damn toys! I mean, my god, I just thought it was fascinating as a kid that he had this thing and he could talk to the ship with it. I just thought that was just spectacular, and of course now I own one and it’s smaller. [takes out cell phone] So that’s kind of cool.
你知道吗，显然，他有种能耐，那叫“领袖特质”，而且，不管你喜不喜欢这电视系列剧，毫无疑问，看他的所作所为，就能学到很多如何领导别人的能耐。而且，他居然手上有最酷的玩具！（笑）我是说，天哪，我小时候就想过，要是有他手上那玩艺儿，得多神奇。他拿着它跟船上所有人说话。我那时就想，那也太奇妙了，当然，现在我自己就有一个，比船长的那个还小呢。所以，挺酷。