Susan著 小哭译
从很小的时候起，我就一直对魔术很着迷。不像一些人只是观看表演就会心满意足，我是直到弄懂其中的秘密才肯罢休。我一直有着表演魔术的愿望，但是我没有为此做过什么……直到最近。最近，我一直在研究魔术，我觉得我现在应该属于“魔术业余爱好者”的行列、而不是“外行”了。
曾有一段时间我忘记了自己对魔术的兴趣儿，直到我在教会遇到了N。N真的是很擅长纸牌魔术，看他表演燃起了我自己去学魔术并娱乐大家的愿望。所以，对于我在第二季的PEP大作业（我在“八年级PEP小电影”那篇文章中解释过PEP），我选择了学习和研究魔术。
刚开始做调研时，我还以为自己已经了解了很多魔术呢。可事实证明我简直一无所知。我给自己定了一个高目标，却以为那会很容易实现，那目标真的有点高。当时我想在二个半月后，能够精确地抛纸牌、精通我所听过的所有花样洗牌（那时我只听过三个）以及学会五种好玩的戏法儿，可是最后我只是学会了五种好玩儿的戏法而已。然而，我学会了比花样洗牌和隐蔽手法更好更有用的东西：我发现了多姿多彩的魔术世界。
在一本叫做《魔术戏法概要》的书评中，我写了很多关于魔术世界和魔术师有多神秘的事儿，所以在这里我就不重复这些内容了。相应地，我倒是更想谈谈我是怎么找到这些信息的。刚开始时，我就是从图书馆借些关于魔术的书看。没多久我就发现这些书根本没什么用。它们没有给出一丁点儿关于魔术世界的信息，只有一些在聚会上逗逗六岁孩子的蹩脚把戏。于是我转去在线搜索“酷魔术戏法”，但那也并没有带来什么结果。然而我却意外地进入了魔术师论坛的页面，从那里才开始了一些真正酷的事情。
魔术师论坛带我找到了教给人们真正魔术戏法的三个精彩的油管子频道。说得更确切些，是纸牌戏法。这三个频道的三个负责人都是专业魔术师，几乎我现在会做的每一件事儿都是跟他们学来的。我们家的一个朋友送了《魔术戏法概要》一书给我，这本书引领我找到了更多的资源。随着学习的深入，我发现需要学习的东西越来越多。与魔术界大量的魔术师相比，我意识到自己是多么地渺小，他们几乎都比我强。我总是将自己与周围的同龄人相比，但事实上，我应该与那些真正的同龄人相比——那些同龄的魔术师。一开始变魔术，我就觉得有学不完的东西。
在学习和练习魔术的过程中，我遇到了几个困难。首先是到哪里去找魔术入门的资料。你可以从我前面的叙述中看到，我是花了不少时间才开启的这扇门。因为魔术世界保持着它固有的安静，所以开启这扇门对我来说很不容易。而才把门打开，另一个困难就迎面而来——我的手。我有着一双绝对的小手：从中指指尖到手腕只有6.5英寸（16厘米），从大拇指指尖到小拇指指尖只有7英寸（17.5厘米）。这对于纸牌魔术师可不是什么好消息。如果你有一双大手和修长的手指，你就会更容易操作纸牌，可是我一样也没有。然而，那也不是说我不能变戏法，那只是意味着我要加倍地努力才能够变出隐蔽的手法。最后要面临的困难是我自身——我是一个女生。女性魔术师不太常见，人们觉得女性不应该变魔术。我将不得不通过努力练习、提高水平去对付这类想法。
终于有一天该表演了。我决定先做一两个小戏法，然后再短暂地介绍一下我学习魔术的历程。很难选定做哪个魔术，因为我的ACE班级太大了（32个人），难以找到一个地方让每一个人都看得清楚。最后我在投影仪下面表演戏法，将整个过程都投射到墙上。我选择了一个最简单的戏法。这个戏法需要的手法最少、冒的风险也最小，并且还是迄今为止反响最酷的一个。我曾经在许多人面前表演过，所以在班级表演时我一点也不紧张。这个表演很完美。我的同学们感到非常不可思议，特别是那个被我叫上来帮忙的志愿者。
变完一个戏法之后，我就停下来开始讲演。我的讲演可没那么好。那天不是个讲演日，因为我肿起来的眼睛使我的脸看起来很怪很丑。我还漏掉了大把想讲的东西。要是可以重新来过就好了。不过，我想整个的汇报展示还是不错的。戏法的精彩弥补了讲演的不足，最后我得到了95分。与我上一季的116分相比，显然不是最好的，但也足够了。
那么，现在怎么样了呢？我已经完成了大作业，魔术这事儿我还有什么打算吗？是的，我并不想让自己所有的努力都仅仅是为了完成一个大作业。自从我由衷地喜欢上魔术后，我就想一直学下去。当我不用做上学、不用参加音乐舞台剧或者不用做其它事情时，我可以做个业余魔术师。我知道自己长大后不会成为一个专职的魔术师，但我至少可以将变魔术当成一个爱好。嗯，还有，希望将来有一天，我可以给N变个他也搞不懂的戏法儿。
【小哭介绍背景】为了把她介绍的魔术戏法译得准确一些，我还上网分别用中、英文各搜索了几个相关的概念。只有跟着Susan的文章，努力学习提高，才能真正跟得上她的生活。所谓和她一起成长，大概就是这样的吧？
她最后的作业展示成绩并不理想，确实有点遗憾。前一天晚上她哭过，现在我都忘记是什么事情引起的了。青春期的小女生，个性再强一点，有的时候发起脾气来，也是不管不顾的。我现在确实是发自内心里对她满意多了，所以，明显感觉自己不太计较她的一些小毛病了。可是Susan爸却把我放弃的那块捡了起来，怀疑那天跟爸爸有关系：（不管是跟谁有关系，主要是她情绪不稳在找碴儿。反正该睡不睡哭哭啼啼，最后受影响的是她自己。可是也没见她在作文中提到这块儿，估计是坏事不想说，要不就是忘性太大早已不记得了。
她文章中说上台帮她忙的志愿者，其实就是她以前说过的那个暗恋对象。不过，现在早已不是了：）好像有个朋友读完Susan写的关于几何课的文章跟我聊过这事儿，我说形势变化很快：）从她小时候起，已经对几个男生有过好印象了，所以这事儿在我眼里就是小事一桩。我问Susan为什么选这个男生上来帮忙，Susan说举手想帮忙的人太多了，而这个男生给出了一条非常棒的理由，说是他给Susan吃过那么多好吃的零食，对Susan那么好，就凭这一点就应该选他。于是Susan 说自己吃人嘴短，就把这个男生选上台了：）
那个魔术本身确实好玩儿，我们家感恩节和平安夜的聚会上，她都表演过，一些叔叔和阿姨不断地让她重演也没找到秘决儿：）人们就是觉得太不可思议了，我现在也不知道秘密是什么。魔术本身是叫一个人上台帮忙，随便猜她手上一叠纸牌的花色，一张张地猜，就是猜红或黑，要求两者数量基本上接近为好。等到最后，她一翻牌，志愿者真的每张都猜对了。要知道志愿者就是乱猜的，因为都是一样的背面图案，根本没看到里面的花色啊。后来Susan再表演，我们就让她选一对夫妻中似乎是“不够聪明”的一方上来帮忙，然后让“比较聪明”的一方看看，到底谁更聪明！
我对Susan这次选择变魔术为大作业，一直是欣赏和支持的。我喜欢她有创意，喜欢看着她从头到尾主动地利用一切可用的资源学习新东西，这个学习的过程在我眼里非常地可贵。她是真的着迷了，纸牌一天到晚不离手，现在也是这样，走到哪带到哪啊。并且还常常说，希望能够给她再买几付高质量的纸牌。可是爸爸问她当初的预算是怎么回事儿时，她说她也是从网上看到一付牌可以玩很长时间，哪想其实根本不是！这个冬天节日多，聚会多，有了Suasn的纸牌戏法，真的给我们带来了很多快乐！
她在变魔术上的雄心一直挺大的，不但如文中所述，没入门时给自己设定了一个比较高的目标；这次在家里的春节聚会上，她更是给自己设定了一个超高的目标——大变活人！还让不听指令的小宝配合！！最后，她在聚会前一晚宣布计划破产，一个大纸箱被她剪得破破烂烂地扔在客厅，自己回房间生气去了。最后的聚会上，她气得连纸牌戏法都没有给我们变：（她说网上的介绍，有的时候全是骗人的！看着视频似乎很容易，其实根本不是那么回事儿！！
第一季的PEP大作业，她拍了个小电影，带来了不少的好结果——让重组拍片俱乐部成为可能！让很多朋友能够看到她现在的生活！还给她在家旁边的C教会中找到了进入技术团队的契机！特别是最后一条，让我开心极了。她一直对橡树园教会念念不忘，搬家一年多了，我们时不时地就得送她回去参加活动。其实青少年组的活动哪里都有，可是她的心在那里，就排拆任何新找的教会。然而加入C教会的技术团队后，她马上就宣布喜欢上了C教会。她说以后每周日要提前一个半小时到教会服务，把大牧师在其它分场（比我们这里的分场要提前一个小时）的布道录下来，然后在我们这边播放。播放前，技术团队和乐队以及分区牧师这一组十几个人，会商量当天的礼拜程序细节，最后会牵手祷告，让她感觉自己一下子进入了教会“核心层”，肩上负着重要的责任。这个转变的过程要说清楚得写长长的一篇文章来讲述，这里就点到为止吧。
这第二季的PEP大作业，她也没准备做完拉倒，而是要将这一爱好进行到底。这一点我是相信她的，因为明摆着她的兴趣在那里，并且，随手带付纸牌没有什么难的，而且确实是在哪里都有人们闲着无聊可以用来娱乐的时光。总之，我觉得她选的大作业题目真的是相当地不错！投入的时间真不算少，但是值得！这第三季的大作业，她刚刚筹划完，动静是越来越大了，我这里就祝愿她这一季的大作业也会如她所愿地进展顺利！！不过就算是失败了，我想她也会写个小文进行总结的。
附上英文原文：
2nd Quarter PEP-Magic Tricks
From a young age, I’ve always been facinated with magic. Unlike some people who can just watch a show and be satisfied, I can never rest until I figure out the secrets. I’ve also always had a desire to perform magic too, but I didn’t give that desire much attention…until recently. Recently, I’ve been dabbling in magic, and I think I can now be classified as an “amateur magician” instead of a “layperson”.
I’ve forgotten about my interest in magic for a while, until I met a guy at my church. N’s really good at card magic, and seeing him perform rekindled my own desire to learn magic and amaze people. So, for my PEP project for the 2nd quarter (I explained about PEPs in my last writing about the 8th Grade PEP Video), I chose to study and research the subject of magic.
When I started researching, I thought I knew a lot about magic. Turned out I was completely clueless. I set a really high goal for myself, thinking that it would be easy to achieve it. It was way to high a goal. I wanted to be able to throw cards accurately, perfect all the flourishes I’ve ever heard of (I’ve only heard of three at that time), and learn five amazing tricks by the end of two-and-a-half months. Well, I ended up only suceeding with the five amazing tricks part. However, I learned something much better and much more useful than mere flourishes and sleight-of-hands: I discovered the diverse world of magic.
I talked a lot about how deep the world of magic and magicians is in my book review of “The Ultimate Compendium of Magic Tricks”, so I’m not going to repeat everything again. Instead, I’ll talk more about how I came to discover it. When I first started out, I started with library books. It didn’t take me long to realize that library books on magic are pretty much useless. They don’t contain any real information about the secrets of magicians, only lame party tricks that at best would fool a 6-year-old. So, I moved on to search “cool magic tricks” online. That didn’t bring many results. Through a stroke of luck, I landed myself in a magician forum page. That was when the really cool stuff started to happen.
The magician’s forum lead me to discover three wonderful YouTube channels that teaches real magic tricks. More specifically, card tricks. The three people who hosted those channels were professional magicians, and I learned almost everything from them. My family’s friend gave me a book about magic, and that book lead me to more resources. As I learned, I discovered more and more that I still had to learn. I realized how small I am compared to the vast community of magicians, most of whom are better than me. I keep on comparing myself to my peers around me, but in truth, I should have been comparing myself to my real peers—other fellow magicians. Once I started doing that, I realized that I still have a million thing to learn.
While I learned and practiced magic, I faced a few hardships. The first hurdle was about where I could find resources to begin studying magic. As you can see from what I wrote up there, it took me a while before I finally hit the jackpot. The magic community keeps itself pretty quiet, so it was hard to me to find a place to begin. Once I began, though, I faced another hardship: my hands. I have abnormaly small hands: barely 6.5 inches (16 cm) from wrist to tip of middle finger and 7 inches (17.5 cm) from thumb tip to tip of pinky. That’s not good for a card magician. It’s way easier to manipulate cards if you have big hands and long fingers, both of which I don’t have. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t do tricks, it just mean I’ll need a lot more practice before I can pull of a sleight-of-hand. The last hardship is myself: I’m a girl. Female magicians aren’t that common, and people don’t think of females the as the magician type. I’ll just have to work harder to get over that common belief.
Finally, the day of the class presentation came. I decided to do one or two tricks, and give a short speech about my journey to learn magic. It was hard to decide where to do the tricks, because my ACE class is really big (32 people) so it would be hard to find a spot where everyone can see clearly. I ended up doing the trick underneath the projector/camera thing, so my whole routine was projected onto the wall. I chose my simplest trick, the one with the least sleight-of-hands and the least risk, yet still has one of the coolest effects ever. I had performed that trick to a lot of people before, so I wasn’t very nervous when I performed it in class. The performance was perfect, and it left my classmates baffled, especially the volunteer I called up to help me do the trick.
I stopped after that one trick and gave my speech My speech wasn’t that good. It was a bad day for a speech, because my eyes were sort of swollen, giving a weird, ugly look to my face. I left out a bunch of stuff I wanted to say, and if I can redo it, I definitely would. However, I think the overall presentation was okay. The trick made up for the speech. I got a 95% on it. Not the best, compared to the 116% from my last PEP, but good enough.
So, what now? I’ve finished the project, how far do I want to take the magic thing? I don't want all my hard work to be just for a mere project. Since I really like magic, I think I’m going to continue to learn it. I want to be a magician in my spare time when I’m not doing school or the musical or other things. I know I won’t be a full-time magician when I grow up, but at the very least, I want to keep it as a hobby. And, of course, some day show N a trick he can’t figure out.