Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice．Gifts are easy—they're given after all．Choice can be hard．

    I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago．I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2300 percent per year．I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast，and the idea of building all online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old，and I'd been married for a year．I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most start-ups don't and I wasn't sure what to expect．MacKenzie told me I should go for it．As a young boy，I'd been a garage inventor．I'd always wanted to be all inventor，and she wanted me to follow my passion．

    I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired．I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet．He took me on a long walk in Central Park，listened carefully to me，and finally said，“That sounds like a really good idea，but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job．”That 1ogic made some sense to me，and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision．Seen in that light,it really was a difficult choice，but finally，I decided I had to give it a shot．I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing．And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.

    After much consideration ，I took the less safe path to follow my passion ，and I'm proud of that choice．For all of us，in the end，we are our choice．

    It was a village in India. The people were poor. However, they were not unhappy. After all, their forefathers had lived in the same way for centuries.

    Then one day, some visitors from the city arrived. They told the villagers there were some people elsewhere who liked to eat frog's legs. However, they did not have enough frogs of their own, and so they wanted to buy frogs from other place.

    This seemed like money for nothing. There were millions of frogs in the fields around, and they were no use to the villagers. All they had to do was catch them. Agreement was reached, and the children were sent into the fields to catch frogs. Every week a truck arrived to collect the catch and hand over the money. For the first time, the people were able to dream of a better future.

    But the dream didn't last long. The change was hardly noticed at first, but it seemed as if the crops were not doing so well. More worrying was that the children fell ill more often, and, there seemed to be more insects around lately.

    The villagers decided that they couldn't just wait to see the crops failing and the children getting weak. They would have to use the money earned to buy pesticides(杀虫剂) and medicines. Soon there was no money left.

    Then the people realized what was happening. It was the frog. They hadn't been useless. They had been doing an important job—eating insects. Now with so many frogs killed, the insects were increasing more rapidly. They were damaging the crops and spreading diseases.

    Now, the people are still poor. But in the evenings they sit in the village square and listen to sounds of insects and frogs. These sounds of the night now have a much deeper meaning.

    My grandmother often said to me, “You can count the number of your true friends on the fingers of one hand.” For a long time I thought this was true. However, I've now discovered my grandmother was only half right. Maybe we do only make a few best friends in our lifetime, but those aren't the only people that we can call friends. There are many different types. Let me tell you about a few of them.

    One type of friends is the type I call the “football mom friend”. My neighbor Sally is a good example. We both have kids who play football in a football club, and someone has to take them to practice and pick them up. Sally and I and two other mothers take turns to do this. We meet sometimes and have tea and talk about what our kids are doing, but those are the only times that we meet each other. I enjoy being with these women, but we don't do anything else together.

    Another type is called the “hobby friend”. That's the person you share an interest or a hobby with. Michael and Cater, who are brothers, are a good example of this type. We're all in a bird watching club. Every few weekends the members of the club go on a trip to watch different kinds of birds. There's nothing romantic about my relationship with Michael and Cater, of course. We just share interest in birds.

    Then there's the “other half of the couple” type of friends. Jim is married to Rose, a friend that I've known since college. When Rose married Jim, I realized that I would have to be Jim's friend if I want to continue to be Rose's. Jim and I don't share so many interests, but we do have a friendly relationship.

    Minutes after the last movie ended yesterday at the Plaza Theater, employees were busy sweeping up popcorns and gathering coke cups. It was a scene that had been repeated many times in the theater's 75-year history. This time, however, the cleanup was a little different. As one group of workers carried out the rubbish, another group began removing seats and other theater equipment in preparation for the building's end.

    The film classic The Last Picture Show was the last movie shown in the old theater. Though the movie is 30 years old, most of the 250 seats were filled with teary-eyed audience wanting to say good-bye to the old building. Theater owner Ed Bradford said he chose the movie because it seemed proper. The movie is set in a small town where the only movie theater is preparing to close down.

    Bradford said that large modem theaters in the city made it impossible for the Plaza to compete. He added that the theater's location (位置) was also a reason. “This used to be the center of town,” he said. “Now the area is mostly office buildings and warehouses.”

    Last week some city officials suggested the city might be interested in turning the old theater into a museum and public meeting place. However, these plans were given up because of financial problems. Bradford sold the building and land to a local development firm, which plans to build a shopping complex on the land where the theater is located.

    The theater audience said good-bye as Bradford locked the doors for the last time. After 75 years the Plaza Theater has shown its last movie. The theater will be missed.

    When I was five or six years old, I remember watching TV and seeing other children suffer in other parts of the world. I would say to myself, "When I grow up, when I can get rich, I will save kids all over the world."

    At 17, I started my career here in America, and by the age of 18, I started my first charity organization. I went on to team up with other organizations in the following years, and met, helped, and even lost some of the most beautiful souls, tern six-year-old Jasmina Anema who passed away in 2010 from leukemia (白血病), whose story inspired thousands to volunteer as donors, to 2012 when grandmother lost her battle with cancer, which is the very reason and the driving force behind the Clara Lionel Foundation( CLF). We're all human. And we all just want a chance: a chance at life, a chance in education, a chance at a future, really. And at CLF, our mission is to impact as many lives as possible, but it starts with just one.

    People make it seem too hard to do charity work. The truth is, you don't have to be rich to help others. You don't need to be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated. But it starts with your neighbor, the person right next to you, the person sitting next to you in class, the kid down the block in your neighborhood. You just do whatever you can to help in any way that you can. And today, I want to challenge each of you to make a commitment to help one person，one organization，one situation that touches your heart. My grandmother always used to say, "If you've got a dollar, there's plenty to share."

In San Francisco, a large group of sea lions move themselves out of the bay waters and hang out on PIER 39, which is a popular tourist destination. According to dock（码头）officials, this is the most sea lions seen in the region in 15 years.

"Over 1,000 sea lions have been counted this week," PIER 39 harbormaster Sheila Chandor told many different media. "The surge in sea lions is usually a good sign of their strong population and healthy living environment," said Adam Ratner, Director of Conservation Engagement at the Marine Mammal（海洋哺乳动物）Center in Sausalito, California.

"California sea lions are sentinels（哨兵）of the ocean," Ratner said. Their population to some extent reflects the health of the ocean. Therefore, seeing a large number of California sea lions is clearly a good thing.

For nearly 35 years, the slippery（滑的）residents have been a star attraction for tourists. That autumn in 1989, PIER 39 had just been repaired, but the ships had not yet been moved back. At that moment, the sea lions' unexpected arrival not only attracted fans but also created enemies. According to a website, some dock residents and workers were scared away by the strong and very unpleasant smell and noise of their new neighbors, while others saw these animals as a bright spot after the destructive Loma Prieta earthquake.

The officials sought help from the Marine Mammal Center to find a way to deal with sea lions. Ratner said that the final decision is to let the sea lions stay and coexist with humans. "The fact proves that this is really a good thing," he said. "This is just a proof of how we can truly work together and think about how we can share our coasts with marine mammals and other wildlife in a way that benefits all the parties involved."