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The Death of a Frog
青蛙之死 Once upon a time, there lived a man named Clarence who had a pet frog named Felix. Clarence lived a modestly comfortable existence on what he earned working at the Post Office, but he always dreamed of being rich.（注1） "Felix!" he said one day, hit by sudden inspiration（注2）, "We're going to be rich! I will teach you to fly!" Felix, of course, was terrified at the prospect.
"I can't fly, you nut! I'm a frog, not a canary!"（注3） So Felix went to a three-day course and learned about problem solving, time management, and effective communication（注5） - but nothing about flying. On the first day of the "flying lessons,"
Clarence could barely control his excitement (and Felix could barely
control his bladder（注6）). Clarence explained that their apartment building
had 15 floors, and each day Felix would jump out of a window, starting
with the first floor and eventually getting to the top floor.（注7） After
each jump, Felix would analyze how well he flew, isolate the most effective
flying techniques, and implement the improved process for the next flight.（注8）
By the time they reached the top floor, Felix would surely be able to
fly. Felix pleaded for his life, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.（注9）
"He just do With that, he threw Felix out the window - THUD! On the third day (at the third floor), Felix tried a different ploy: stalling.（注13） He asked for a delay in the "project" until better weather would make flying conditions more favorable. But Clarence was ready for him: He produced a time line and pointed to the third Milestone and asked. "You don't want to slip up the schedule, do you?"（注14） From his training, Felix knew that not jumping
today would only mean that he would have to jump TWICE tomorrow. So
he just muttered（注15）, "OK, yeeha, let's go." And out the
window he went. Now this is not to say that Felix wasn't trying his
best.（注16） On the fifth day he flapped his legs madly in a vain attempt
at flying.（注17） On the sixth day, he tied a small red cape around his
neck and tried to think "Superman" thoughts.（注18） It didn't
help. By the seventh day, Felix, accepting his fate, no longer begged
for mercy（注19）. He simply looked at Clarence and said, "You know
you're killing me, don't you?" Clarence pointed out that Felix's
performance so far had been less than exemplary（注20）, failing to meet
any of the milestone goals he had set for him. With that, Felix said
quietly, "Shut up and open the window," and he leaped out,
taking careful aim at the largejagged rock by the corner of the building.（注21）
Felix went to that great lilypad in the sky.（注22） Clarence was extremely
upset, as his project had failed to fly, he hadn't even learned to steer
his fall as he dropped like a sack of cement, nor had he heeded Clarence's
advice to "Fall smarter, not harder."（注23） The only thing
left for Clarence to do was to analyze the process and try to determine
where it had gone wrong. After much thought, Clarence smiled and said,
"Nex |