Double-Journal Entries

Passage | Response | 1. (Outliers) Page 19-20: Biologists often talk about the “ecology” of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. 2. (Outliers) Page 17: If you have ability, the vast network of hockey scouts and talent spotters will find you, and if you are willing to work to develop that ability, the system will reward you. Success in hockey is based on individual merit—and both of those words are important. Players are judged on their own performance, not on anyone else’s, and on the basis of their ability, not on some other arbitrary fact.Or are they? 3. (Life of Pi) Page 122: The poor dear looked so humanely sick! It is a particularly funny thing to read human traits in animals, especially in apes and monkeys, where it is so easy. Simians are the clearest mirrors we have in the animal world. That is why they are so popular in zoos. I laughed again. I brought my hands to my chest, surprised at how I felt. Oh my. This laughter was like a volcano of happiness erupting in me. And Orange Juice had not only cheered me up; she had taken on both our feelings of sickness. 4. (Life of Pi) Page 168: I had to devise a training program for Richard Parker. I had to make him understand that I was top tiger and that his territory was limited to the floor of the boat, the stern bench and the side benches as far as the middle cross bench. I had to fix in his mind that the top of the tarpaulin and the bow of the boat, bordered by the neutral territory of the middle bench, was my territory and utterly forbidden to him. 5. (Outliers) Page 45-46: “The challenge was that they gave all the students an account with a fixed amount of money, so your time would run out. When you signed on, you