Baldi's Book Club by Vincent DiPierro

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

Meeting 1 Date: Oct 5
Pages / Section: 5-60

Meeting 2 Date: Oct 17
Pages / Section: 61-116

Meeting 3 Date: Oct 25
Pages / Section: 117-172

Meeting 4 Date: Nov 3
Pages / Section: 173-224

NOTES

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Section/Pages: 61-116
Members Present: John Baldi, John DiMaggio, Jackson Bigeni

Discussion Highlights: John DiMaggio, Jackson Bigeni

- The boat will likely continue to breakdown because Tex seems to be super angry and almost wants to sabotage the crew for ripping on him so much.
- The book has sped up but is still relatively slow and goes into way too many philosophical analogies.
- The people living on the island of La Paz are really isolated from the rest of the world.
- The idea that it is good to kill the cormorants is illogical because they are part of the ecosystem God created and if anything we are the invaders on their ecosystem
- Charles Darwin really is the inspiration to all these naturalists as they continue to rave over him and wish they had the resources he does.

Agenda Topic 1: Jackson Bigeni

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“The end is clear and and very simple. But nothing in the lives of the bridge players is clean-cut and no ends are defined” I find this quote from the novel kind of inspiring as it is telling us that our futures aren’t set and they ultimately can change in an instance.

Agenda Topic 2

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“This was the botete, and our first experience with it. It is thought in La Paz that the poison concentrates in the liver and this part is used for poisoning small animals and even flies. We did not make this test, but we found botete everywhere in the warm shallow waters of the Gulf. Probably he is the most prevalent fish of all in lagoons and eel-grass flats. He lies on the bottom, and his marking makes him nearly invisible.”

This could potentially symbolize how we don’t see most threats, even if they could be a big issue. Referencing the last sentence, the fish might foreshadow further events, like an issue that they could not see coming or similar.

Agenda Topic 3: John DiMaggio

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

“Perhaps they are not civilized and do not know how valuable money is. The poor little savages seem not to have learned the great principle of cheating one another” This quote is saying that the less fortunate might not know as much and therefore we can’t assume their actions.

MEETING REFLECTION: John DiMaggio

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

1. We think that the imagery in this book is really impressive and the characters are actually funny.
2. Our discussion is going pretty well because our members are all reading the book so we all have knowledge upon what is going on.
3. We can improve on showing up to class because we are yet to have a full group as each time at least one member has been missing, causing everyone to have to do more work.

NOTES

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

Section/Pages: 117-172

Members Present: Jackson Bigeni, John Baldi, Vincent DiPierro

Discussion Highlights:

- The book is boring and very hard to get through.. a lot of unneccesary words and tangents.

- There are a lot of influential hidden themes in the book, but it would be better if things were more direct.

Agenda Topic 1

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Vincent DiPierro

Agenda Topic 2

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Jackson Bigeni

Agenda Topic 3

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Jonathan Baldi

MEETING REFLECTION

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

To make sure out last bookclub is successful we need full attendance and come to the class with the book almost complete. So at our last book club we can finalize our thoughts and opinions about the book.
We can all agree that the book is extremly wordy which ultimately makes it harder to read and pay attention. We also agreed how we dislike when the narrator goes off topic of the voyage and focus on other stuff.

NOTES

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

Section/Pages: 173-224

Members Present: John DiMaggio, Vincent DiPierro, John Baldi, Jackson Bigeni

Discussion Highlights:

- Overall, we felt that the book had many good highlights but was really slow and could have been 50-100 pages shorter

- The book had so many underlying messages that so much of it was not dedicated to the actual adventure and study

- The characters in the story offset each other well but we still do not understand how they were able to put up with one another

- We rate the book around a 6/10 because it had a good idea but did not really execute on it.

- Unless you are studying marine biologists, we would not recommend this book for the average person.

Agenda Topic 1

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Vincent DiPierro

Agenda Topic 2

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Jackson Bigeni

Agenda Topic 3

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

John DiMaggio

MEETING REFLECTION

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

1. We had full attendance for this meeting. In the future, it would be better if we were all here for all 4 meetings. We also think we could better split the work up between the members of the group in the future. However, we made good observations and highlights in our discussions.

2. A theme from this book is that regardless of how different everything in our world is, we are all united in some way and must show respect to one another.

NOTES

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

Section/Pages: 5-60
Members Present: Jack DiMaggio, Vincent DiPierro

Discussion Highlights: John DiMaggio
- The crew seems to enjoy traveling so long in the ocean with nothing to do
- The book has a lot of good aspects but is pretty slow
- Imagery is used basically every paragraph and really gives you a good grasp of what’s occurring
- The killing of the turtle was unnecessary and very dark
- We believe Tony and Sparky are going to mess up one of the courses again because of fishing but this time it will be disastrous

Agenda Topic 1: Vincent DiPierro

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Who is paying this crew and how are they funding so much for an expedition?

Agenda Topic 2: Vincent DiPierro

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Why is this crew doing this seemingly pointless research?

Agenda Topic 3: John DiMaggio

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What is the significance of personifying boats?

MEETING REFLECTION: Vincent DiPierro

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

1. Together, our book club are all reading and there is not that one person that is just doing their own thing and not caring.
2. We can improve on the meaningfulness of our discussions.
3. Something we all agree on is that the book has potential but it is pretty slow to begin

RULE 1

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Come prepared with book and observations

RULE 2

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Manage time wisely to read the correct pages before the meeting dates

RULE 3

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Equal amount of work spread throughout the group, meaning nobody does the bulk of the work.

MEMBERS

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Name: Johnathan Baldi
Email: 25020jb@chaminade-hs.org

Name: Jackson Bigeni
Email: 25470jb@chaminade-hs.org

Name: John DiMaggio
Email: 25101jd@chaminade-hs.org

Name: Vincent DiPierro
Email: 25103vd@chaminade-hs.org

BOOK TITLE/AUTHOR

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The Log From the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck

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EXIT SLIP

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https://forms.gle/cCJbHs6scjgEERui7

BOOK CLUB PROMPTS

25103vd — 2023-09-27 12:59:52 UTC

The Log From The Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck

25101jd — 2023-09-27 13:07:20 UTC

Agenda Topic 4

25020jb — 2023-11-03 13:39:40 UTC

Jonathan Baldi