Chapter 7

Today I was stuck in a car for ten hours. Besides sleeping, I decided to be productive and read chapter seven. I'm very lucky that I did this because I just found out that I'm supposed to blog chapter seven this week. So that was a win, a being-bored-in-a-car-stuck-in-traffic-win. The beginning of chapter seven was the most interesting to me because I thought it was very fascinating how he got to see an animal be built. I totally would have loved to have seen that. Anyways I soon found myself completely engrossed into this chapter unlike the other ones. He wrote masterfully, asking and answering questions that I too was wondering myself. Not even the nagging of my mom to warn me about car sickness or the roaring of my Ipod could distract me from the book. (And yes my Ipod blasting music while my mother was yelling at me was no coincidence.)I really was blown away by the "earth year" time scale of the history of life. It was really hard for me to fathom how us humans have barely just arrived on December 31st. It puts the antiquity of our planet into perspective for me. The bridge analogy helped me understand the human skeleton a lot better. He explained it well and described the different functions between collagen and hydroxypatite. Shubin is very straightforward explaining the functions without getting too elaborate. I appreciate that being an impatient person. I enjoyed The Blob reference he made because it allowed me to visualize the placozoans. Also I enjoyed the Fargo reference. I love classic movies and pop culture references and by him writing in some makes the book interesting. Shubin did a wonderful job connecting how to compare a single-cell microbe with an animal with a body. I was pleased to find that I understood what he was talking about. I'm grateful that the book is coming to an end next week. SO bless your face and if you sneezed in the middle of this blog bodybuilding then bless you. Peace off!