Final Blog

My senior year for me has been pretty relaxed. I spent lots of time with friends, I rarely had homework, kept all A's, got a wonderful girlfriend, and so much more. I spent a lot of my internship doing mostly the same thing over and over but that's just part of the job. I still had a good time there and I'll be interning at McGuire and Hester during the summer three days a week for $15 an hour. It'll basically be a continuation of my current internship. Though I didn't learn much in iQuest, I did polish up on all of the skills that were taught in the class.
I'm excited for what I'll be doing this summer and I can't wait to go to the University of Arizona this fall. I'll be studying civil engineering and playing rugby in the hopes of being successful with at least one of them.

Blog #15

A "self-healing" asphalt, Erik Schlangen, TEDxDelft, October 2012

Summary:

   The TED talk was about a specially made asphalt that is capable of "healing itself". The way that it works starts with the way the asphalt is made. By this I mean that instead of just making the asphalt a solid layer it is instead made so there are pores in it. This allows for filtration of rain water and also silences most noise from the road. What makes the asphalt self healing is what holds it together. Between all the pores there are small connections made of some material that is mostly steel because steel is a great conductor of heat. Using steel as a conductor makes it so that in hot or warm weather, those steel bonds melt a bit to hold the asphalt back in place.

   I would recommend this to people that are interested in engineering, infrastructure, or even chemistry. I personally thought this was quite intriguing since it makes roads last at least twice as long and stay in better shape.

Blog #14

Internship update


There hasn't been too much that I've been able to do at my internship due to the constant rain and bad weather. Along with the weather a lot of people at work have gotten sick so I haven't been able to do much. On the bright side, I've gotten really good at working on projects in Planswift and learned how to do landscape takeoff. I haven't really learned anything about myself other than that I don't mind working in the office as long as I can visit a job site every once in a while. I hope the weather can be sunny more often because Bruce wants me to see more job sites to help with my understanding of what it is that I'm working on.
 There's nothing new that I can really think of that I want to do in particular. I don't have any questions about my internship or field of study. I can't really think of anything to get the most out of my experience aside from visiting job sites.

Blog #12

Bucket list

1. Bench press 355 lbs
2. Be able to squat again
3. Win NorCal Championships for the 3rd time
4. Win Nationals for the 3rd time
5. Get my housing plans set for UA
6. Get better as a referee
7. Travel to France again
8. Travel to Spain again
9. Travel to Italy again
10. Travel to the Bahamas
11. Travel to Russia
12.  Travel to Romania
13. Travel to South Africa
14. Travel to nice parts of Mexico
15. Go on a cruise ship
16. Ride a tortoise
17. Race a car
18. Get a Mustang of my choice
19. Go to some crazy parties
20. Get over my embarrassment of dancing
21. Learn German
22. Travel to Germany
23. Get better at billiards
24. Go scuba diving
25. Go to Hawaii
26. Own a profitable business
27. Learn more about the human body
28. Fly in a hot air balloon
29. Make lots of friends
30. See the Northern Lights
31. Witness a solar eclipse
32. Get married
33. Have a meaningful relationship
34. Have my own dog in the future
35. Learn how to style my own hair better
36. Learn to play an instrument
37. Get a little better at cooking (I'm already pretty good, just not creative)
38. Go to a cabin in the snow
39. See cherry blossoms in Japan
40. Watch all of the shows on my list
41. Watch a lot of major movies that I've yet to see
42. Fly first class
43. Be on the mens' national rugby team for any country
44. Visit a volcano
45. Fly in a helicopter
46. Do a back flip
47. Do a front flip 
48. Get a six pack
49. Play Wing for a whole game in rugby
50. Become famous

Images

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Blog #13

       My Myers-Briggs code is ESTJ. This basically means that I'm sort of outgoing, I'm aware of things around me, I think about things instead of act on feelings, and I judge things instead of trying to perceive something. The paragraph explaining it says that I am Practical, realistic, matter-of-fact. Decisive, quickly move to implement decisions. Organize projects and people to get things done, focus on getting results in the most efficient way possible. Take care of routine details. Have a clear set of logical standards, systematically follow them and want others to also. Forceful in implementing their plans.

        My Holland code is RIC RCI. Which is saying the same exact things as the Myers test. 

        The test results didn't surprise me at all because I am exactly as the tests say: realistic.

Blog #11

   The purpose of this blog is to talk about gratitude, or rather what I and two other people did to express gratitude in class. Ryan Freels, Hannah Meyer, and I spent our time during class to make a poster for the councilors that said, "Thank you councilors for all of your help". It's a simple thing to do but we did it because every once in awhile these kinds of things are necessary. The councilors have helped every single senior tremendously throughout the years and this simple gesture from the three of us really comes from every senior. Unfortunately I do not have a photo of the poster but Hannah should have one. 

  The other part of this blog is to talk about what I have personally done to express my gratitude. To be honest, I didn't do anything to express my gratitude. My reason for doing this is because there aren't really any people or groups or what not that I'm grateful to. Instead I chose to continue doing what I always do and help out anyone I can when I can. By this I mean that I just continue to live my life as an Eagle Scout. When I come across someone that needs assistance, I help them. I work to make myself useful to others in my everyday life. 

blog #9

     Success is a term that can have many meanings, and for most people the idea of success is defined as achieving wealth, fame, or respect. However, success is a term that I believe has no true definition. It is something that each individual must decide for themselves. Success, for me, means being able to set goals for myself and make gradual progress towards that goal. Every little step towards that goal is a success. Especially when each little step is made after meeting failure. The way to success is to fail forward.
     My standards of success come from my experiences throughout my life to date. So the conclusion of what I've gone through has lead to this definition.
     By my definition of success, knowing you have achieved success seems very small and rather trivial from a day to day basis. However, when you look back at everything you've done to achieve your goal, all of your hard work stands out enough to make you feel happy. For example, at the beginning of my junior year I quit football partly because I was sick of being weak and wanted to get bigger and stronger. To achieve this goal I began working out every other day after school and eventually went to the gym six days a week. Even now from a day to day basis I don't really notice the change unless I stop and look at myself and see the results of all those hours. Every day I went to the gym was a success.