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.

Blog #8

Part one, people that can help me.
     I can't really name five people that can help me get where I wish to be without doubling a reason for two people, but I can name four. The first is Tim Mulholland. He is a coach and a referee for the Danville Oaks. For my goal of becoming a referee he's the only man I can turn to to help me through the process.
     Second is Bruce Daseking, who is the Chief Estimator at McGuire and Hester, is my "mentor". While he doesn't necessarily teach me directly, he does provide opportunities to let me learn even when he can't be there.
     Third is Sean Duffy. He is the head coach for the rugby team at the University of Arizona and one of the coaches for the All-American program. I haven't really dealt with him much more than twice a year for the last two years but because he has coached me and , assuming I go to UA, will be my coach in the future with so many connections that could help me in pursuing a career as a rugby player.
      My fourth person is my dad, Butch Strehlow, because he is my trainer. Part of my reason for quitting football was that I wasn't getting any stronger and he gave me what I needed to achieve that. He only trains me once or twice a week but he did train me for a while constantly and for the most part now, gives me the workouts because he knows I can basically train myself.

Part two, things I've procrastinated on.
     1) I haven't been working towards becoming a ref lately. There are a few things I need to do before the end of the month and I have no idea how long they will take but I need to start working on them.
     2) When it comes to lifting there have been some times when I really don't want to lift and don't even though I know I should. The only thing I can do to work on this is start pushing myself to work a little harder.
     3) I decided a few weeks ago that I need to start running so I can be ahead of the game when rugby starts up. However, I'm not sure how much running I can do since I started having knee issues.
     4) This upcoming weekend I have the ACT to take for the second time but I haven't studied at all. I'm happy with the score I got and have gotten into every college I've applied for, just waiting on Cal Poly, so I'm not feeling any motivation to study. But I should try a little harder so whatever I get can help with Scholarships.
     5) Speaking of scholarships that is another thing I've procrastinated on. I need to start looking for some to help for college but I get discouraged every time I look for any because I don't qualify for almost everything I find when I do look.

Blog #6

   I'm interning at McGuire and Hester and so far I've only gone there once as an intern. It is in Oakland so it's a bit out of my way but I enjoy it there. Depending on what Bruce, my mentor, has planned for me the hours may vary. I can usually get about three or four hours if I'm only released once a week. Last Friday I went in to the office and sat down with Bruce for three hours and he explained to me a general overview of one of the many projects that they're working on right now. It's the big pond next to Cull Canyon Road so it's really close. What they're doing is turning the pond back into a creek and lowering the dam so it can flow easier. Seems like a simple project but it's not and the amount of detail is unbelievably overwhelming right now.
   One thing I've learned about myself is that I really am excited to do this internship and to eventually become a civil engineer. Being able to see these plans is awesome and what Bruce is gonna do for me throughout this whole school year is have me be learning from many people every part of engineering that he can possibly make happen.

Blog #6

   I'm interning at McGuire and Hester and so far I've only gone there once as an intern. It is in Oakland so it's a bit out of my way but I enjoy it there. Depending on what Bruce, my mentor, has planned for me the hours may vary. I can usually get about three or four hours if I'm only released once a week. Last Friday I went in to the office and sat down with Bruce for three hours and he explained to me a general overview of one of the many projects that they're working on right now. It's the big pond next to Cull Canyon Road so it's really close. What they're doing is turning the pond back into a creek and lowering the dam so it can flow easier. Seems like a simple project but it's not and the amount of detail is unbelievably overwhelming right now.
   One thing I've learned about myself is that I really am excited to do this internship and to eventually become a civil engineer. Being able to see these plans is awesome and what Bruce is gonna do for me throughout this whole school year is have me be learning from many people every part of engineering that he can possibly make happen.

  I don't have a photo of me at work since I was completely immersed in talking about the plans that I only took one photo at the end of one page of the plans then discovered the copied plans we were viewing were for me to keep. So I don't have a photo of me.

Blog# 4

I didn't really learn much about setting goals. Personally, I like to keep things simple and reasonable. So the goals I set for myself I had already made and either have been working on them or have a plan for. I want to be more knowledgeable in the game of rugby. To do this I will become a referee. My only other goals right now are to get stronger, faster, and increase my level of endurance. These I've been working on for several months heavily and steadily working towards them for years before that.

Blog #3

Time management has always been a part of my life so to say what it is for me now is hard to answer. If it's for an event or an appointment then always try to be fifteen minutes early. For my homework I try to remember everything that I have and think of how long it will take to do it. Sometimes I'll forget if it doesn't feel important. For example, I'm doing the blog a day late because it didn't feel important so I forgot. The only reason I don't write down anything to help with planning or make plans on my phone is because I know that if I do write it down then I'll usually forget everything I was supposed to do thinking whatever I did will help me remember. As for rescheduling things to be more effective or make me less busy, I don't think there's much that would work for me. Making things more effective for me depends on importance of said thing or how lazy I am. Not to mention, I'm not really a busy guy but rather the things I do take a long time. I don't know how to deal with procrastination since I became a heavy procrastinator upon entering my teen years, but that's just because I became a teen and stopped caring about things that seem insignificant. I would cut out a number of activities I do like social media in order to help myself, but my reason for doing these things is because I'm trying not to be bored when I don't have anything going on.

Blog #1

My name is Austin Strehlow. I am 17 years old and have just entered my senior year of high school.About two years ago I started pursuing engineering as a future career. More specifically I am looking at Civil Engineering. I've always been pretty good with math and have done both construction and destruction. Also I earned Eagle Scout before entering high school so I've gotten some experience with every field of making a project happen. As for my senior year, my hopes are to get a 4.0 GPA for the year. That will raise my cumulative GPA a bit more. I also plan on taking the SAT and ACT again to raise my scores. Currently with the scores I have I could get into four out the five schools I'm applying to for sure while the last one is questionable. Aside from academics I've also just gotten a job doing some sign waving on weekends for $17 an hour. Right now I've got that going for me and academically I should be able to reach my goals. The last thing on my list is rugby. This year will be questionable but I think my team could pullout on top again for being ranked number one in the nation. That'd be the best way for myself and all of my teammates that I've played with for the last four years to go out in our senior year.