AlexPodrezHawkenProjects2021

It is currently Monday May 24th and the fourth day of our Hawken Projects. I feel as if David and I have done so much work already, yet I know so much more lays ahead. Up to this point we have planned everything out and are ready to get to the "doing" part. Early this morning our final spending budget was approved (good news after taking the AP Calc BC exam). Below is a copy of what was on the spreadsheet (without the prices). David and I are super excited to get started on actually assembling the kiosk/aeration system buying the fish from Fenders to stock, and purchasing equipment from both Amazon and Orvis. We really think that the donor, Mr. Eippert, as well as the Hawken faculty will be very proud of our work. We understand that both Mr. Eippert and Headmaster Looney showed great interest in our initiatives. The timeline for purchase/assembly is still to be determined, however I think we will take care of the equipment purchases early this week. It is also our plan to cur...

 It is Friday and David and I have been hard at work for the first three days of our Hawken Project. I have never done work quite like this. We spend a lot of our time drafting emails and communicating our plans to different people. Over the course of these three days, we have probably sent around 10 long, detailed, and complex people to many people of authority. The work we do is also very different from what I am used to, however it is very important and useful. Mr. Tate calls this work we are doing "adulting”, but David and I just call it "politics." We were notified that Mr. Eippert donated a sum of money for us to work with and to implement into our project. We have spent a lot of this time working to figure out the details for the schematics and working on creating excel files with our complete budget. These past two weeks have been quite stressful, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so much work done. David definitely see ourselves as the “do’ers” here at Hawken b...

     In an effort to bring others the same feelings of peace and determination as I have when fishing, I organized a fishing club in the summer of my senior year. It was in this time that the world, and consequently, my peers, were struggling with the outbreak of COVID-19. The four captains including myself found ourselves lost in the violent swirl of the pandemic, struggling to cope with a completely sudden change in our everyday lives, and seeking human connection in the midst of an extremely isolated environment. Fortunately, we stumbled upon fishing as a way for us to get together in person, while also safely socially distancing. Fishing allowed us to maintain safe social contact, spend time outside, and de-stress. As the weeks passed, we found ourselves fishing with more and more friends, and we eventually grew a large enough fishing base to begin beta-testing for a fishing club at our school.      It was the combination of these two ideas that mo...