If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

I finally finished my Personal Training textbook :)  Why is it that the first and last chapters or so of textbooks are always the most painful?  I mean that last chapter was long and boring and filled with all kinds of crap you just know you will never EVER use in your career.  I don't mind it so much at the beginning ... I'm definitely a "get it over with quickly" type of person.  Put it up front and then dive into the good stuff.  And the majority of it was great stuff !!  You know you're walking down the right path when the material you’re studying is fascinating to you and you're pretty sure you'd read it either way, just for fun.

I gotta say though, I sure did learn a heck of a lot. Well, I guess that is kind of the point isn't it ??  So now all that's left is the final exam. I will take a week or so to review the material, since it's been some time since I read the early chapters, and then perhaps take a shot at the practice exam before I attempt the real deal.

The exam itself is done online at my leisure, which is awesome, and it’s open book and un-timed.  When I tell people this they find it very odd, and I suppose those feelings are justified. I've even had people ask me why I don't just go ahead and write it ... if there's no time limit and I can have the text right there in front of me (and the magic of Google), I could have in all likelihood written and passed the exam almost immediately after signing up for the course. Well call me crazy, but I actually WANT to learn the material. The thought of putting a person's health and well-being in my hands without being fully trained and qualified scares the shit out of me. I'm sure there are people out there that go through life that way, but I ain't one of them.  Perhaps my past careers as Accountant and Real Estate Agent taught me a thing or two about ethics.

Naturally the course itself does have deterrents to this type of behaviour.  There are 33 chapters in total, and there is an online quiz you must complete for each one.  They are graded instantly and provide immediate feedback, and although the tests do not count towards your final grade, you must complete them before you are granted access to the exam.  There are 2 sections on the final, the first consisting of multiple choice and true and false questions.  The second section includes illustrated multiple-choice and matching questions, 2 Case Studies and 6 long essay questions.

Maybe writing the exam early isn’t as easy as it sounds.  Even with the book and no time limit, long essay questions and case studies would take forever.  It’s been years since I’ve written an exam, so to say I’m nervous is an understatement.  Plus letting everyone know in my blog adds a wee bit of pressure ;)

I get the results of my exam within a few days after writing, then I suppose it’s time to find a job and start training !!  Ideally I’d like a mix of doing some training at a gym and some on my own, right here in my condo if I can manage.  From what I’ve heard getting clients is actually easier than you might think - fingers crossed :)

In other news … I started a running program last week, in an effort to get me motivated to get out there and exercise more.  I have no intention of running a marathon, or even a 10K, though I do run this far on a regular basis now.  No offense to all the runners out there, but I don’t want what I like to refer to as a “runner’s body”.  When I see marathon runners I see very thin people.  And this may sound odd coming from a soon-to-be Personal Trainer, but I like my curves !!  I really do think there is such a thing as too skinny, and the typical marathon runner, in my opinion, is too skinny.  I give them total props for all the hard work it must take to train for these events, but it just doesn’t interest me in the least.

The program I signed up for is with Nike+ online.  I have this gadget that plugs into my iPod with a receiver that goes directly into my running shoes, and it monitors how far I’ve run, calories burned etc.  I then download my runs right onto the Nike site, where there are competitions, training programs, and all others sorts of cool stuff I can access online.  I chose a 12 week, 10K training program.  It schedules between 3 and 4 runs per week, starting with 11 miles per week and working up to 24 miles in a week, including running hills, intervals and sprints.  Yes, I meant miles there, even though it’s a 10K training program.  Don’t ask.  Should be fun in the July and August Toronto heat :-0

Wish me luck :)

The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate - Thomas J. Watson Sr.

I had this big blog entry prepared the night before last about failure, as I’ve faced a few of them in the past few weeks, in particular with regards to the two new goals I blogged about a little over 2 weeks ago.

For starters, I have not reached my weight loss goal of 6 ½ pounds :(  Granted my deadline was this coming Friday, but considering this past Friday I was right back up to where I started, I think my chances are slim to none … pun intended !!  My second goal was to have written my exam by May 1st, and that didn’t happen either, although I’m not quite as upset about missing that one as my progress has been steady, and I’m very very close to achieving that one :)

So my initial blog posting was me droning on and on, trying to figure out what went wrong and well, basically whining about my failures and over-analyzing things to death.  I deleted the whole thing and decided – fuck it.  Get over it, get back on track, and get ‘er done.

That being said, since I have nothing new to report, I thought I’d throw out some completely random thoughts that have nothing in particular to do with my career change, or anything really significant at all for that matter.  Just things I’ve noticed lately that have caught my attention for some reason or another and I felt compelled to get out there.

My little disclaimer is this: the following statements are the opinion of me, the writer of this blog.  If you don’t agree with said opinions or feel offended in any way, get your own blog :P

Much Ado About Nothing:

• Jennifer Lopez is the most beautiful person in the world ??  I wonder what the good people of American Idol paid People magazine for that little bit of advertising.
• Thank GOD the Royal Wedding is over.  Yes I watched it … I PVR’d it and magically converted 6 hours of programming into one – ½ hour of viewing time and ½ hour of fast forwarding.  It was nice and they seem like a cute couple and all, but good lord the media coverage was out of this world.  Now we should only have to endure another few months of follow up coverage and reruns of the wedding footage before things may actually start to wind down.
• Twitter is the most useless waste of time and space ever known to man.
• And speaking of that … what is this new phenomenon where people have to use the @ symbol when addressing someone on Twitter or Facebook, or commenting pretty much anywhere online?  Is it not clear enough to say “Hey Joe, I agree with what you said” that you have to say “@ Joe” ???  How stupid are these cyber-dweebs?
• I may have mentioned this before, but I hate politics and I hate to talk politics.  Like religion, it seems to cause nothing but trouble.  However having just come out of an election, I do have one thing to say.  Why do people always ask who you voted for?  I think that’s kinda personal.  So for anyone who wants to know who I voted for … none of your fucking business, that’s who.
• Shit, two things … another reason I hate politics is the t.v. ads the politicians put out there.  How about telling me what you can do for me rather than wasting OUR tax money to tell me what the other guy can’t do.
• Charlie Sheen … my goodness.  So much to say, so little time.  I love Two and A Half Men, one of the few television shows I actually take the time to watch.  But for all those people who attended that stupid tour of his and walked out complaining they wanted their money back, I have one thing to say … a fool and his money are soon parted.
• Will someone please, please, PLEASE get Frank D’Angelo off of my television for good ??  Perhaps only diehard hockey fans will understand my pain, as I’m not sure if his ads appear anywhere else, but I’ve never seen a man more in love with himself.
• And speaking of hockey, Americans truly do not understand the concept of the Calgary Flames Sea of Red, or the White Out that was immortalized by the now defunct (but perhaps soon to be revived ??) Winnipeg Jets back in the day.  These fans wore actually jerseys to the game; nearly every single fan in their jammed packed arenas donned the team colours to cheer on their team in the playoffs, when they were lucky enough to get there.  Some of the American teams have tried in vain to copy this tradition; however the arena hands out grotesque ad plastered, cheaply made t-shirts to each fan, trying to emulate team spirit.  As far as I’m concerned this is a lame attempt in comparison to the real fans, who came to the rink in jerseys that they actually purchased, like only a true fan of the sport would do.

I hear it’s rumoured that Arnold Schwarzenegger was said to be considering reprising his role as the unstoppable cyborg of the Terminator franchise.  Guess he wasn’t kidding when he said …  I’ll be back.

Ditto Arnie :)