Bionic Teutonic

Have not posted in quite a while, but a lot has happened in the interim. Biggest change is that in late October, I was laid off from my job. This was the second round of layoffs at my company and I was one of 10 people let go. A bunch of other folks were transitioned into hourly employees, which is even worse, because there just wasn’t much work coming in. Being laid off at least means that I get unemployment and an (albeit small) severance check. I freaked out for a couple of days about my finances and having no income, but I’ve since come around to feeling like this was a good shove in the direction I wanted to go anyway. I had my NSCA personal training exam scheduled for two weeks after I was laid off (which I passed! more on that later), and I’m really trying to dive into my yoga teacher training. I’ve wanted a career shift to something more in line with my passions for a while, and this feels like the beginning of it. Luckily, I’ve already started getting some yoga teaching opportunities (thanks to random facebook postings actually) and I’m feeling quite optimistic. The search for a personal training position at a gym is still ongoing, but I’m working on that one as well. In the meantime, I’ve been doing a ton of yoga, meditating every day, studying as much as possible, and trying to hustle for new opportunities. Changes like this can be nerve-wracking but ultimately freeing as well. So fingers crossed.

The NSCA personal training exam was damn hard. I’d been studying for the last 4 or 5 months, and felt like I had the textbook pretty well learned. I’ve done enough studying for classes to know when I feel like I have a grasp on the materials. I hadn’t taken a practice exam, but wasn’t all that worried. The week before the test, I had gotten several calls though about people who had not passed, and some recommendations on the subject areas that I really needed to know. I went in and took the test and right away they were showing video (I’d only studied the textbook) and asking to analyze technique and what not. So a completely different format that I was used to. And although multiple choice, the answers were often a+c, or b+d, so it was hard to work with a process of elimination. I flew on through, trying as much as possible not to second guess myself and just trust my first instincts, but was very unsure after I got out. I still had to get my CPR certification (not scheduled until the week after) before they would release my score also, so I had no idea how I did when I was done. I went home and did a little research and found out that only 56% of people pass the test on their first try. The CPR class was kind of fun, and honestly, I’ve always been a little embarrassed that I didn’t know how to do some basic first aid (it was even on my list of 50 things to do. Check!). I finally got my results back and passed with some room to spare! So there you go. No worrying necessary (though I seem to worry at odd times as I get older. Not sure what that’s about. I used to be so laid back, probably to a fault).

I’ve been doing very little music lately, though I’ve been thinking about it a lot and am going to try and consciously set aside some real time for it, as I seem to have plenty of time right now. The biggest bummer about being laid off was really that we had a big trip to Buenos Aires planned (we were supposed to be there right now), but the layoff happened two weeks before we were supposed to go and the timing just didn’t feel right. Alaska was really great though and refunded all of our miles and when they found out we were not going because of a layoff, even waived all of the fees, which totally reinforces my customer loyalty. I was really looking forward to that trip though, so Ariel and I are going to try and do it next year maybe.

Overall, I’m feeling like my life needed to change a bit, and the layoff was the Universe’s way of shoving me off the fence. It wasn’t quite on my planned timeline or budget goals, but whatever. I was pretty miserable at that job, and am now excited about new beginnings. I have a shitload to learn and lots of new challenges, but this is how we grow. So march forth.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am and is filed under Daily life. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.