Ups and Downs

I'll start with the downs...I took the first CSCS practice test today. The scientific background and nutrition questions were harder than I thought they would be. I passed all of the sections except for the nutrition...ugh. So basically, I have to go back and memorize that whole chapter for real. How frustrating. On the plus side, the video portion of the test wasn't bad at all. And once I graded my test, I realized that they actually give you the exact page numbers and areas of the book to study for the ?s you missed, so I can go back through and study up more on my weak areas. Another downside - the test is graded in sections, so you have to pass each section in order to pass the test. For example, I can't rely on my exercise prescription knowledge to make up for the ?s I missed in the nutrition section. You have to pass every section in order to pass the test. I'm scared! I'm really going to have to get focused now. My scholarly project is just going to have to wait a while.

Speaking of my scholarly project, that is actually the "up" of the day. I received an email from my scholarly project advisor that he was forwarding from the OPTA that my scholarly project did NOT get accepted for the presentations in Columbus this fall. This means....I don't have to present there!! I'm sure he is still going to try to make me go to it, but I really don't feel I should have to if I am not presenting. I have no desire to make PT contacts in Columbus, seeing as how I never want to move there or work there. Since we're supposed to have a week off class the week of that conference, let's keep our fingers crossed that I really don't have to go and I can enjoy having a week long break like the rest of my class.

My Exciting Summer Break

Here are some pictures of what I have been doing with my awesome and thrilling summer break so far:

These are my new golf clubs that I've been getting good use out of, although my grandma still beats me every time, my best this summer on 18 holes is 105 at Suburban. I'm pretty sure I could beat that by now, but it's been too hot to go.

This is my new queen-sized bed that I've been bragging about. It actually did come today and it took 3 of us to get it put together. It doesn't look like much, but under that mattress is a lot of complicatedly-put-together pieces of plywood. That post is actually part of my futon, not part of the bed, so don't get confused, we didn't get it completely wrong!

This is the futon that I've been sleeping on for over a year. It is finally folded up into a couch like it's meant to be and you can see that the cat enjoys it very much. Don't mind all the junk underneath it. I had to throw that stuff under there while we put the bed together.

This book has pretty much been my life for the past 3 weeks and will be for the next 3. It's actually a better read than it looks, but when you are trying to learn and memorize every page, it gets old. The whole binding is broken because I have opened it so many times. It will get thrown out the window if I don't pass this test.

These are my scholarly project binders. The one on the left is full of articles that I have added to my paper. The one on the right is full of articles that I have yet to add. I can't wait until I can combine them all into one binder, marked "finished." By the way, those fine people in the picture frame in the background are my grandparents. I miss them very much, but it makes me feel better to have them looking over me while I study every day. I know...weird...but it's true.

Last but not least, this is the highlight of my room - the TV, and it is where my I play all my Wii games, as you can tell. Although all this Wii equipment is going to have to get moved downstairs since my room is so full now, I have enjoyed playing Tiger Woods 10 when I have those whole 5 minutes of free time every day. I do think that the cat house and scratching post add a nice touch to this photograph, along with the random fan.

And that's it. That's pretty much been my summer break. I hope you've enjoyed.

Sleep please!

Well, my new bed is supposed to arrive tomorrow, but...the UPS shipping tracker says that it's destination is "LaFayette, Ohio," which sadly really does exist, so who knows if my bed will actually get here tomorrow or not. Somebody in LaFayette is probably going to get a free bed. Ugh. I called UPS today and after fighting with an automated voice for about 15 minutes, I finally got through to a real person who told me not to worry and that they "usually" go by the zip code instead and it will only be a problem if the delivery guy doesn't think my address is a real address. Nice...because my address is never recognized because I don't have a home phone line or a P.O. box, so no one thinks that this address exists. Awesome. So we'll see if I really do end up getting a bed tomorrow or not. I got my room all re-arranged and ready for it and I have my mattress laying out to "fluff up." It's a memory foam mattress, so it takes about a day for it to rise up to it's full height.

Other than preparing for the bed, I spent the weekend studying massive amounts of CSCS info and did absolutely no work on my scholarly project, so that is the goal for today...to at least get something done on the scholarly project before I begin my CSCS study marathon again. I did actually get to go swimming yesterday for a while, which was much appreciated since it was 95 degrees and insanely humid. My a/c is supposed to cycle on and off and I don't think it's had much "off" time. I can't complain though, this is the first real "summer weather" we've had all summer.

My diet is going pretty good so far. I've found a new way to eat pizza that is much healthier, even healthier than the home-made ones I used to make. I now buy these little pizza crusts (I forget the brand), but they come 3 in a pack and are sized just for one person. I brush the crust with a little olive oil and put italian seasoning on it (you can buy this in the seasoning isle - it's one of the Marie Calendar's grinders), add sauce (they now put it in with the little pizza crusts in a separate packet), sprinkle parmesan cheese on the sauce, add shredded mozzarella cheese and turkey pepperoni. Bake at 440 for 11-12 minutes. It's amazing. I also recommend using ham and green pepper as toppings.

I also worked out yesterday for almost an hour and today I am sore. I knew lunges were hard, but I didn't think lunges with 15 lb. weights would be all that much more difficult. THEY ARE. haha. It's safe to say, I will not be lifting weights today or doing any sort of resistance training. I'm just going to have to suffer the heat and get out there and walk.

Day 1 of healthy eating

After thoroughly studying the nutrition section of my CSCS book, I've decided that if I do pass this exam and become a CSCS, I better practice what I preach and start eating healthier if I am going to be advising other people to do the same. This decision was backed up by the fact that I had to purchase size 8 jeans/khakis yesterday while shopping :( All the stress of CSCS and scholarly project have made me eat a lot of UNhealthy quick and easy foods, like frozen pizzas and nachos. I'm getting too old to eat those without gaining weight. So I've started a new diet plan for myself, which really isn't all that difficult...it's pretty much based on the food guide pyramid, but I'm trying to get in a lot of vitamins, minerals, and essential amino acids every day. Of course the downside to this plan is that eating healthier is more expensive and takes longer to make meals, but my goal for when classes start is to prepare a lot foods over the weekend that I can either refrigerate or freeze to eat during the week. Plus, with classes being later in the day, there are a lot of days that I won't have to pack a lunch, making it a lot easier to eat better. This could be a completely different story when I start my clinicals, but I'll work that out when the times comes. Here are a few of the changes I'm making:

• The first big change is that I am trying to stay away from liquor and beer. I am replacing these with red wine (I don't really like white wine). Wine has a lot of antioxidants that liquor and beer do not. It also has Chromium, which is good for lowering blood sugar. They say a glass of wine a day is good for you, so I'm going to take "they're" word for it. (My CSCS book does not give a recommendation on how often to drink it, lol).
• I'm trying not to worry about the "low-fat" or "low-sugar" craze. Some fats are good for you (pretty much any of them except for saturated fats / trans fats). Plus, a lot of low-sugar foods are loaded up with aspartame, which is questionable at best. Foods like peanut butter and cheese have a high fat content, but they are filling foods and are good for you in lots of other ways.
• I do not like milk at all, so I usually drink soy milk, but I hardly ever buy it. I'm going to try to keep stocked up on it from now on, as well as take a Calcium supplement, because I had no idea until I read my CSCS book that ALL the calcium in your body comes from EXTERNAL sources. We need calcium for our muscles to contract, so I've probably been a lazy bum just from the fact that I don't get enough calcium. Plus, I don't want to have osteoporosis someday.
• I'm trying to FORCE myself to eat fruit. I don't like fruit very much, but I'm buying it and telling myself that if I feel like I need a snack in the middle of the day, it has to be fruit. I know I'm never going to incorporate fruit into my lunch or supper, so I have to find a way to eat it sometime. The only way I've been eating fruit all summer is by putting a slice of lemon in my water. lol
• I'm also trying to eat breakfast. Apparently fortified breakfast cereals are one of the best breakfast foods you can have. Who knew? I'm trying to eat more cereal until I can someday force myself to eat eggs again. I have lost all taste for eggs and I don't know why.
• I have never been good at the "5 small meals / day" diet, but I am going to try 3 small-moderate sized meals / day with 1-2 small snacks and see how that works.
• I am not going to weigh myself because a) I don't even want to know what I weigh. It's too scary to think about and b) muscle weighs more than fat so if I gain more fat-free mass and lose a lot of fat mass, I will actually weigh more and c) I am only judging my success with how good my clothes fit and measurements of my waist and hips.
• The minimal amount of exercise I will do every day is walk 2 miles. I will do other forms of exercise, obviously, but that's the bare minimum. I may have to sacrifice sleep on busy days, but I'll do what I have to.

Wish me luck. If I can keep this up through the rest of the year, I will be ecstatic with my will-power.

Other than my new diet (which I have been following for about 5 hours now), I received an email today of our official fall schedule (with week 2 missing...nice). It looks pretty intimidating to be honest. There are a lot of extra little "things" besides class, such as guest speakers, scholarly project meetings, etc. And the due date for that looming scholarly project is October 12. I don't even want to think about it. I'm sure my advisor is going to want it finished by the time fall classes start and that is by far not going to happen at this point. Not unless I study CSCS all day and work on scholarly project all night and never sleep until classes begin. At this point, just doing my best with the time I have left is going to have to suffice.

A good night's sleep would be much appreciated.

My hand officially feels like it is going to fall off. I've been trying so hard to study this CSCS information and the only way I can learn it is to write it out. Well, I'm currently working on the nutrition chapter, which is the most important chapter in the whole book, so I am trying very hard to concentrate on it by writing out all of the important points. My writing finger is burning and I'm not even halfway through the chapter. Ugh. I guess I'll just have to suffer my way through it because I wanted to have this chapter completed by the end of the day.

On the plus side, my new mattress arrived today for my new bed! On the downside, the actual bed hasn't even shipped out yet. I guess that's what you get when you're too lazy to actually go to a furniture store and shop for one in person. I am officially sick of sleeping on this little futon every night, so I went ahead and ordered a queen sized bed. Don't get too excited, it's nothing fancy. I found a 10" memory foam mattress on amazon for $375 and then ordered a cheap platform bed (that I have to put together myself) for $125. I am basically going to be just putting my memory foam mattress on a raised-up piece of plywood, but that's good enough for me. The main goal is to just see if I can get the pieces of the bed upstairs without having to cut them down. Wish me luck. Although the task obviously won't get underway until next week sometime, at the rate this shipping is going. Although, I still can't really complain because all the shipping was free. I love having amazon prime.

If you really want to know just how much of a "summer break" I am having, I took 3 breaks from studying today. 1) a 15 minute break to eat lunch, 2) a 5 minute break to go outside and meet the FedEx lady at the door to get my mattress in the house, and 3) a 30 minute break to re-arrange my tv stand, tv, Wii, DVD players, and Dish receiver to the other side of my room so that I'll have room for my new bed when it actually comes. Other than that, I have literally been studying CSCS ALL day...with the exception of this post, as well. I just have to keep my eyes on the prize, which would obviously be my dream job.

My Scholarly Project

Well, after doing some research on the internet, I found this video that I think I will just turn in as a replacement for my literature review. ha. But seriously, the sad thing is...I actually learned something from it.

Losing steam.

Another week has gone by and I still feel very overwhelmed with all that I need to accomplish. I really just want to go lay outside and do nothing today, but I know I need to force myself to sit at my desk and get things done. I have only 3 weeks left to get everything accomplished, and as much as my scholarly project advisor told us to "stay in touch" and that he will help us with the project, I really feel like he doesn't care at all, as long as we finish it. So basically, I'm trying to get it done with no help, yet his name goes on the paper too. Nice. Also, one of the girls in my class (who also took the CSCS elective) just took the test last week and said that it wasn't too bad, but she wished she would have had more time to study and that she really had to rely on a lot of things she remembered from PT school. That's a scary thought, because I feel like I have forgotten a lot of things from PT school. It also makes me feel like I should use all my free time in the next 3 weeks to prepare for that exam. I don't really like having to make one project a higher priority than the other, because then I will totally ignore the lesser prioritized one, but I think CSCS gets the higher priority here. It is coming up the soonest.

The big Bullthistle weekend went well. I didn't go out to see the fireworks this year because a) I was too tired and b) I didn't want to hastle with all the parking and traffic and walking around in the dark and c) I didn't want to get bit up by mosquitoes. The parade and the afternoon in the park went well though. Nothing too exciting occurred though. I guess the most exciting thing was that I talked to someone who could have some really strong influence for an awesome PT job in the area and he said he would put in a good word for me. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I made a good impression. See..who needs the OPTA events in Columbus to make contacts in the healthcare business? haha

Nothing much else is new with me. I had a dream last night about having to drive all the way to the Scott Park campus for classes and that the hours were 10am to 10pm every day. Sadly, that's not too far from the truth. Thank goodness it's only for 8 weeks and then I'll be away on clinicals until I am done. Well, it's time to go hit the CSCS book and scholarly project articles. Yipee.