Posts from — May 2009

So as many of my friends, family and colleagues have known for the past couple of months I’ve been taking a course to become a certified Project Management Professional or PMP.  It was a two month long course which was held every Monday and Thursday evening and lasted for 3+ hours per class.  Having not taken a serious class in quite some time I did find it a struggle to get my mind wrapped around the material, especially the parts that required straight out memorization.  I would scream and curse at myself every time I started to lose focus while studying the material or couldn’t remember a simple list of terms.  I began to seriously doubt that my mind was functioning above anything greater than a life supporting subsistence level. 

During the time of the class, my training routine took a serious nose dive.  The two nights per week completely eliminated any chance to work out on those days and on the other nights; I was consumed by studying and preparing the homework for the next class.  Also add to the fact that my good friend and training partner @aristorat was no longer able to train with me due to the illness of his wife. 

Somehow though I made it through the course and started to catch on to the ways of a PMP as the course progressed.  However, I was still not at all confident that I would pass the certification exam.  Once the course was over, I knew I still had a lot of work to do if I wanted to pass it.  I had originally set the test date to be on my birthday (May 7), but knew early in the week that I was not ready.  Fortunately, I was able to reschedule the exam to the following week.  In fact, I first rescheduled it for May 11 and then changed it again to the 12^th.  The temptation was to keep on postponing the test, but that would just serve to make me stew over it for a longer period of time. 

As I was going, all I was doing was studying for the exam to the neglect of my children and job search.  I was simply focused on studying, eating, drinking, sleeping with the occasional run or bike ride with @aristorat.  I was consumed with passing this test and failure was not an option.  I hesitate to think about how I would have felt and what I would have done, had I not passed the exam.

By the time Monday the 11^th rolled around I was a complete wreck.  I spoke to one of the students from my class that told me she passed it and asked her opinion on it.  She told me that there were a lot of questions on the exam pertaining to information that required straight out memorization.  If that was the case, I was seriously fucked.  I decided at that point that the best course of action was to just let the cards for where they may.  I took a sleeping pill, and went to bed early so I could forget about fretting over the exam.  I woke up the next morning reasonably refreshed and committed to memory some last minute things I knew I would need for the exam.

I got to the testing center with plenty of time to spare and they let me begin my exam early.  Before I was allowed into the exam room, I had to completely empty my pockets and lock up anything, but the bare minimum of clothing required.  I had the feel they would have preferred I got completely undressed and perhaps wore a hospital gown so there could be no possibility of cheating,

The time limit for the exam was 4 hours.  It took me 3:53, which left me only a few minutes to go over the questions I marked for review.  I barely made it through any of these questions before my time was up.  Before they told you the results of the exam, the infernal computer made you answer a survey about the facility and other items.  I couldn’t stand it.  I just wanted to know if I passed or failed.  Finally after the survey, the computer started to do its calculations and after a minute or so when the screen went blank and I thought the darn thing crashed did the computer come back with a result.  I had passed.  I sat there for about 5 minutes in total relief before I was able to move.

The first thing I did once I collected my belongings from the locker was to tweet to the world that I had passed.  I then practically floated home from the exam center while calls from friends started to come in to ask how I did.

Later that night I went out for drinks with my friends Chris and @aristorat to celebrate.  We drank a lot and ate a lot and I blew off a lot of steam that had been building up for the past few weeks.  I was really glad it was finally over with a successful conclusion.

Common wisdom holds that running has a cathartic effect.  It’s supposed to free your mind, at least temporarily, from the daily pressures of life.  I don’t know if that has really worked for me over the past couple of months.  In fact, my pressures and worries often come out when I run.  You can hear me yelling to myself every time a negative thought passes through my brain. I guess part of the problem is that I haven’t run regularly.  You need to do it on a regular basis in order for the running itself to feel good.  Maybe I just need to start running so long that by the time I am done every negative thought held in my brain passes out of my mouth, being left in the gutter behind me.

I wish there was a dial installed on the body that would allow you to better regulate the amount of depression or anxiety you feel.  If you ever needed to get it adjusted, it would just be a matter of going down to your local service center and tell them that you are feeling a bit too depressed and have them manually crank the setting down.  It is like the chemical inside your body that causes you to feel depressed knows of only two positions; off and full blast.  It would be nice if you could objectively look at two people and quantify how much depression they should feel; say on a scale of 1 – 10.  Then the person’s level could be set accordingly.  However, that is not how it works.  I think that a person who circumstances warrant a level 5 situational depression feels just as bad as a person with a level 10 situational depression.  It doesn’t matter that one situation isn’t nearly as bad as another, both people feel just as bad.

One thing that has helped keep me going has been my runs with @Aristorat.  He has been going through his own trials and tribulations with the illness of his wife and my friend Kathleen, so we haven’t gotten out as regularly as we had just over a short month ago.  @Aristorat gets out when he can and usually gives me a call to join him.  As I am out of work right now, we have managed to go out for several runs during times when I’ve never had a chance to run before.  It has helped to add structure to my day and has given me a chance to unload some of what I have been going through to another person. 

Right now I need to focus on moving forward and not getting stuck.  I know the things I have to do and I have to push myself to do them.  I am finding it difficult, but I do not have a choice.  No one ever said that life was going to be easy.  Hopefully, once I get going again, life will become like those days when you run effortlessly and can just go on forever.