Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Virginiadventures - Choo Choo Yup It's Time to Train

As you may or may not know, I got hired to be the Planet Fitness Fitness Instructor/Trainer not too long ago. The job was rather deceiving at first, and even though my shirt said "trainer", I wasn't actually training inside the gym. From my understanding, and from what managers had told me, I wasn't allowed to "train" members in any way. The classes we offered were general instruction and guidance, but as far as doing a full workout during the class, that was a no-no. But after numerous people asked me about it, and I got a few complaints about how misleading my shirt was, I thought I'd speak with my managers to see if things could change. Apparently there was a slight misunderstanding, and I am allowed to train...kinda.

Essentially, I can now give the members a workout during the classes, whereas before they just did one or two reps to make sure they had down the technique, but they'd have to do everything on their own. I'd show them new things, and they'd do it on their own. But now, I can show the new things, then can workout in front of me and I can ensure they're doing it right, and hopefully they'll have some fun too. Why is this exciting you may ask? Well aside from the fact that it's something more to do...training is fun! Who wants to be a teacher all day...well, maybe teachers do...but I'm no teacher. I'd much rather be doing the hands on classes where I show them, they do it, they sweat, and we go from there. Now I can actually do that.

The managers told me I can't break any of the normal PF rules (no grunting, weight dropping, intimidation, etc) and I can't really record their progress from week to week, but pish posh I'll still have fun. Excited. The manager also whispered that there's talk of possibly starting a pilot program with training that's similar to the Biggest Loser's setup. Since they are our sponsor, that would make sense, but we'll see if it works out or not. Of course, nothing is official (as far as I know) so I'm not going to get my hopes up, but heezy (do people still say that), I'm happy I can train now!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Virginiadventures - New Start

Haven't posted on here in a while, but I figured it was that time again. I'm done with AmeriCorps (phew), started up classes (for the second time), got a new car (for the third time), out my mother's house (for the fourth time), and started a new job (for the sixth time). Living in a condo with a guy from AmeriCorps and so far all is well. Love having my own room again.

I probably should have rethought spending around 15,000 bucks and then moving out, but it's too late now. Live on the edge or become dull. Dull is bad for writing so the edge is where I'll balance my life, just no pushing allowed. Money is definitely tight, and it's not helping that new things seem to pop up. Leave it to life to be a noose around my wallet. But, there's hope at the end of the tunnel, hopefully. I'm still waiting on a refund check from my school, and hopefully I'll get a rebate check from taxes. If both of those fall through, then at least I get a raise in April, and in May I can start training my own clients again (gotta finish up these crazy classes first). Still waiting on my paycheck from the medium that bought my short story for their anthology, but we'll see how long that takes lol. Realized that I didn't mention it in the blog, but I got a short story accepted for publication in a science fiction anthology. I'll put up a link when it shows up. It is my first paying acceptance, so I'm proud to be able to say I'm a paid author now. Lol hopefully a novel is the next step.

Haven't been writing as much as I want because of the two classes, but I am still writing and submitting a little bit. I can't believe how much I hate being in school again. Possibly because it's the first time (since the first undergrad semester) I took classes that interested me about as much as watching a fly go poo on a pile of manure. Thankfully I'm not in a classroom this time around, but taking two graduate classes in something that's boring is extremely uninspiring. Just ten more weeks and I'll be done, and until then life is mediocre. Sure, It'll add another credential to my already random list of credentials, but I'll probably use it the least out of the rest. How many friends do you have that can write you a novel, certifiably secure your house, make your body look like hot fire, and manage your nonprofit organization? Why you would ever need all of that is beyond me, but there will be that one time you'll need it all and not have it. Then you'll be like gah, I wish Jeremie was in my life. But I'll be somewhere random making a house sweat. Or writing something for the Boy Scouts. Pretend like all of that will happen so I feel better about having all the education no one needs.