Back to School

My first idea was to go through our local college to get my Personal Trainer certificate.  The sequence of classes, my partial credit for past university classes, ect, ect, I was looking to graduate in a year and a half. 
Ike said that was malarkey. "Go directly through the American College of Sports Medicine", he offered.  OK. We found an online class that begins Nov 6.  I bought all my textbooks and they are in transit to me as I type.  I'm so excited!
The only caveat was the prerequisite of being certified for First Aid, CPR and AED by the Red Cross.  Once again, luck was on my side:  a class was being held only two hours away this past Sunday.  I had three days to complete 8 hours of online classwork before Sunday.  I was sweating it:  I haven't studied since graduating from Auburn back in 2000 and computers hate me.  
I stressed out for nothing.  Easy Peasy.

Back when I was 14, I had taken a similar certification class in Canada...many, many moons ago.

I still have my 1970's St. John's Ambulance book.  Apparently, the Sylvester method of CPR is no longer practiced!
Tell that to Mr. Bean.  This is my favorite clip and so a propos.

But seriously, this was the second Red Cross class I have taken.  The first was a Dog First Aid class three years ago.

Cole didn't appreciate my practice rescue breaths (reminiscent of kisses and he hates those).
Tip of the hat to those Red Cross volunteers who teach the classes: devoted, knowledgeable and hilarious.  The Iraq war veteran teaching the dog first aid class was a big man with an equally big heart.  He strayed off topic to teach us how to perform CPR on squirrels. (I was choking back tears of laughter on that one). If you happen to see a Vin Diesel looking character on the side of an Auburn road, squeezing a varmint's chest between his fingers, it's probably him. 
So there you have it.  I hope to be prepared for the certification test by January 1st.  My first client is already booked (thank you Dr, Kjar for your support!).  The long range plan is the take some classes from the local college for a year, then take those and my credits from my bachelor of Science and transfer back to Auburn University's School of Kinesiology.  As I said:  long range...