PASSED!

Wow, it has been a while since I last posted. But I was frantically trying to study for the ACE exam and see my visiting family during the last couple of weeks.

It just cracks me up (and that's the happy way of putting it), as I have mentioned to my friends and anyone who would listen many a time, that I put soooooo many years into my schooling. My father paid out the money, my husband and I put out the money while we lived with his parents (and I wholly admit that it was mostly Logan's money). I endured many heartaches and setbacks along the way and manged to accomplish the goal of completing my Masters degree.

I also poured years into my martial arts training. 10 years (give or take) in a world of "McDojo" where people get black belts in two years, with buckets of sweat and even some blood a possible fracture or two mixed in to get my blackbelt. And then be promoted to 2nd degree when I was mostly just doing massage, well, that was just a blessing.

And yet here I am,still fighting to get a job in the fitness world where "certification" is king. And my degrees and years of stress mean nothing!

I took my ACE exam today after about a year-and-a-half of preparing off and on. I'm happy to report that I passed.

But now that the excitement has worn off a tad bit, I'm even more frustrated by this whole situation.

I passed because the manual for the ACE Group Fitness Exam was basically my whole college career boiled down to 12 chapters. I'm not sure I learned anything new. And all I had to do was review and regurgitate. Just like all those college tests I slogged through.

>Heave big sigh<

Ah, well. At least I've finally done it. Now I just have to maintain my status and actually get my foot in the business. Follow the money, as my dear friend Matthew told me. I hope this will lead to where I want to go. Right now it's looking like small change, bird food, baby steps, whatever cliche for going nowhere fast you'd like to enter here.

On a more cheerful note, my parents and my aunt and uncle came to Alaska for a visit, so I'm going to begin posting lots of touristy stuff that will interest the people who click on my blog because they see the word Alaska in it. I'll also be putting lots of pictures in on Myspace since I can only put so many in here. So there will be lots more to come!