Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Well the dust has settled...

Well it has been a couple of days since the test and I apologize for not posting anything. But it was such an intense day and I just wanted to spend the rest of the weekend with Agi and the girls relaxing. I'm sure you understand. But let me tell you about Saturday!

Well myself and a few of my classmates (we called ourselves the A team) had been getting together to study for this monster of a test. The instructor had told us that the test was to consist of "hundreds" of questions including fill in the blanks and essays. It ends up that the test was not as long but was very in depth.

I feel very confident that I did well on the multiple choice, matching, true/false questions and the musclo-skeletal identification. As far as the essay and listing section, it is hard to tell. I think I answered everything correctly, but because it was essay it is hard to predict how they will grade it. The tests are graded by hand as opposed to a computer. So it really depends. I feel like I did pretty well. The entire written portion represented 75% of the total grade.

The practical portion (25% or grade) was very intense. We each took the practical in the order that we completed the test. Oh by the way...During the written part of the test, I was actually one of the first ones finished. So I was like "cool!" But when I went back to check over my answers I realized that I had totally skipped an entire page of questions! I nearly crapped right there! I would have been so pissed. So I decided to just chill and take my time going over the questions again. I was the 5th person to hand in my test. Total time 3 hours. So back to the practical..

Like I mentioned above, we each took the practical in the order that we finished the written portion. So we were all out in the hallway outside of the gym waiting for our turn. That was tough cause we all were talking about the test, double thinking everything and some of us were trying to cram in last minute information. After about 2 hours of waiting, we all started to get kinda loopy and silly. Which was good cause it kinda broke the tension. That was until of of our classmates Ahmad, who is normally really peppy and happy came out of the gym looking like the dude from the movie "The Green Mile." You know..."Dead Man Walking!" We all kinda freaked a little and settled down. It was at that point that I told the group that when I finish I am going to do the "Moonwalk" outside of the door!

The practical consisted of lots of rapid fire questions covering everything that we learned in class. We had to demonstrate taking fat caliper measurements, identify the anatomical reference sites for the measurements, demonstrate certain types of exercises for certain types of muscle groups, identify the primary (agonist) and secondary (antagonist) muscle groups involved in each movement, and on and on.... It was very intense. I got one wrong in the beginning of the practical. Keep in mind that we could only get 2 questions wrong on the entire practical. When I got the answer wrong , the instructor says, "Bro, you can only get one more wrong then you fail." HELLLOOOO! So I said, "Okay, Lets keep going!"

So once I regained my composure and lowered my heart rate, I completed the rest of the practical with no problem. It was intense but I felt pretty confident throughout. At the completion of the practical, I peeked at the instructors clipboard and it said "pass". WHEWW!!

You should have seen my jacked up Moonwalk when I stepped outside the door of the gym. We weren't allowed to talk to anyone after we finished, but when the doors closed, all I could hear were my classmates laughing like a bunch of crazy people just before medication time!

So now all I have to do is wait for the results which may take up to 4 to 6 weeks. I really hope that it doesn't take that long. I keep you all posted.

Thanks for all of you support and comments. Stay tuned...more to come!


C.