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March 27, 2006
Spending Time
Long delays in posting often are signs that a site has been forgotten about or, well, given up on. It's not entirely true on my end. While the interest in keeping things logged has died down, a lot of the original purpose of this site has disappeared. I'm no longer working on projects that excite me about technology. This is something I hope to correct in the near future, but for the time being it pushes me away from using a computer after hours.
So what have I been doing?
I took a part time job on weekends this winter as a ski instructor. A job about as far away from computer technology as possible, but at the same time much more rewarding. The fact that I can spend entire days outside, on a mountain, interacting with people is a HUGE benefit to me. Not that I have trouble interacting with people on a normal basis, but my day job keeps me well secluded from interaction with others for a variety of reasons.
On Sunday I completed what was probably the culmination of this seasons efforts. I passed the PSIA level 1 examination.
Two parts to the examination. First was the written half. The test itself wasn't that hard. I never looked at the book it was based from until about two hours before the test. Thanks to some good initial instruction from the returning instructors, almost everything I needed to know was already embedded in my mind. The rest, it was simple test taking elimination of options and word play.
The on snow portion of the test proved to be more difficult for me. I've never been a great skier, but I can certainly handle my own. Over the past two years my skiing has certainly improved dramatically, mostly due to the regular ability to reach snow quickly. The thing about the level 1 test though, it's not anything terribly advanced. It's main concern is the coverage of the core concepts of balance, edging, rotation, and pressure. Meaning they make you do a lot of wedge turns, stops, skating, etc. The trick is they want it done in a certain style. I've been able to for years do all of these things, but my style has slowly eroded into the jumbled process I've called skiing today. Cleaning up all the little imperfections has truly made even the little simple things seem like they were much more difficult.
In the end, I'm glad I did it.
Posted by Dan at March 27, 2006 08:15 PM