I don't even know what day we're on now..

So my theoretical commitment of posting, if not every day, then regularly say three times a week has failed miserably. I would like to think that I have been too busy studying to have been blogging, and whilst I have been studying, it's probably not a fair assessment to say that I have been too busy. It's all about making time. Perhaps I have just been emotionally too busy and as such found the thought of blogging, a guilty one, when I should be playing catch-up. I'm feeling a little intimidated to be honest because so many people that I know of, started studying for this exam WAY in advance - 9 months - a year? and me.. just 3 months really until the exam! OK so I don't have a job but it's still scary. How will I catch up to them? Would it have been better to start 9 months ago? Not sure I can retain info for that long.. 

My strategy has changed a little since my last post. I have kind of abandoned the cardboard which I thought might happen and ordered a ton of books! I went onto exploringhandtherapy.com and ordered what they recommended for the CHT exam as well as all of their practice tests. The whole exercise was very pricey but especially for the practice tests, I think the money will be worth it. Not sure how I feel about the DVDs. The are very detailed and comprehensive but there a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes and typos and I wish academic information that cost a lot of money was presented with minimal errors. I guess for the detail-orientated A-type personality in me, typos rub me up the wrong way. Note to self: NEVER have mistakes on this blog - I'll be flayed alive! In this blog's defense, though, I'm not charging anyone to read it and I am not professing it's professional integrity! Anyway! Enough complaining - there are more important things to discuss.

I also finally received the study guide from ASHT with which I am very happy. It's basically a summary/study guide of everything you need to know in the exam without any pictures or diagrams - i.e. a lot of text! It's portable enough though that you can take it with you to refresh things and from what I can see, the text is very comprehensive. At the back of the book their are questions regarding each chapter which are nice for testing yourself. The guys from ASHT also emailed me the answer memo which is great (the answers aren't in the book) and so I can see which ones I got right and what I still need to work on. 

Then I have been using the purple book to top it all off! (I feel like I am discussing a skincare routine 1. cleanser 2. toner 3.. etc etc). The purple book (it doesn't seem like anyone really knows it's name but click on the link if you want to find it on Amazon for a ridiculous price! It must be going out of print or something because it is not an inordinately large book!) is structured with a Q and Multiple-choice-A format and is actually authored by the people that own exploringhandtherapy.com. It is also kind of considered the 'must-have' 'Bible' book for passing the CHT because the questions (in my understanding) are very similar to those in the test in terms of layout and material covered. My only thing with this book, while very comprehensive, is that the Q&A format makes it hard to learn the information before being able to answer the questions..

And then... drum roll please... I found myself a study group! An online, skype-chat via keyboard-only group, but a group nonetheless. I definitely have these three other individuals to thank for pressuring me into starting to study and to keep going as we have deliverables every other week. Because there are 4 of us, we each summarise a chapter from the purple book every 2 weeks. 'Summarising' the chapters is actually more about turning the answer into a paragraph and trying to organise the information as I don't think anyone feels confident enough to actually leave/summarise anything out. So far we have 'met' twice and I think the group is going well although I do feel more in-depth studying is needed. For me at least, I definitely need more revision. 

So today I allowed myself to finally blog because I have completed the chapters I needed to revise and summarise this week for Sunday and it's Thursday so I am feeling semi-on top of things and thought blogging would be cathartic before I start a new chapter and try and play catch up. I haven't even attempted the yellow books yet... But that's a post for 'a-whole-nother' day!

But actually the best thing I did this week was buy this:

It's called an "Our Pet's Smarter Toys IQ Treat Ball" and it has been keeping my 5-month old Dachshund puppy occupied for the entire length of this post. Score!

Hope you guys are all doing great! I would love to hear how your studying is progressing and any tips or ideas you have, everyone knows, we need to pool resources to show this exam who's boss! 

Bye for now.