Career Updating: A progress report.

As of 2 PM today, I am 84% done with the curriculum for becoming a Life Insurance agent.

I will attempt to finish the other 16% tonight, once I have eaten, for all I need today is chicken and (root)beer.

The curriculum isn’t too bad, though it is a bit tedious. I had to learn about COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1984), as well as what the difference in a PPO and an HMO is in one of the most recent parts of my curriculum, and I do feel smarter for taking this class. I actually know a little something about Life and Health insurance, as a result.

(PPO gives you more freedom, and HMO takes that, in exchange for more cost control, to oversimplify.)

I’ve been playing Anarchy Online when I take breaks from the work, to give my brain a break and think on non-serious things. It’s helping me out in retaining more material: On Friday, I burned through over half of the work, but on Monday, I had to go back and review the last couple of chapters — I couldn’t remember anything from them!

The good thing about the module tests is that I can print a copy of them, and use that for review. I’ve always been stronger at shorter explanations for reviewing than digesting long passages of information, if only because I don’t have to recall all the data and extract it mentally to get an answer. It also lets me assign key words and key phrases in my head for mnemonic recall of things, such as “COBRA drives the Omnibus” — the way for me to remember what COBRA stands for when reading the test, or, “Variable = Multi-socket, Universal = Infinite socket” — to remember which of the two policies is looser in its terms.

I should go eat, smoke, and finish this stuff.