What do people think about when they run?

What do people think about when they run?

I don't like running, so this is something I always struggle with. The "occupy my mind for more than 10 mins"  thing. This is roughly what goes through my mind every time:


Huff. Puff. This seems OK. Comfortable pace. Let 's go.

Wonder what I'll do after this.

OK this is getting hard.

OK control your breathing.  One, two puff... One two puff..

Maybe I can go get a nice cold drink.. What should I get.  I deserve a snack after this.

Oh god I'll never finish this.

Just look straight and keep my strides constant.  Come on. I can do this.

Damn that aunty just passed me.

-random thought about whatever game I'm playing recently to try to take my mind off the exertion -

-tries to keep mind on anything but the exertion-

Thinks about how tiring this is and how nice it would be to stop

No, don't stop Alan.  Come on. Imagine what finishing this will be like..

Imagine sh cheering u on.  Go Alan. You can do it.

When am I meeting her next? Maybe I'll text her after this to tell her I finished a run

Yes. I need to finish this so I can say I finished it.  Come on.

Help I'm dying.

My Lungs my legs

Focus on the things I'm passing.. That tree.. The block of flats..

Focus on my footsteps. Maintain.  Maintain.  Resist the urge to slow down or stop

Resist!

Maybe I should stop..

No!

Keep going.

I'm only halfway there??

Ok halfway more..

Deep breaths.  Maintain constant breathing.

What can I think about to distract me.

-thinks about random game-

Gasp.

Feel like slowing down.. That bench there looks nice.

Screw the bench keep going alan

Sh will be proud of u

Imagine sh smiling

OK come on.keep going. One two puff, one two puff

Need to distract myself.

Another runner.  He's going slowly. Ha. Sucker.bye.

Passed him. I'm the best.

I'm tired, I should slow down.

Gasp. I need to stop.

No, maintain alan. come on. maintain the pace, keep going.

Imagine SH cheering you on. Go go go.

I'll have a nice cold drink after this is over.

Why is this so hard.

one two puff one two puff one two puff

-more or less can't think of anything else apart from dying or controlling my breathing / pace the rest of the way -

PL4235 - A blast from the past!

If you do not know me and read this blog, it probably means you first came here because of my NUS module reviews. I have received many emails over the years about my reviews, all asking for further advice about module selection, thesis planning, and general advice. Today, I got an interesting email.

In my final module review post, I reviewed a module which I didn't have a good experience with, PL4235 - Moral Psychology. One year later, I received a notification in my inbox that told me Nina Powell, the professor in question, has left a comment on my blog. No wait, 5 comments. That's because her comment was so long that she had to split it up into 5 comments.

Since she put in so much effort to try to defend herself, I felt obligated to reciprocate and put in effort to respond to her. This was the email I sent her:

Dear Nina,

I have read the lengthy comment which you left on my module review blog, and I felt obligated to respond since you clearly put in some thought and effort in your comment. The text in red are your original comments, and my responses follow them in black.

Nevertheless, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address your concerns and also assuage the concerns of any future potential students reading this blog.

FYI, I get emails from time to time about my reviews, and I have received one or two about my review of your Moral Psychology module. A student was interested in your module, but "after reading your review of her module, I'm really scared."

I responded: "I'm not sure how she is like now, maybe her teaching has improved after a few semesters of feedback. Let me know? :)"

The point of reproducing this short exchange is just to (re)frame what you may think of my views- I am not particularly 'anti-Nina' or despise your guts, and I am aware that it was your first semester teaching and you may have improved since then. I haven't heard from this student again though. 

The feedback that I received from your fellow students in that year (2013/14) was generally quite different from what you provide here. Your fellow students, for example, mentioned finding the course refreshing in its approach to moral psychology and they mentioned enjoying the depth and rigour of the lectures and the reading. Four students nominated me for best teaching, which I found particularly encouraging, thoughtful and kind, as that was the first time I had taught at NUS.

I actually consulted a few of my friends in that class to check if I was alone in my views. Maybe something was wrong with me right? But all of them actually echoed a lot of what I felt, though a few of them were more forgiving, with comments like 'Aiya, it's her first time ma' (Translated: Yea I think so too, but it's her first time teaching, so it is understandable) (Singlish seems much more efficient)

The point here is that you can't please everyone. Maybe there were some students who loved the way you managed that class. Maybe there were others like me who didn't, and find your above lines a little surprising. 

I made significant changes to the moral psychology course after that first attempt. The course now includes a more clearly structured reading list with required and supplemental readings now directly identified. Assessment of the class participation is now more transparent and the fieldwork activity is now based on group rather than individual work. 

Some of the problems noted in the evaluation exercise are echoed in your blog here and so I expect you will be pleased with the changes. 

I actually said most of what I said here in the evaluation exercise. I recall spending significantly more time on it than I originally planned... so yes, I guess it's good that there were changes made.

The reading list was extensive, but not unreasonably so. In general, you were expected to read one chapter of a book and five journal articles per week. At an average of an hour each, that is just six hours reading. For a module where you are expected to do ten hours of work a week, the reading list was, essentially, exactly correct. Moreover, the reading reflected that expected by other universities for students taking highly similar modules. The course on Moral Psychology offered at NYU, for example, requires the students to read 3-5 journal articles per week, plus an additional reading of 3-5 supplementary journal articles per week, and three supplementary books. You can download the syllabus here: http://www.psych.nyu.edu/vanbavel/lab/documents/MoralPsychologySyllabus.VanBavel.pdf

I think it is important that NUS students receive a similarly comprehensive education to students at other institutions because I want our students to be globally competitive. Similar to the syllabus at New York University, and many other institutions, my current syllabus for the course at NUS includes two books and 2-3 required journal articles each week and a further 3-5 recommended journal articles for those who are especially interested in that week’s topic. 

The new breakdown seems more sensible (2-3 articles a week, and optional supplementary journal articles), though it depends on how long the book chapter readings are. While it is admirable that you are trying to keep NUS students globally competitive, you would have to expect if your reading list is more extensive than the 'market rate' of other level 4000 Psychology modules, you would face some disgruntlement about that. I'm not quite sure where you really stand though, you start off by defending a more extensive reading list, but later share that you have trimmed it down. 

Regardless, I don't think a good, holistic, comprehensive education involves flooding students with reading materials. There may be other more effective ways to do so, which you have yet to discover. (I'm not saying I know any better, just that intuitively it doesn't seem right)

I am saddened that you were not sufficiently interested or motivated to read for the course past week 4 and I am somewhat surprised, and concerned, that you did so well on so little reading. I do not think any student at degree level should expect to do well unless they put in substantial self-motivated work outside the seminar room. 

I don't think a 'B' grade is 'doing well'. Nonetheless, if you saw in that post, I did not expect to do well anyway, and predicted a 'B-' grade.

"The essays are weird, I've no idea what she wants even after completing two essays and receiving feedback. Her feedback makes no sense sometimes and seems slipshod. Don't bother staying back for the 'feedback sessions she gives after she returns your essays, she gives generic writing comments which don't help at all as it's not specific to what you wrote. "

I am not sure why you found the essays “weird” because you offer no specific detail. That is exactly the kind of feedback I would have provided to you when assessing your written work. Your criticisms and comments must be sufficiently detailed so that the reader can understand your meaning. That said, I wuld guess that you found my essays “weird” in part because I asked open-ended questions and expected you to pursue your own thoughts and understanding of the topic. Students at NUS appear more familiar with, and more comfortable with, short answer questions that look for specific facts and details. An open-ended essay, in contrast, asks you to identify the relevant facts and details to wield an argument based on your understanding and your integration of those facts and details. It is more difficult, but it is exactly what is required of degree level students around the world. I want NUS students to be able to compete with those students equally, because NUS students are capable of that; they deserve an education that pushes them out of their comfort zone so that they may reach that competitive edge. 

I would love to give you a thorough breakdown of why I didn't like the essays, but I honestly can't remember what they were about. I do remember one major gripe I had was how you appeared to be asking for more elaboration on many things despite the short 500 word cap. 

I am sorry you found my feedback nonsensical, slipshod and generic. Again, it is difficult for me to address your comments because you provide no specific details or examples. It is possible that in my first year at NUS I did not quite connect with the particular difficulties NUS students have with their writing and so I provided comments that were difficult to understand and came across as generic. Nevertheless, I provided every student on the course repeated opportunities for one-to-one discussion and feedback, and I saw improvement in the writing of most of my students. If you felt my feedback was not helping you to improve your writing, you could have talked to me about that during one of your personal discussion slots. 

I'm not sure if I elaborated on this in my module evaluation, but I remember one clear problem of the 'feedback session', which is more of an administrative issue. You tried to go to each student one by one and go through the comments... and by the time you have covered half the class, you probably realised time was an issue and may have rushed through the remaining half. I recall feeling that session an entire waste of time as I waited for over an hour (maybe 2?) only to get some generic comment (I wish I could remember exactly what these 'generic comments' were, but being so generic, they weren't very memorable). 


"She doesn't do much besides read off her slides, and when even so her slides aren't structured well such that sometimes she describes an entire experiment which only had a one line description in the slide, and you are frantically scribbling down the main points of the study."

I find it confusing as to how I both did little besides read off my slides and described an entire experiment from a one line description. Whatever may be true, at university, and especially in a final year seminar-style honours level module, it is not necessary to scribble anything down, frantically or otherwise. The point is to use the lecture to guide your reading and to guide your thoughts about the reading. 

To address your confusion, there is clearly some typo in that sentence, judging from the phase 'and when even so'. Let me rephrase the point - The delivery of your 'lecture' wasn't well synchronised with your prepared slides. Often, I found that you read off the slides without any elaboration on the points. I remember this distinctly because ... ok here, let me quote what I already wrote: 

"She doesn't seem to prepare well for each lecture, sometimes she is reading off her slide and hits a point which she didn't know how to explain, and, I quote her: "ok nevermind skip that." ???

She did this multiple times. in one lecture."

And at other times, you can rattle on about an experiment which had only a one line description. It helps the audience a lot if you could at least provide a skeleton to follow your points, even if it repeats the readings.

"Her 'writing tips' were just strange writing stylistic matters she insisted we follow. Some examples:

- Don't start a sentence with 'However,', no matter what. 'It undermines your argument'. (?? That IS the point gosh.)
- Don't use flowery language, such as 'upon' (I swear, she said this). Use 'on' instead.
- Each paragraph must have at least 3 sentences"

Those are standard rules. However, you are unerring in pointing out that these rules do not have to be obsequiously followed. However, when you are new to writing the rules can help an author better construct his writing.

Quite likely you struggled with reading those three sentences above, and yet there was nothing obviously gramatically incorrect. Starting those two sentences with however throws the reader from one position to another and it is difficult to work out what the author means – should a writer follow the rules or not?! And you probably tripped over “unerring” and “obsequiously”. Here is the same paragraph but written with the aim of it being easy for the reader:

Those are standard rules. You are correct, however, in pointing out that these rules do not have to be slavishly followed. When you are new to writing, however, the rules can help an author better construct his writing. 

There are still problems in that rewrite. I would prefer not to repeat “however” even if it is now embedded in the sentence and thus less distracting. And I would prefer a different word to “slavish” but “unthinking,” or “compliantly” did not quite work for me either. Again, writing is difficult. Writing takes time and thought to find the right word and the right structure to convey exactly what you intend to say. I provide some rules and tips that I hope will help until each student starts to understand the process and can find their own style. Once a student understands the point of the rules, then they can break loose from rules and add their own “style” or “flair” to what they write. 

So you still stand by your statement that 'upon' is flowery language? 

I am ambivalent about this. On one hand, I see value in what you say - teaching a student how to write would reap immense benefits (if the teaching is effective). Doing well academically definitely requires good writing. 

On the other hand, I disagree with the idea of dedicating a large portion of your module to 'teaching good writing'. I'm not sure how it is structured now, but this 'writing' component should be a secondary component, if at all, of the module. When I took the module, it felt like you were giving disproportionate focus to 'teaching how to write' than to the module content. This accentuated my preconceived notion that the syllabus was not well-prepared. 

In addition, I find that writing rules tend to be subjective. I have just completed a one year stint in a policy department within the Singapore government. Policy work requires a great deal of writing, so I've seen my work corrected in a variety of ways by my superiors. I find that the same piece of work can be criticized or praised, depending on who is reading it. Often, the edits made by one person may be due to his idiosyncratic preferences, and when it hits the next layer of checks, that person may revert those very edits.

Back to your 'rules'. I still disagree with your 'however' rule. In your example above, the series of sentences are only confusing because you strung two 'however's back to back, resulting in an awkward flip flop of meaning. When used appropriately, I think 'however' makes perfect sense, as a signal post to indicate a change of meaning, even if placed at the start of the sentence. I'd further argue that placing it in the middle of a sentence (i.e. between two commas) is more distracting as it breaks the flow of the reader.

I did struggle to remember everyone’s name in the seminars and I did find the Chines names hard to pronounce. I still find some names difficult, but I have been working to improve my pronunciation; I am gradually getting there. I am also improving with remembering names and did so even while I taught the seminar you were a part of.

I made an offhand comment about how you struggled with Chinese names and 'gave up learning names after the first week'. Out of everything I wrote in the post, I think this is one point which I would retract as it isn't really fair to you. 

This point was nested in the bigger point about how I was especially disgruntled about how you allocated the class participation grades. I still think it is an unfair and silly system (which I was personally shortchanged) which should be changed (which I note that you mentioned was changed to be 'more transparent').

I wish, Alan, that you might also have had a more enjoyable and beneficial experience from our encounter. That you did not is deeply regrettable.

Indeed, it was regrettable. I had high expectations for the module as it sounded very interesting. It was also unfortunate that the other module I took that semester was very well-conducted, which just served to contrast against the flaws I have highlighted in PL4235. 

I will highlight in the review that you have left a response in the post, so that people are aware. Hope the students of next semester have a great learning experience!

Regards,

Alan

Anytime Fitness, anyhow fitness - Part 2 (The aftermath)

This is a follow-up to my original post which can be found here. I will basically outline what happened after my previous post. Sadly, this probably won't go as viral as the previous one as it's not so 'juicy', but I do hope it gets shared so people know the full story.

Timeline of Events

1) Anytimefitness Malaysia contacted me

9th June: On the day of the post, just about 5-6 hours after the post at around midnight, I got a private message on Facebook from an Anytime Fitness staff from Malaysia.

I thought it was rather nice of her, so I thanked her for her message and told her that I hope that 'something is done to improve the service quality of such errant staff'. 

From the Facebook comments, it seemed that there were mixed responses - some came out to defend the franchise, saying their experiences were nothing but pleasant. There were also others who claimed to have been mistreated by the nex branch too. A recurring theme was this - Anytime Fitness isn't that bad as a franchise, but the nex branch may have some systemic issues.

2) My post on Anytimefitness Nex was deleted and I was blocked

10th June: Some people told me to complain on the nex branch's Facebook page, so I did, including the link of my post for details. However, it was merely deleted later in the day, and I was blocked from posting any further on their page. 

Can still see my blog's URL in the Google search result lol! But the post has been deleted, so if you click it you won't find it.

3) I wrote in to Anytimefitness Asia

11th June, 10 AM: Not knowing whether AF would care about my blog (I didn't know it would be going viral), I wrote in to their Asia HQ. I was seeking some sort of official response from the brand, as they had remained silent and also tried to silence me (on their Facebook page).

4) All Singapore Stuff picked up my blog and republished it

11th June: Shortly after the email, a friend texted me telling me that All Singapore Stuff (ASS) had posted my blog in full on its page. Wow. Shit just got real. I felt mildly comforted that my story was travelling and would be heard. 

5) The story began going viral

11th June: I'm not sure what it was - maybe it was the injustice of the situation; maybe the story struck a chord with people who wanted to band together to protect consumers' rights; maybe people had similar experiences; maybe it was my quirky writing (haha :p ) - whatever it is, people were sharing it. And sharing it fast.

Within a few hours, there were already several thousand views on the ASS website, and their FB post had 100+ shares.

This is the latest snapshot - 22.3k views... that's insane. I think it's easily the most viewed/shared article for the day. From the site, there were over 1.5k shares. (currently sitting at 24k views), and over 400 shares from their FB post.

6) Anytimefitness HQ begins to contact me

11th June, 3.17PM. I think they began to realise the gravity of the situation and how outraged people were, and they began to reach out to me. A friend's friend who happened to be a US spokesman for AF called me but I missed his call. Their Master Franchisee for Asia, Maurice, left a comment on my blog post and sent me an email.

The email is a little long so I won't republish it here, but it's identical to the comment from 'Yours in Health' on the original post here. Basically, they tried to apologise in a very long-winded way. Here's some snippets (the bolding of words was done by me): 

"I am the Master Franchise for Anytime Fitness Asia and our team and all of our stakeholders go to great lengths and invest heavily in time, effort, training and tools to foster enjoyable environments and to create uplifting shared experiences at our gyms in the hope of nurturing our sacred mission - to remove the barriers to a healthier lifestyle and to change lives....sometimes we get it wrong and in this instance, we clearly let you down and I sincerely apologize."

 He did address the main issue on the free trial, stating:

"it certainly is not industry practice to promote a free trial and then to attach conditions or deny the access."

The email ended with:

I seek your understanding and consideration - we have over 3,000,000 members peppered throughout the world and countless numbers of tremendous success stories to share and I ask you to please persevere and give us a second chance - we are making a blanket offer to all Singaporeans to use our gyms for a free one day trial by visiting any one of our Anytime Fitness gym websites and registering with us and we will welcome you with open arms.

I don't know how the 3 million members thing is relevant, and I don't see how the bolded text is new information. In fact, it is a downgrade from the previous 3-day trial (and lower than the international 7-day trial).

The rest of the day, I checked out the comments on ASS / FB once in a while, just to see what was being said, and exchanged an email or two with random commenters and Maurice.


7) Anytimefitness Nex posts an apology on Facebook... only to delete it?

11th June 10pm : Something strange then happens. AF nex posts an apology on their Facebook... which they promptly deleted some time throughout the night (or maybe in the early morning?). Luckily, I had some screenshots:

I underlined the first line in red because that really annoyed me. Firstly, I don't know how else you can interpret a finger hooking action apart from being a rude way to beckon a customer. Maybe this is perfectly normal in Australia, I don't know.

Secondly and more importantly, that was NOT the reason why I felt aggrieved! If you read the original post, you would know I actually felt he was justified for behaving that way because maybe he thought I was a trespasser. What made me write the whole blog post was what happened after that 'non-verbal gesture'. The entire interaction, how I was 'suckered' into paying a walk-in fee (as some netizens say), his odd long stares, his refusal to give me a trial even though I asked several times.

Reading the whole message as a whole, I think it may have been eventually taken down because a more seasoned PR person realized that despite 'apologizing' twice,  it makes three mistakes:
1) Absolves personal blame by putting the blame on me (for misconstruing the gesture)
2) Sidesteps the bigger issue of the entire rude interaction
3) A little too lengthy

Again, these are just my guesses, and I have no idea why it was deleted.

8) Stewart personally apologizes

12th June, 630am: If you missed it, Stewart is the Australian boss, AKA Mr Bull. I woke up this morning to find that he had left a comment on my blog. Here it is:

Hi Alan,

On behalf of Anytime Fitness nex, I would like to offer my personal apology for your unpleasant experience. We pride ourselves on being personable and your experience and feedback shows that we must always work to improve.

Although no longer available we would like to offer you the opportunity to fulfill your No Obligation 3 day pass with us at your own convenience.
Please accept my apology and take up the opportunity to see how good we really are.

Regards
Stewart Hine 

Ah. This is how it should be done. Short and simple and direct. I like it. I appreciate that he did this, even if it was because AF HQ was putting heavy pressure on him. This was also posted on ASS's article.


9) Anytimefitness nex FB has a change of heart

12th June: First thing I noticed was that I was unblocked, and could post on their Facebook page again. [EDIT: Nevermind, I don't know if I am still blocked or they are moderating posts, but I can't see my post appear on their page when I tried to share this. Oh well.]

 Next thing was that whoever managed their Facebook page became disarmingly humble. For example, this interaction:

Chinno: -links my blog- I don't know this author but I pity him. Is this true?

AnytimeFitness nex: It's true. We failed.

And a few more along the same lines where they addressed the service failure head on, owned it, and apologized for it. I respect that. That should be how good PR/service recovery is done! Just acknowledge the mistake, don't make excuses and don't be defensive (unless clearly wronged), and promise to try to improve.

They also mentioned publicly that they had reached out to me, and hope that I would give them a second chance. They also mentioned that Stewart was 'not doing sales anymore', not sure what that means.


10) Outstanding Questions

I had some outstanding questions that were not answered.

a) "Free passes are still available and in fact we have increased the number available due to popular demand"

This was what was posted on their FB page in response to someone asking whether the trial was available. This means the number is still limited? Does this mean it's possible someone may get rejected for a trial when he goes down? Or will the staff manage it properly and not let something like this occur?

UPDATE: I got an answer from Maurice, the Master Franchisee.
"Nex and all of our Anytime Fitness gyms will honor the one day pass. They will definitely not get rejected for a one day pass"
If any of you actually get rejected for your trial from now on, do share it in the comments below!

b) After the trial, does the individual 'lapse' into automatic membership and gets charged for it if he does not return the transponder? Some of the comments I've seen complained about how they were double charged, etc, so I'm concerned about this.

This was what I asked Maurice. It felt like a strange process to have, from a customer perspective.

UPDATE: From Maurice:
"They pay a $68 DEPOSIT which is fully refundable if they do not proceed to membership. They are not double charged"

So basically what Stewart said previously is in complete violation of the franchise's processes(he said that you would lapse into membership and be charged if you didn't return the transponder). 
If any of you get told this from now on, do share it in the comments below!

--

11) Conclusion

Some of you may be wondering - so will I return to AF nex? Or AF at all?

Well, despite the sour experience with the nex branch, AF has shown that they have decent service recovery standards, which is commendable. I may end up going to Fitness First though, simply because it is right next to my office at one north, while nex requires a slight detour and by the time I reach after work it is rather late for a workout on an empty stomach, though AF is dangling some offers at me. I haven't decided, will need to start work first and see how the workload is.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and for sharing the previous post if you did. I hope you don't walk away from this thinking that Anytime Fitness is a shitty franchise, because I really don't think they are, they may just have a few black sheep.

Some people have also asked whether AF is truly and sincerely sorry, or just sorry that they got caught and this blew up on the internet. I've a feeling it's a bit of both. Regardless, from some of the comments, there were people with exceedingly positive experiences as well. With a large franchise like this, there are bound to be a few blips.

Take care everyone, and train hard (wherever it is)!

Have you been denied a free trial at anytimefitness before? Let me know in the comments below or drop me an email, with as much detail as you can, and I'll try to seek some sort of redress for you with the Master Franchisee.