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Hey guys, I'm back on the wagon here, after finding a different path to wander for the past coupla months. It's great to be here again! I've got a couple of new goals - long term and for this challenge. But one really cool thing that happened was a letter I found when I got back home. It's probably best if you just read it for yourself : Meraki Director of E.R.A. ㅡ Meraki Redacted, Redacted, interest@era.com 13 March 2018 To Infinity Zero, The Elite. Reconnaissance. Agency. are honoured to send you a letter of interest. E.R.A. is a non-military led sub-branch of United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Unit, dedicated to stopping major acts of destruction before they occur. We have seen your progress and ambition and have decided that you would be a good candidate for our training program and subsequent employment within our agency. Your role within E.R.A. will be as an Intelligence Officer, though this is all the information we can give you before you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with us. Therefore, any further detail will be provided to you at an information briefing in a few days time. The exact date, time, and location will all be sent to you when you respond to this letter signifying your interest. This briefing will also include an assessment for further character details and current skills that may not be known to us. This includes your knowledge, fitness, and social abilities - which will be key for employment with E.R.A. We expect that all of our agents to be at their peak performance in each of these areas at all times. Training will be provided during our training program, but there is a minimum level of competency we require to be able to train you to your full potential. The exact entry requirements will be given to at the briefing, along with information of what E.R.A. does, and what the training program will provide you with. We shall assess any progress needed to get to the requirements at the briefing, and further points of contact before acceptance. Thank you for your time, and I hope to hear back from you soon. So, of course I signed up and agreed to go. The exact details, of course, and going to be slightly more vague for you from now on, but seeing as how it applies to getting my fitness up and training, they allowed me to keep up to date with that on here! Just this morning, I got a follow up email for a more specific regime that I'm going to have to follow from now on. Thank you for your attendance at the information briefing that was held. We have decided that you are qualified to continue with the orientation, though we have decided that you need a period before acceptance into the training program as you are physically unable to complete the necessary requirements. To aid you in your progress, we shall have a different instructor interview and assess you at the end of five week intervals, until the date of the entrance exam. This is to ensure that you continue to be a suitable candidate and can hold up in our training program and work there onwards. Further details of the entrance requirements are provided below. Be able to run 5 kilometers in under 30 minutes. Be able to pull yourself up onto a ledge Be able to touch your toes Be able to hold a plank for 2 minutes Further skills may be of benefit to help boost your skill within the program. Basic computer security knowledge The ability to drive a car / motorbike Strong long and short term memory What you do with the rest of your time is up to you, but we advise that you develop some personal skills as well, in preparation for developing skills within the training program. The date of the entrance exam is at the beginning of September - the 11th to be exact. (Also happens to be my birthday, so hopefully some good luck will come from that) So I have five challenge spans for these sessions to get me to the first set of goals. The first instructor, someone called Demeter, emailed me shortly after with a set of goals, and they look perfect for turning into a challenge on here. To Infinity Zero, my name to you will be Instructor Hestia. I'm welcoming you into this probation period, getting you up to snuff and making sure you know the drill around here before you start facing some of the others. The first four week span technically starts on Monday, but I thought I'd email you now with my expectations so you can start working on them. By the end of this period, I expect that you will be capable of the following : Know your average 5k speed Your measurements over this span A consistent food log over this span The ability to hold a plank for 20 seconds I will be checking in with you again on Sunday 25th to see you progress. So, of course, this becomes a task. 1) Run 5k once a week. 2) Take measurements every Monday morning. 3) Record food consumption in journal. 4) Hold a plank for 10 seconds, then add 5 seconds each week. Do it every day. tl;dr Basically I was approached by a non military sub branch of the UN SCCCTU, who are counter terrorism, and look for people out of sixth form and university. Someone approached me about a potential interest in ERA (the branch's name), but told me that I wouldn't be able to get into the training program unless my health and fitness was up to snuff. But they're going to be training me for this! (Disclaimer : none of this is real - it is to trick my brain into treating it all seriously, but it's like any other story. There may be refinements in the future, and other areas I will be working on, but this is it for now.)(Also wow, sorry this post is so extremely long)