My Story
Hello Dean here. Dean Burnett. Doctor Dean Burnett, if you want to be formal about it, but I neither want nor expect such deference. You might know me from all those brain books I've written, or the articles in many well-known publications. But if you don't, no worries. That's not what this is about. Just accept that I could justifiably be described as a 'reasonably well-known nerd'. It seems I'm meant to put some personal, inspiring story here. To convince people to donate to my efforts. But while it's true that I've lost, or come close to losing, people near and dear to me to the disease, if you need me to convince you that 'cancer is bad' then getting you to cough up a fiver for my efforts is the least of my concerns. You should probably keep it, and put it toward funding some professionally-assisted introspection. No, the truth is, I saw the posts going around inviting people to sign up to the cancer research '100 press ups a day for all of November' challenge, and after nearly two years of persistent, if occasionally sporadic, gym attendance, I thought "...I could probably do that". Well, now I've signed up to it officially. And if I don't do it, I'm basically publicly admitting I like cancer, and I don't think my career would survive that. I'd have to take a job on GB News or something. And that would be difficult for so many reasons, least of all that shaving is much more hazardous when you can't face looking yourself in the eye in the mirror. So yeah, I'm going to be doing this physically demanding challenge, and chronicling my progress. I've set a low fundraising target so I can cover it myself if nobody wants to encourage my idiocy. But if you want to donate to it, that'd be very nice, because it's all for cancer research. Plus, it'll motivate me to keep going. And maybe you'll get to witness the moment my shoulders crumble to dust, or one of my arms detaches itself from my body out of sheer frustration. My son has expressed interest in joining in with my attempts, so that should be fun. He doesn't have my upper body strength, what with only being 11, but he is extremely fit and hyper competitive otherwise. But as the Dad, I feel I need to retain my authority in some way. Should be interesting. So basically, if you want to see a 'stout' nerd in his forties take on an excessively long physical challenge for reasons that essentially boil down to pure hubris, please consider donating.
