As part of our staff wellness program, my division sponsored a Red Cross CPR course that we staff could elect to attend. I'll jump at any chance to get out of the office for two hours, so away I went. Plus, I figured it's generally a good thing to know how to perform CPR.
A fair amount has changed since the last time I was certified, which was back when I was in the Boy Scouts. Detail stuff, like how to find the point on the chest you compress and the number of compressions per breath.
The instructor was a fairly funny guy but, like most paramedics I've met, had a somewhat macabre sense of humor and a tendency to give out a bit Too Much Information. A lot of what he said, though, was meant to be pretty reassuring; like how we should expect to hear a loud pop when doing CPR on a person - that's the cartilage that holds the breastbone and the ribs together snapping loose. "After that gives," he said, "it's really easy to get good, steady compressions."