From: Sean C (Upp_and_Upp@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 12 2006 - 13:50:18 ART
Hi Scott,
Congrats on the digits. Let me know what your 'pep' talk was in the
afternoon - my labs in a few weeks, I can use the 2nd wind now! ;-)
Again, congrats!
Sean
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Smith" <hioctane@gmail.com>
To: "groupstudy" <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 10:10 AM
Subject: Passed @ RTP Yesterday, CCIE #17040
> First, I'd like to thank God for giving me the ability and desire, and
> my wife and daughter for all their support over the last 2 years.
>
> A big thanks to all the folks who support this group and the guys at IE.
>
> For prep I used IE's workbook as well as their CoD. Great work guys! I
> hope to do some teaching soon and you guys are a perfect example of
> how it should be done.
>
> This was my 3rd attempt and it was an adventure. I didn't sleep a wink
> the night before. It wasn't nerves so much as it was just being fired
> up and ready to kick some tail. By the time I sat down in my cube I
> had been awake for 24hrs. The combination of caffeine and adrenaline
> had me feeling pretty good. After about an hour or two my lack of
> sleep really started to be a problem. I was making so many mistakes
> with the most simple of tasks forcing me to waste time troubleshooting
> stupid stuff like applying a config to the wrong interface. Things
> I've done a hundred times seemed so difficult. By the time our lunch
> break hit I wasn't even finished with IGP. Tired, upset and depressed
> all I wanted to do was lay down on the couch in the lobby and sleep.
> After lunch I still wasn't doing well. My brain was still misfiring as
> I tried to fend off that little voice in my head telling me to quit
> and get some sleep. With about two hours to go I went outside to get
> some air and gave myself a good talking too:-) I came back in with a
> new outlook and things started to go much better as my brain came back
> to life (2nd wind?). I ripped through the remaining tasks and still
> had over an hour to verify every task. I found and fixed several
> issues from the AM but after tallying up the points I thought I was
> still short. I left a little early and was 95% sure I had failed again
> but I was ok knowing I gave 100% and didn't quit when quiting would
> have been easy. I spent the flight home thinking about the upcoming Me
> vs Cisco round 4 and dreading opening the books again. With all the
> flight delays I didn't get home till nearly 11p and decided to check
> my email just to see... and... bingo! I sat in absolute shock for like
> 5 minutes. I did a "print screen", closed my browser and logged back
> in just to see if it was real :-) I then went running through the
> house yelling I PASSED, I PASSED (lol)... scared the heck out of my
> wife, daughter and dog.
>
> This has been by far the most difficult thing I've ever done and boy
> am I glad it is over!
>
> -Scott
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Nov 01 2006 - 07:29:05 ART