From: Scott Vermillion (scott_ccie_list@it-ag.com)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2008 - 20:14:36 ARST
Dear Keith,
As you know, we newspaper advice columnists prefer to stay on the topics of
etiquette and interpersonal turmoil. However, since Abbey was recently
certified in Routing & Switching (despite her diagnosis of Alzheimer's in
2002) and is now pursuing her SP track, she'll make an exception in your
case...
Abbey started lab prep around the beginning of September once all of her
gear showed up and she got Dynamips and so forth tweaked. At first it was
like a honeymoon, with lots of long, loving stares and gushing "I love
yous." Now Abbey more or less quit her column during this time, so her
experience was slightly different than yours. However, the net result was
identical: by December, Abbey couldn't bear to think of getting out of bed
for any reason other than to smash her lab to bits. Although doing lab prep
full time, by Christmas Abbey wasn't getting any more than a couple of hours
of useful study in per day. By the time she returned from Narbik's bootcamp
just prior to the holidays, your favorite advice columnist was plain pooped.
Abbey wrote "Dear Abbey" letters to the group publicly and to several
individual members privately begging and pleading for that magic study pill.
The best advice came from Gary Duncanson. It also was the hardest advice to
take: drop it like a hot rock for a good week. While Abbey never fully
dropped lab prep, she scaled back considerably for the better part of a
couple of weeks and focused mainly on heavy drinking and the like. It did
wonders for all but the liver, which as we all well know is not critical to
passing the lab.
So Abbey's best advice is that once you get to that special place where lab
violence occupies your every waking thought, there is really only one
solution, and that is unequivocal inebriation for a period of one to two
weeks. Stay away from the list and other Cisco-related groups during this
time. Consider whether or not you really can spare just one piece of lab
gear and run it over in the driveway, say, two or three hundred times.
Careful not to spill whiskey on the leather or you'll be firing off a query
to "Hints from Heloise" before you know it!
Abbey
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
keith tokash
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 2:38 PM
To: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: Study schedule
Dear Abby,
I hate to say this, but I'm really burning out here and would like to
compare
notes a little. I wake up at 5.30am each weekday, but I'm a slow riser so I
may not quite make it out of bed right away. Average time to start lab work
=
7am. I go until 9-9.15am, then head to work. I get home about 6-7pm (3
mile
commute) and get about 1.5 hours of lab time in. On weekends I almost never
go anywhere, just alternate between lab work and taking Netflix + food
breaks.
I've been doing this for about 3 months now, with another 6 months of
various
other schedules before that, and I'm starting to have more and more trouble
focusing, and I'm losing my patience more as well. Of course I'm becoming
more and more fun for my wife to deal with on the side.
Does anyone have any type of advice or schedule that worked for them? I
don't
suppose it helps that I'm normally really busy at work too, so I can't study
there, or take time to play video games like some sysadmin types seem to
have
time for. At this point I'm really having trouble just finishing the last
two
tasks in my current lab on account of wanting to take a nosedive off my
balcony. I'm thinking a week off might do wonders, as I have a bootcamp
scheduled for March 17th, but I hate to lose the time (May 20th lab date).
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and
with
science.
--Carl Sagan
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