From: Jo Knight (joknight@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 07 2008 - 13:18:44 ART
Leo,
That is a great journey. Well done for keeping at it.
Jo
Leo Leung wrote:
> Dear GS members,
>
> I passed the lab last Wed. on Oct.1, 2008.
>
> Before I first sat R&S lab in 2005, I had 10 years voice experience
> and got my CCNA/CCNP. I was surprised with the report shown "0%" in
> many sections. I asked myself did I forget to save config? Yes, I
> did save; but no, I totally underestimated the lab as I studied only
> from Cisco websites without taking any vendors workbooks. Then I
> realized I need to change my way of thinking to look for help; you see
> CCIE journey began transforming me. I got IPexpert and ccbootcamp
> workbooks and found myself pretty much relied on solution guide,
> meaning I was unable to perform a lab section myself and the speed was
> horrible. After a long while I decided to go to bootcamp at
> netmasterclass.com in early 2007 and it proved me that I was the worst
> one in the class. What happened? I exhausted all my savings, when I
> discussed it with my wife that only solution was to take credit card
> debt that she went for a minimum wage job to pay the interest. It was
> sad soon she got serious sick and went through 2 major surgeries in
> 2006 and followed by endless medical bills. My 7-year old son asked me
> when his dream to Disneyland will become true, boy, I never have time
> to bring him to local cinema even once. My heart broke as I saw his
> tear in his eyes. At that particular moment an event occurred in my
> journey. after a mock lab I happened to speak with Narbik over the
> phone about my journey status. Immediately he sent me the whole OSPF
> section material for free, offered his phone number for any questions,
> but most importantly he told me that he believed my determination and
> ability to accomplish this journey. I found as if he looked into my
> eyes with the word of "you can do it". Since then I kept telling
> myself nothing can stop me from moving forward. Then, I was quite
> comfortable with his approach to complete each technology section in
> its own scope before ever touching a full lab. He asked me to do
> every section 4 times and make sure no question you are not aware of.
> Man, I doubled that; I valued his books more than gold, no kidding.
> Please, please I do not mean to devaluate any other vendor's
> workbooks. It was my understanding level at early stage of the
> journey did not come up to that height and different people have
> different ways of learning that may be closer to one another kind of
> workbook design. Another critical moment in my journey was in second
> half of 2007 I found 2 study partners in the bay area, Jean-Marc
> Mazzoni and Jay Jwalanaiah. We got together from netmeeting every
> week to work primarily on InternetworkExpert labs and go over Jean's
> very detailed notes that he worked so hard and shared with us so
> selfishlessly. They sincerely pointed out that I have English
> proficiency issue that needed to overcome and they made a lot of jokes
> out of it, well that's one of many reasons I love CCIE program that
> allows me to meet such great men that I otherwise no way to know, not
> only that after they both passed the exam, they gave me their routers
> and switches for free so that I was able to build a fully scaled lab
> without compromise. You all know what value of such an available lab
> for a candidate is.
>
> What I am tying to say is this,if you have guts to pursue this
> journey, do not drop it! for it defeats your own purpose, even if you
> do, you may eventually come back, because we are engineers by nature
> and we like to complete things from A to Z, why wasting time? and
> Cisco is also interested in seeing how you deal with failure (no
> offend to 1st time pass). I have learned to convert complaint for
> compliment, appreciated failure as identification of weak areas, and
> taken pain on the journey as necessary cost to pass. As world needs
> CCIEs and equivalents to keep its networks up, no excuse is
> acceptable. I am now glad that we took that credit card debt, because
> all the skillset learned along the journey, the creditability
> established in work place, the confidentiality in oneself facing
> assigned projects, and the opportunity upcoming to one's reach are
> much, much more weighted than this debt, that too, would be soon
> disappeared as well. On the other hand you can say me primitive, but
> nothing makes me more happier than being able to support my family,
> especially in economic downturn.
>
> For everyone on board, I say thank you mate. Hanging there, you'll be
> CCIE one day; For all instructors including list owner I have deepest
> respect for your dedication, willingness, patience and all that will
> be forever our integrate part of the journey.
>
> Leo
> 22227 (R&S)
>
> P.S
> Input to improve my English proficiency is greatly appreciated.
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
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