From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Thu Jan 08 2009 - 02:50:43 ARST
Congratulations! And yes, there are many things that tend to not make the
"warm and fuzzy" list of reasons to get your CCIE! :) But glad to hear
that you seem to have survived them!
Now... Turn off the damned Blackberry... Get some sleep... And spend some
time with your family! Everything else will still be in place when you get
off the cloud!
Scott Morris, CCIE4 #4713, JNCIE-M #153, JNCIS-ER, CISSP, et al.
CCSI/JNCI-M/JNCI-ER
Senior CCIE Instructor
smorris@internetworkexpert.com
Internetwork Expert, Inc.
http://www.InternetworkExpert.com
Toll Free: 877-224-8987
Outside US: 775-826-4344
Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study hard and be Eeeeviiiil......
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Johnnie Utah
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 10:59 PM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: Passed on third attempt
Group,
Just wanted to share that I passed on the third attempt yesterday.
I've submitted fewer than 10 posts on this mailing list, but I've been
a reader since 1999, so for those of you who spend time each day to
keep the list alive and respond to technical questions related to lab
prep, kudos - you know who you are, and what you do does matter to the
hopefuls.
I submitted a post after my second failed attempt in July of '08 and
went into a pseudo hibernation for about four months before getting up
off the canvas to take another swing...I'm not going to share any
details about the prep, I wouldn't add anything that hasn't been said
already, namely regarding specific vendors, bootcamps and the like.
I did want to write about a few emotional/health topics that nobody
told me about when I signed up to do this...What I've learned at least
for me personally, as the lab date gets closer, the more tense,
anxious and irritable I became. Not pleasant to be around at all. I
can attribute this to a few things:
1. I spent most of my time studying late into the night due to working
a full day, spending time with the kids and seeing them off to bed.
The lack of sleep will eventually take it's toll.
2. You become so consumed with studying that things like a good diet
and regular exercise become non existent. Thus, the "what can I eat
quickly and return to studying" turns into a horrible diet, and I
really didn't care at the time, it was more concerned with quick and
easy. Bad diet and no exercise = feel like sh-t.
3. Guilt of choosing to study versus family time or anything else -
Every time I knocked out an 8 hour lab, I felt like I should have been
doing something else. Not to say others out there are like this,
because this journey is very important to one's career, but there is a
guilt element that some of you have felt and others will experience.
4. Back on sleep - late studying equals staring at the ceiling when
you go to bed. Configs swirling around in your coconut is not
conducive to relaxing and shutting it down. I could seldom crash
immediately after studying. It's like doing an all nighter on a major
outage or upgrade and sleeping during the day when it's over. It's
restless sleep because you dream about configurations. Maybe I'm an
anomaly, but I'm sure there's someone else out there who knows what
I'm talking about. I will admit that I'm a jerk to be around on a bad
sleep schedule.
5. Anxiety leading up to lab day is very high. Even the anxiety
between lab completion and finding out the results is off the charts.
So bottom line, I failed twice before, was really down about the
second failed attempt for about 2 weeks. For those of you who are
fighting the good fight and grinding, keep going. I'm an average guy
that doesn't have the huge embedded technical appetite for this stuff
that a lot of you do, but it's doable.
I left the lab feeling good, then on the flight home talked myself
into preparing for the worst, second guessing my solutions, etc. My
Blackberry buzzed at about 1:30 AM with an all too familiar message
from ccie@cisco.com, subject: CCIE Lab Score Report. This time it was
different, I saw the "Pass" designation on my recent attempt, above my
two previous fails. I thanked the Lord......then stared at the
ceiling for the next two hours (WTF?).
Regarding feeling like a tired, anxious, out of shape jerk, it was
worth it. Today was awesome.
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
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