Re: Passed on third attempt

From: Muhammad Nasim (muhammad.nasim@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jan 08 2009 - 08:58:44 ARST

Congrats and please take a good sleep : )

2009/1/8 Marcus Bedford <marcus.bedford@mebway.com>

> Congrats. Thanks for the post. will help keep us "seekers" motivated.
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 4:59 AM, Johnnie Utah <johnnieutah1@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
> > _______________________________________________________________________
> > Subscription information may be found at:
> > http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 

-- 
Muhammad Nasim
Network Engineer
Saudi Arabia

Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net

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