From: olumayokun fowowe (olumayokun@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jan 08 2009 - 14:39:18 ARST
congrats
atleast there is hope for the rest of us too. I share your feelings
about work, family and studying! what a great combination! enjoy your
success and pray for the rest of us
On 1/8/09, 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
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
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Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
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