From: Marijo Bernardic (MBernardic@relianceglobalcom.com)
Date: Fri Jan 16 2009 - 12:02:14 ARST
Congrats!!! Great story.
-----Urspr|ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] Im Auftrag von Peter Grewal
Gesendet: Freitag, 16. Januar 2009 12:02
An: ccielab@groupstudy.com
Betreff: Well I went to RTP yesterday and..........
I passed on my second attempt !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its been a long journey, one that has taken a great deal of time away from
my family. I started my journey in earnest in 2006, passed the CCIE written
in December of that year. In January 2007, I assembled my own rack and
started working on the lab on and off for the rest of the year. At the
beginning of 2008, I felt that I needed to get more focused and decided to
attend Narbiks bootcamp in Passadena. I can't say enough positive things
about his bootcamp, his humor and the caliber of the material he has
developed. My first attempt at the lab come in June 2008, after getting
through the lab I had that feeling that I didn't pass, which was confirmed
in the dreaded 3:00AM email. So why did I fail ? In part due to the fact
that I just was not ready, the material that Narbik had given me was
awesome, but I just didn't know the material as well as I thought, plus I
was fumbling with the document CD.
I took a slight break to enjoy the summer with my family, my wife and son
had already been greatly deprived of quality time with me, and I felt it
unfair to start hitting the books straight away. After a two month break, I
added Internetworking experts 5.0 Vol 1 work book to my study material and
used it to hone in on the technologies and provide me with a slightly
different perspective on the material. Completed Narbiks advanced technology
work books twice, made sure that I went through the document CD from top to
bottom as I was studying. By November, I felt like I was finally ready to
take this thing head on, the first available date I could find for either
RTP or San Jose which was Jan 15, 2009. So what does one do when they have a
couple of weeks prior to their exam, I took a cruise with my family !!!! I
don't know how big of a factor this was, but as an IT consultant I work a
pretty hectic schedule and trying to study can be a tough balance, I didn't
touch a computer/laptop for a good 8 days, relaxed and spent time with my
family. When I got back, I felt as though my head and been cleared, and I
had a renewed fire in me to knock the exam out of the park. I spent the
final weeks, re-reviewing all of my study notes, reviewing the document CD,
and labbing up areas that I considered to be my weak areas.
I flew into RTP on Tuesday, and stayed at the Holiday Inn express (really
nice hotel, and they offer a complimentary shuttle to/from Cisco and the
airport. I took it easy on Wednesday, reviewed my notes and read through the
varies posts on the upcoming changes on the lab, more on the upcoming
changes in a moment. On the day of the exam, I got up around 5:00AM, I just
couldn't sleep, I wouldn't call it nerves, I felt like I was ready to pass
this time. As Anthony Sequieria from IE has often stated, I just had that
feeling of I was going to pass this today, at no point did I feel like I was
not going to make it.
I worked my way through the lab, verifying as I went, working a little bit
slower and more relaxed that I should have been, however by lunch time, I
had completed all the core requirements, as well as IPv6 and completed a
reboot of all the devices. After lunch, I worked my way through the
remaining sections and completed my verification, which took me until
3:00PM. So what did I decided to do at 3:00PM start tweaking my IGP, bad
move as I had to undue all the tweaks, but I tested my network just to make
sure everything was working. I walked out of the lab at 3:30PM, feeling that
I had a really good chance of passing, then it hit me, did I save my configs
on the routers that I decided to change last minute ? I was pretty sure I
had, but this late in the day I just couldn't remember. I spent the next
couple of hours wonder had I saved my configuration, prior to leaving the
lab, I had done it consistently through earlier parts of the. My words of
advice, don't try to make any changes to your network late in the day that
could break your network for a few points and "wr mem" after any change on
you make.
At 11:00PM I received the confirmation email, since I was fast asleep, my
wife checked when she woke up in the morning, and informed me of my pass
status. I would like to thank my wife who has stood by me in my constant
studying, and my son whom at 20 months old walks in to Dad's study and
doesn't understand why dad can't play with him. For any parent, this is one
of the hardest part of pursuing this exam, the time spent studying really is
time that you could be spending with your family. I would also like to thank
Narbik, the InternetworkingExpert team for their material and mock labs, as
well as the wonderful folks on this forum. I'm going to take some time off,
before reviewing my next mountain to tackle......
One last thing concerning the upcoming change to the lab, according to
Howard and Robert yesterday at RTP, the questions will only take up to 15
minutes to answer, and should be nothing to worry about if you are properly
prepared. I feel the pain of people that are under pressure studying and
have this thrown at them, but from what I've heard from the proctors, if
you've prepared properly for lab, then there is nothing to worry about.
Thank you.
Peter Grewal
CCIE RS 23211
Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
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