My Experience!

Good Morning
Group,

I've just recovered from my
visit to Brussels yesterday, to summarize my whole experience this was more of
a psychological stress test than a test of technical knowledge depth (so i've
been told until i realized first hand)

The day before: Arrived at the hotel the
evening before took a walk down to Cisco which was just a few meters behind
the
hotel i was staying. Did a little revision the night before at the hotel.

The morning: We got called in and
assigned our rack numbers moved in to our desk. I must say the sizes of the
screens were of great help. They were 21" screens which really aided
in carry out the exercise and isolating faults.

I don't think of the time
i've spents on this planet and through out my educational journey that
I've experienced anything remotely close to what I experienced
yesterday, Its impossible to describe even though I had practiced quite
frequently to control such panic attacks -in short, I was broken (at least
initially before I fought back). Basically, I spent the first 2-3hrs looking
for
my mouse on the table - (Oh it was on my desk alright i'd didnt go anywhere).
At
this point I realized I was heading for failure without the slightest chance
of
success , and only then did I step back and look back at the journey up to
this point. Was i prepared to fail without an attempt? The dreaded OEQ went
well
so I had one leg in? eventually I got my act together shortly before lunch. I
was just about to start redistribution when I heard the proctors voice saying
.... 3min to lunch .... good time to save configs. OK, this IS IT. During my
preparation I knew that section was not something I rush and it would usually
take me some time 20-1hr depending how complicated it is. Within those 3min I
put the requirements in my head and pondered over it at the lunch table. There
were great options on the menu but I settled for 2 burgers and some chips. I
ate
as quickly as i could and requested to excuse my self for a cigarette. I had
about 15min to come up with a solution to this redistribution and a method to
approach the remaining sections if i still wanted to put up a good fight
..... shortly before lunch time was up I had my plan for redistribution and
how to approach the last section. Also a previous configuration fault in my
core!!!
Went back in working as I
should have been from the start, keeping track of time. I had made up my
mind that if my redis. solution didnt work within 20min i would give up the
points and move and just enable minimal connectivity .... i dumped my solution
in a text file and went over it again again before applying. The solution met
80% of the requirement and i had to put additional changes in to cover the
remaining req. this lifted me mentally.

........ to be continued

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Received on Sat Jun 06 2009 - 15:15:45 ART