I have been a little paralyized since I saw this incredible result after not seeing anything until late Saturday night (more than a 24 hour tortured wait). I have had the combined feeling of disbelief and relief.
Did I really pass finally?! Is this mission finally accomplished?
It was a 3-day weekend in the states, and the proctor told me to expect to wait until Monday.
But here is the clincher. I thought I had failed yet again. I was praying....you know those type of life-or-death prayers that a Casino gambler makes...the most sincere of all.
"Please please Please let me pass. Please."
At one point I almost had a tear as I was headed back to the airport after the exam. I was thinking I may need to give up on the CCIE dream (and I never ever give up on anything).
"Three attempts already?! WTF? How many more attempts? Should I just quit, and look for a different line of work?"
Still talking to myself, "I was there on the exam. That exam was mine. I deserve to pass. But if I can't pass on the 3rd time, how many more times will I need to pay for the exam. Maybe I am going to be just like Peety with 6-7 attempts. OMG I don't think I can weather doing it like that."
Before going to bed Saturday night around 11pm, I checked my email and saw an email title:
CCIE Lab Score Report
Heavy breathing started. I close my eyes really tight (no peeking) while refreshing the Cisco results page, and started repeating out-loud to myself -- just like the guy in the casino looking for that very unlikely 5% chance that he will go home a big winner on this roll-of-the-dice or turn-of-the-card or finishing-horse. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Then I took a breath and opened my eyes.
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I needed to blink a couple of times to be sure of my eyes, then went into a sports mode (control breathing). Is this real? REALLY?!
I wasn't prepared for a pass. I tried to walk casually downstairs and told my wife, "I got the result (with a sad face)". As soon as I saw she looked concerned, I said, "It was a PASS". Grins ear-to-ear, but with me still wanting to pinch myself (wake up from the dream).
I felt like I was suppose to celebrate, but I didn't know what to do. During this CCIE journey, I more-or-less stopped drinking even beer, so I didn't have any in the house. We found a bottle of Liqcor de Macademia Nut or something like that. It tasted good, but didn't have the punch of a good smooth Tequila. Ended up going to bed, and waking up early. In the morning, I almost started labbing again like a robot. lol. Went for a long walk for several hours on Sunday (to downtown) -- savoring that it might finally be true.
I am a CCIE? I really got my number? YES!!! Woooo Hoooooo
Note: it is about 1,100 more before the CCIE numbers are above 50,000
This last attempt:
I thought that I failed because I thought that I had a couple of incomplete tasks (big-pointers in each, TS and Config). DIAG section does not seem fair or realistic.
I finished TS about 30 minutes early. That is a great feeling, but then I ended up spending the rest of the time (plus the extra 30 minutes) to try and solve a problem I was seeing on one of the routers. (I thought I had a route flapping every few minutes). What a drastic change from a feeling of triumph to frantic keyboard changes going into overtime.
I also did well overall in the config. Everything worked. I was checking-off everything on my self-made written checklist. And then I saw that a couple of my outputs (official task verifications) did not match exactly. I spent a lot of time on that and could not get the small change that I was trying to get. I even rebooted the whole lab to be sure that I didn't have one of the routers waiting out a protocol timer. Both the TS and Config are nice little puzzles. So when something goes wrong, it is necessary to figure out which router has the issue (not sure how much I can say here).
Diagostics was difficult (two times with v5 for me). 30 minutes just flies by, and all of the output and configs. For me there is a definite sense of panic with the clock gets to the last 10 minuts. I could'nt answer the last questions (time). Maybe 45 minutes would be about right.
DIAG doesn't even seem fair to me. 30 minutes is way too short of a time for
real diagnostics of all of the data. I don't think that any Cisco
Support person could handle these three tickets in 30 minutes. It
should be at least 45 minutes, to relieve the time-pressure and
anxiety. For me, this created the biggest feeling of defeat before I
even started the config section.
I am not sure what to say prepping for the DIAG. It seems to be a test of your routine for troubleshooting. Which commands would you use to narrow a problem down (and answer the questions). So much information is dumped that it becomes a task of being focused only on the relative information. It is your job to choose the device with the issue, weave through the garbage (time), and give a solution. Kind of like the CCNP TS exam, but at a much higher CCIE level (know your TS and SHOW commands.
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These are my current thoughts. I am still walking around on my own little cloud of disbelief and relief that this part of my journey is completed. I will post my thanks in another thread.
Cheers!
Mr. CCIE ;-)
