I always wonder what someone like Fernando Alonso does the night before the race. Or what David Beckham does before the soccer game kickoff. Or perhaps, what all the boxers do the night before the big fight.
Tomorrow I will do my CCIE SP lab in Brussels. This is my big fight. It may not be as big as Formula 1 or Championship league, but for me this is still a big thing. It’s a huge thing. In fact, I feel like I’m going to do a giant leap that somehow will affect my life and people around me, in the future.
For me, this is history in the making.
So now I’m starring at my notebook, without any clues what to do with only few hours remaining before the lab. There are few things happened between my flight and right now. I guess I’m gonna kill my time by writing all of those.
Ok, it was 16 hours flight, remember? Well, actually it was almost 13 hours flight from Singapore to London, which I found really really funny. Why? Because on the way to London I could see Belgium in the overhead map! So my flight actually flew over Brussels to reach London Heathrow, where I had to stay for about 2 hours, then took a smaller plane to go back to Brussels. Ouch! I should pay attention to Geography lesson next time. It makes more sense to take a flight that stops over in a country between Singapore and Brussels, to cut some time.
And remember my plan to take a long sleep during the flight? It didn’t work quite well because they provide.. Movies on Demand! Oh no, I couldn’t resist to watch Spiderman 3 one more time. And obviously spending hours going through several episodes of The Simpsons TV series should not be a big deal.
TV is evil. But it was me to blame. I just can’t resist.
And as Chester shouts, I’m my own worst enemy.
So I could sleep only about 4 hours during the flight. And I was not in the mood to read, since it’s quite dark anyway, so if I didn’t watch movie I utilized my time to listen to Brian Dennis and Brian McGahan presentation on CCIE SP Advance Technology class-on-demand.
After I reached London Airport, just like what I did in Singapore airport, I jumped into my notebook and started working with my lab. So far so good. Almost missed the flight since I was too busy checking on some inter-AS scenario.
I reached Brussels airport quite too early so I decided to grab something to eat first. It was a right call, later on I found that there is nothing to eat in my hotel and the surrounding area. My hotel is close to Cisco office which is about 15 minutes ride from the Airport. You know what it means, close to the Airport means the place is quite far from the city. And it also means the place is in the middle of nowhere, and in the country where people really respect their weekend. Dead place. No shops or restaurants were opened.
But it was still okay. Luckily I brought some chocolates from the airplane and food was not in my top priority. My top priority was the Internet connection. Internet connection so I can connect through VPN to my lab inside Cisco network. And damn the hotel doesn’t have one. I mean, they said they provide wireless connection that costs 19 Euros for 24 hours. I bought 3 * 24 hours access and I was unable to connect at all. After couple of hours trying to troubleshoot the issue with the technical support over the phone, I fell a sleep. I guess I was really tired. And I woke up after couple of hours just to find out the problem persists.
So I decided to walk to Cisco office. Yeah, you hear me right. Going to Cisco office on Saturday evening. At least they have fast Internet connection. And soft drinks. And some fruits. I feel at home.
To make it short, I have been spending my time in Cisco office in Belgium from Saturday until few minutes ago. I believe I have done what I could. I have tried to verify all possible scenarios in MPLS VPN. Screwed up the network by putting Traffic Engineering in the middle, then run inter-domain multicast routing between the VPN sites. Anything that I could think of so far. And I may need to verify some more, but since there is no Internet connection in my hotel room I need to wake up really early tomorrow morning and walk into Cisco office maybe couple of hours before the lab starts.
What should I do the night before the big game? I don’t know. No food, no Internet, no good TV channel. Sitting alone in a small hotel room starring at my monitor. But none of those can hurt me since I know this might be my last journey in CCIE. If I pass tomorrow, I may not go for the remaining CCIE tracks, which are Voice and Storage. If I pass, it might be a new beginning for me to start focusing on Service Provider technology. If I pass, it will start a new era.
Like I said before, this is history in the making.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Eighty Percent
Some say, we never appreciate what we have until we’ve lost it. It may be true. I never though time is very valuable until I got trapped into a very tight schedule. I never spent time to appreciate my sleep until I had only few for it. And I never been grateful with my dining experience until I realized that it might be the best thing that can happen in one rough day.
I have been quite sleepless since last weekend. If I calculate all my sleep that was only couple of hours everyday, the total number from Sunday until now is less than 15 hours. And that is not because of my CCIE SP lab preparation. I had to lead a 3-day network design requirement workshop from Monday for one of Cisco biggest customer in this region. It is an exciting experience to meet and have a chance to discuss with the customer directly, to try to get all information about the existing setup, to capture customer requirements and expectations, to identify the challenges during the process and to start thinking about the best way to help the customer achieving their goal. So conducting workshop in a day then making summary as well as preparing material for the next day at night. I usually started working right after dinner until 6 in the morning. And couple of hours to sleep just to regain some energy since I must stand in front of the customer for about 8 hours during the workshop.
So next time you feel like your life is so bored, just remember there are some people who can only wish they have some extra time. Every time you feel like bitching about your uncomfortable bed at home, just realize there are others who must be able to sleep anywhere with any chance they have.
Well, I’m writing this not to try to teach you how you live your life or how you should be grateful with whatever you have in hand :). And I know some of you may even have worst workload and tighter schedule.
I’m writing this just to share with you that I don’t feel tired with all the things that I must do. I never feel tired with that. In fact, I feel so excited. I really enjoy every second of my busy time since it is part of my life style. It’s the way of living that I decided to choose long time back. I can’t get tired from my own life, can I? And this kind of life style really makes me appreciate all the nice dinner with my team mate just before we start working together. I really like the quality of my sleep since with only couple of hours a day I was unable to dream at all. It was just like closing your eyes for a while and suddenly you raise up from the darkness. This life style makes me appreciate all the small things that I usually ignore in normal circumstances.
You may ask, how my body will continue to survive. Perhaps with some help from lots of caffeine and Red Bull. But to be frank, I have actually planned for this. In the next several hours I will have a long flight to Brussels through London. It’s about 16 hours in total. So most probably I will utilize the time inside the plane to sleep and recover from all those sleepless nights. Just like I always utilize my time to sleep inside the taxi that brings me from the Airport to the Hotel every time I travel. And I don’t think all my gadgets’ battery capacity, from my notebook, my Zen to my PSP, combined together can beat that 16 hours. So obviously I must go to sleep during the flight. (Unless if they have movies on demand in the plane! It can be so tempting to watch 300 or the Simpsons TV series on that small screen)
So here I am, on my way from my office in Singapore to the airport. And I’m actually writing this post inside the taxi that’s taking me to the number 4 place that I spend the most of my time, which is Changi Airport :D. Number 1 place is Shangri-La hotel. Oh, it’s just like a second home to me. In fact, I spend more time in Shangri-La compare to my own home in my country or my apartment in Singapore. Number 2 are Cisco customers office. Number 3, surprisingly, is my office in Singapore. It doesn’t mean that I spend much time in my office, but every time I’m in Singapore you can find me sitting in my partition from morning until late night.
It’s a perfect life, isn’t it?
Nevertheless, I have been trying to work on my CCIE lab in between my busy time. Even with the previous 3-day workshop and a requirement for me to submit some design documents while preparing myself for some other project with different customer, I was still able to gain some lab hours to make my number close to 200 until today.
I know with only 3 days left, minus the 16 hours flight, it’s impossible to reach the 300 lab hour target. And I’m not planning to either.
I just need to get 80% in CCIE lab to pass. Not 100%. And definitely not 79%. It doesn’t make any difference to pass the lab with 80% or 100% score.
For my previous 2 CCIE I was extremely prepared and always trying to get 100% preparation level. But I actually can still pass with only 80% preparation and 100% confident level. Well, the math here is completely crap and it doesn’t make sense. But my point is, I still have a chance to pass even the chance is slim. I feel like with all my preparation so far I can get about 80% of lab score. So with the remaining time that I have, I need to make sure I can really achieve that 80%. Instead of trying to achieve 300 hour practicing in the lab, I will do my best to get at least 240. Since 240 is 80% of 300. And it means I just need to spend another 40 hours from the moment I land in Brussels until my lab.
Enough with all that calculation.
Let’s just wait for the result on Monday night.
One thing that I know for sure, even let’s say I slip and fail on this attempt, I won’t regret anything in my life. Everything is getting better and better day by day. I learn many things from my field experience facing Cisco customers as well as from my CCIE lab preparation. So my life is quite balance in the sense of sharing my time between geeking out in the lab and meeting the customer.
Why am I writing this post? I don’t know. Perhaps I’m just a bit nervous. It’s been a while since the last time I had a long flight like this. Or perhaps I’m just bored since I can’t get sleep inside this taxi so I’m trying to kill the time by keep writing.
Oh well, this is the longest post that has no point that I have ever written in my blog. Based on my lab result on Monday I may delete this post. Or may be not.
I have reached the airport now. Will upload this nonsense once I get Internet connection and let’s see what’s going to happen on Monday.
Over and out.
I have been quite sleepless since last weekend. If I calculate all my sleep that was only couple of hours everyday, the total number from Sunday until now is less than 15 hours. And that is not because of my CCIE SP lab preparation. I had to lead a 3-day network design requirement workshop from Monday for one of Cisco biggest customer in this region. It is an exciting experience to meet and have a chance to discuss with the customer directly, to try to get all information about the existing setup, to capture customer requirements and expectations, to identify the challenges during the process and to start thinking about the best way to help the customer achieving their goal. So conducting workshop in a day then making summary as well as preparing material for the next day at night. I usually started working right after dinner until 6 in the morning. And couple of hours to sleep just to regain some energy since I must stand in front of the customer for about 8 hours during the workshop.
So next time you feel like your life is so bored, just remember there are some people who can only wish they have some extra time. Every time you feel like bitching about your uncomfortable bed at home, just realize there are others who must be able to sleep anywhere with any chance they have.
Well, I’m writing this not to try to teach you how you live your life or how you should be grateful with whatever you have in hand :). And I know some of you may even have worst workload and tighter schedule.
I’m writing this just to share with you that I don’t feel tired with all the things that I must do. I never feel tired with that. In fact, I feel so excited. I really enjoy every second of my busy time since it is part of my life style. It’s the way of living that I decided to choose long time back. I can’t get tired from my own life, can I? And this kind of life style really makes me appreciate all the nice dinner with my team mate just before we start working together. I really like the quality of my sleep since with only couple of hours a day I was unable to dream at all. It was just like closing your eyes for a while and suddenly you raise up from the darkness. This life style makes me appreciate all the small things that I usually ignore in normal circumstances.
You may ask, how my body will continue to survive. Perhaps with some help from lots of caffeine and Red Bull. But to be frank, I have actually planned for this. In the next several hours I will have a long flight to Brussels through London. It’s about 16 hours in total. So most probably I will utilize the time inside the plane to sleep and recover from all those sleepless nights. Just like I always utilize my time to sleep inside the taxi that brings me from the Airport to the Hotel every time I travel. And I don’t think all my gadgets’ battery capacity, from my notebook, my Zen to my PSP, combined together can beat that 16 hours. So obviously I must go to sleep during the flight. (Unless if they have movies on demand in the plane! It can be so tempting to watch 300 or the Simpsons TV series on that small screen)
So here I am, on my way from my office in Singapore to the airport. And I’m actually writing this post inside the taxi that’s taking me to the number 4 place that I spend the most of my time, which is Changi Airport :D. Number 1 place is Shangri-La hotel. Oh, it’s just like a second home to me. In fact, I spend more time in Shangri-La compare to my own home in my country or my apartment in Singapore. Number 2 are Cisco customers office. Number 3, surprisingly, is my office in Singapore. It doesn’t mean that I spend much time in my office, but every time I’m in Singapore you can find me sitting in my partition from morning until late night.
It’s a perfect life, isn’t it?
Nevertheless, I have been trying to work on my CCIE lab in between my busy time. Even with the previous 3-day workshop and a requirement for me to submit some design documents while preparing myself for some other project with different customer, I was still able to gain some lab hours to make my number close to 200 until today.
I know with only 3 days left, minus the 16 hours flight, it’s impossible to reach the 300 lab hour target. And I’m not planning to either.
I just need to get 80% in CCIE lab to pass. Not 100%. And definitely not 79%. It doesn’t make any difference to pass the lab with 80% or 100% score.
For my previous 2 CCIE I was extremely prepared and always trying to get 100% preparation level. But I actually can still pass with only 80% preparation and 100% confident level. Well, the math here is completely crap and it doesn’t make sense. But my point is, I still have a chance to pass even the chance is slim. I feel like with all my preparation so far I can get about 80% of lab score. So with the remaining time that I have, I need to make sure I can really achieve that 80%. Instead of trying to achieve 300 hour practicing in the lab, I will do my best to get at least 240. Since 240 is 80% of 300. And it means I just need to spend another 40 hours from the moment I land in Brussels until my lab.
Enough with all that calculation.
Let’s just wait for the result on Monday night.
One thing that I know for sure, even let’s say I slip and fail on this attempt, I won’t regret anything in my life. Everything is getting better and better day by day. I learn many things from my field experience facing Cisco customers as well as from my CCIE lab preparation. So my life is quite balance in the sense of sharing my time between geeking out in the lab and meeting the customer.
Why am I writing this post? I don’t know. Perhaps I’m just a bit nervous. It’s been a while since the last time I had a long flight like this. Or perhaps I’m just bored since I can’t get sleep inside this taxi so I’m trying to kill the time by keep writing.
Oh well, this is the longest post that has no point that I have ever written in my blog. Based on my lab result on Monday I may delete this post. Or may be not.
I have reached the airport now. Will upload this nonsense once I get Internet connection and let’s see what’s going to happen on Monday.
Over and out.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
In Between
August 13, six years ago. It was my first attempt to CCIE lab. The lab was still 2-days exam, with troubleshooting in the last part of the second day. It was my first time to fly to Europe. It was also my first time using a business class for my flight since according to my previous company policy each employee must takes the business class if flying more than 8 hours. And well, you all know the result. I failed.
Why did I fail? I failed because I was so naïve. I failed because I didn't believe I could pass. I failed because no one told me at that time how difficult CCIE lab was. Everyone I know always told me that the CCIE lab is so difficult that only few selected people who can pass it. And I was certainly not one of them.
But when I reached the troubleshooting section in the second day, even I failed anyway but I realized that CCIE lab is very much achievable. If you have spent a lot of time to prepare, especially for someone like me who studied for 16-hour straight a day in the last 1 month before I went to Brussels, then it's very possible to pass the lab even in 1st attempt. Exactly one month after that attempt in Brussels, I passed my CCIE lab in Tokyo. I passed not only because I studied even harder at that time but also because I believe I could pass. You just need to believe, they say.
Now six years later, I'm planning to take my CCIE SP lab on the same date with the first time I took my CCIE R&S in Brussels.
Same date, same location. Thirteen days from now.
Will the history be repeated? Will I fail again?
I still have less than 13 days to find the answer, but at least please allow me to share my current situation first:
Two weeks ago I was still in Malaysia to lead a network migration for one of our customer. Last week I was in Singapore to make the report, to follow up my visa application with Belgium embassy and to have a pre-kick off meeting for another customer. Last Friday I flew to Indonesia to work on some other project. And this week I have been busy working in my customer office in Jakarta, and most probably I would have time for my self only after Friday afternoon.
Then I must fly back to Singapore on Saturday.
Then, fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
Monday to Wednesday, must attend a new customer workshop.
Thursday, fly back to Singapore.
Friday, take 16-hour flight to Brussels through London.
Then? Take the CCIE SP Lab exam.
And when is the time to study? Good question.
Until now I have been able to make total around 160 hours practicing in the lab. Last weekend I was in my home city with a very slow Internet connection so even I spent about 8 hours in front of my console, the speed was not acceptable to type the IOS command and I won't count that into my total lab time. Thanks God I have got my Schengen Visa from the embassy. My flight ticket has been confirmed. I got the hotel room which is still a walking distance from Cisco Belgium office in Pegasus Park. So all non-technical issues are solved. I just need to study now. Even with my busy schedule.
The key here is by fully utilizing my time in between. In between two projects. In between my meeting with one customer to another customer. In between my flights.
I don't like to look for an excuse. And I don't like to fail for sure. So I'm not here to try to find any reason to be blame even if I fail.
Will the history be repeated? Will I fail again?
I don't know. But one thing I know for sure, even if I fail that it's not because CCIE SP lab is unbreakable. Neither is because my work that doesn't spare me time to study. I'm still quite confident to pass even I know I may not be able to complete my 300 hours lab target. I'm still confident since this is the thing that I really like. This is the life that I have been living all this time. This is my 'one thing'.
This is my purpose. This is the way I live.
I can't fail my life. I can't abandon the way I live.
I just need to study harder, in between my busy time.
Why did I fail? I failed because I was so naïve. I failed because I didn't believe I could pass. I failed because no one told me at that time how difficult CCIE lab was. Everyone I know always told me that the CCIE lab is so difficult that only few selected people who can pass it. And I was certainly not one of them.
But when I reached the troubleshooting section in the second day, even I failed anyway but I realized that CCIE lab is very much achievable. If you have spent a lot of time to prepare, especially for someone like me who studied for 16-hour straight a day in the last 1 month before I went to Brussels, then it's very possible to pass the lab even in 1st attempt. Exactly one month after that attempt in Brussels, I passed my CCIE lab in Tokyo. I passed not only because I studied even harder at that time but also because I believe I could pass. You just need to believe, they say.
Now six years later, I'm planning to take my CCIE SP lab on the same date with the first time I took my CCIE R&S in Brussels.
Same date, same location. Thirteen days from now.
Will the history be repeated? Will I fail again?
I still have less than 13 days to find the answer, but at least please allow me to share my current situation first:
Two weeks ago I was still in Malaysia to lead a network migration for one of our customer. Last week I was in Singapore to make the report, to follow up my visa application with Belgium embassy and to have a pre-kick off meeting for another customer. Last Friday I flew to Indonesia to work on some other project. And this week I have been busy working in my customer office in Jakarta, and most probably I would have time for my self only after Friday afternoon.
Then I must fly back to Singapore on Saturday.
Then, fly to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
Monday to Wednesday, must attend a new customer workshop.
Thursday, fly back to Singapore.
Friday, take 16-hour flight to Brussels through London.
Then? Take the CCIE SP Lab exam.
And when is the time to study? Good question.
Until now I have been able to make total around 160 hours practicing in the lab. Last weekend I was in my home city with a very slow Internet connection so even I spent about 8 hours in front of my console, the speed was not acceptable to type the IOS command and I won't count that into my total lab time. Thanks God I have got my Schengen Visa from the embassy. My flight ticket has been confirmed. I got the hotel room which is still a walking distance from Cisco Belgium office in Pegasus Park. So all non-technical issues are solved. I just need to study now. Even with my busy schedule.
The key here is by fully utilizing my time in between. In between two projects. In between my meeting with one customer to another customer. In between my flights.
I don't like to look for an excuse. And I don't like to fail for sure. So I'm not here to try to find any reason to be blame even if I fail.
Will the history be repeated? Will I fail again?
I don't know. But one thing I know for sure, even if I fail that it's not because CCIE SP lab is unbreakable. Neither is because my work that doesn't spare me time to study. I'm still quite confident to pass even I know I may not be able to complete my 300 hours lab target. I'm still confident since this is the thing that I really like. This is the life that I have been living all this time. This is my 'one thing'.
This is my purpose. This is the way I live.
I can't fail my life. I can't abandon the way I live.
I just need to study harder, in between my busy time.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Losing Four Days
Four days, for most people, may not be a long period of time. But for someone like me, who must do labs for 300 hours before my CCIE SP 3 weeks from now, every second counts. Wow, that sounds very cool, doesn’t it? Every second counts. Or better let’s just say every day is important.
Since Wednesday evening I have been in Kuala Lumpur to lead a migration for one of our customer. It’s been a thrilling experience to try to define all the steps required, to make a cross check to ensure there is nothing missing, to accommodate the last minute request for changes, simulate the new config changes in internal lab, do my best to avoid unnecessary surprises, and finally it was over by 2 am this morning. There was no time at all to do anything else, even to check out the night life in Heritage walk next to my hotel.
So here I am, standing by my hotel room window, staring at the Twin Towers. I still have one hour left before I must check out and go to the Airport. I’m going to fly back to Singapore but I may need to travel again to another project within a couple of days.
I have been thinking about my work on the last 4 days that made me skip my CCIE study completely. I wish I could do what I said in my previous post. I wish I could ignore everything but CCIE, including work, to complete my 300 lab hour target. But again, as I mentioned, it was a tremendous experience. And I believe it really helps to build the tension and the pressures required to make one ready for the lab.
I believe all CCIE candidates must face real world pressure before they can face the lab. I believe none of all CCIE candidates should skip the work only to study for CCIE. The pressure in work can really help in setting up the mood, to bring up the troubleshooting mindset and to maintain the flow of the journey.
Well, again, at the same time the last work has caused me losing the 4 precious days. There is no reason to look back or to try to blame someone. I’m writing this just in the middle of my evaluation of what I have achieved so far and how fast I need to set the pace in my study. So far I have just done half of the Internetwork Expert workbook. I can say with the previous Techlabs from them, I have done only around 100 hour lab time.
200 hours to go. And I have 3 weeks left.
Since Wednesday evening I have been in Kuala Lumpur to lead a migration for one of our customer. It’s been a thrilling experience to try to define all the steps required, to make a cross check to ensure there is nothing missing, to accommodate the last minute request for changes, simulate the new config changes in internal lab, do my best to avoid unnecessary surprises, and finally it was over by 2 am this morning. There was no time at all to do anything else, even to check out the night life in Heritage walk next to my hotel.
So here I am, standing by my hotel room window, staring at the Twin Towers. I still have one hour left before I must check out and go to the Airport. I’m going to fly back to Singapore but I may need to travel again to another project within a couple of days.
I have been thinking about my work on the last 4 days that made me skip my CCIE study completely. I wish I could do what I said in my previous post. I wish I could ignore everything but CCIE, including work, to complete my 300 lab hour target. But again, as I mentioned, it was a tremendous experience. And I believe it really helps to build the tension and the pressures required to make one ready for the lab.
I believe all CCIE candidates must face real world pressure before they can face the lab. I believe none of all CCIE candidates should skip the work only to study for CCIE. The pressure in work can really help in setting up the mood, to bring up the troubleshooting mindset and to maintain the flow of the journey.
Well, again, at the same time the last work has caused me losing the 4 precious days. There is no reason to look back or to try to blame someone. I’m writing this just in the middle of my evaluation of what I have achieved so far and how fast I need to set the pace in my study. So far I have just done half of the Internetwork Expert workbook. I can say with the previous Techlabs from them, I have done only around 100 hour lab time.
200 hours to go. And I have 3 weeks left.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
23 Days Later
Today is a good day. It's July 7 2007. Make it shorts as 07-07-07. Wow, Triple Seven. Triple lucky numbers.
What the heck, everyday is should be a good day, isn't it?
Anyway, 23 days have passed since my last post to lab 300 hours, and following is the update so far:
- I have applied for Schengen Visa to Belgium embassy, and they told me to wait for another 2-3 weeks. Well, Visa is my number one enemy in this journey
- I got confirmation for my flight and hotel. I must fly to Brussels through London and the trip will take 16 hours :(
- I haven't paid my lab since I thought as Cisco employee it would be somekind like internal payment or such. Still checking with CCIE team and hopefully they don't drop my date
- I have completed the Techlabs from Internetwork Expert
- I keep watching the SP class-on-demand video in my Zen over and over again. I may have spent about 80 hours on it, while so far I have spent only about 40 to 50 hours doing the Techlabs
- Social life remains zero
To be frank, I'm a bit behind my schedule here. With the remaining days that I have, I need to start working with the Internetwork Expert workbook, and I must lab at least 8 hours a day to achieve my 300 target. This means I must ignore everything other than CCIE, including my work, my photography stuff, my sleeping time, assembling my Gundam, even watching Heroes and Transformers.
It looks fun.
It's time to shift to the fifth gear.
What the heck, everyday is should be a good day, isn't it?
Anyway, 23 days have passed since my last post to lab 300 hours, and following is the update so far:
- I have applied for Schengen Visa to Belgium embassy, and they told me to wait for another 2-3 weeks. Well, Visa is my number one enemy in this journey
- I got confirmation for my flight and hotel. I must fly to Brussels through London and the trip will take 16 hours :(
- I haven't paid my lab since I thought as Cisco employee it would be somekind like internal payment or such. Still checking with CCIE team and hopefully they don't drop my date
- I have completed the Techlabs from Internetwork Expert
- I keep watching the SP class-on-demand video in my Zen over and over again. I may have spent about 80 hours on it, while so far I have spent only about 40 to 50 hours doing the Techlabs
- Social life remains zero
To be frank, I'm a bit behind my schedule here. With the remaining days that I have, I need to start working with the Internetwork Expert workbook, and I must lab at least 8 hours a day to achieve my 300 target. This means I must ignore everything other than CCIE, including my work, my photography stuff, my sleeping time, assembling my Gundam, even watching Heroes and Transformers.
It looks fun.
It's time to shift to the fifth gear.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
300
I know what you are thinking. Yup, that movie is really cool. The battle scenes are awesome. The fighting skills are great. And the Queen is so pretty and wise.
But I’m not going to discuss about how those 300 Spartan soldiers fought for their country in Battle of Thermophylae. 300 here is the number of hours in the lab that I’m planning to do before I take my CCIE lab. Why 300? Same reason with King Leonidas, I guess. Or maybe it’s because I spent about 900 hours practicing in the lab for my first CCIE. And for the second, about 600 hours. Now I’m going for my third CCIE, and looking at the pattern I told myself I need to do at least 300 hours.
I have only 60 days left before my lab date, so if I want to lab for 300 hours I must do at least 5 hours a day. Doing 4 to 5 hours a day is not difficult since I always stay until late anyway, so I can do it after I finish my work. Yeah, right. That’s if you work for 9-to-5 company. In Cisco I don’t have to come to office at 9 as long as the work is done. Which means I may work for more than just 9-to-5. Well, it also means I may work most of the time. And I don't even have to come to office at all (except for the free bananas :))
The key here is to fully utilize the weekend. 5 hours a day means 35 hours a week. If I can do even only 2 hours lab during working day, I still have 2 days in the weekend where I can lab for 12 hours a day.
So when is the time for social life?
Uhm.. what is that, anyway?
My only challenge is with the frequent flyer life style. My lab is located somewhere in Cisco internal network so when I travel sometime I don’t get Internet connection to access them. Or the Internet might be very slow. Traveling also means it’s difficult to bring the books along since they are heavy. And I really don’t like to read from my notebook.
Fear not, I got the Internetwork Expert Advanced Technology class-on-demand for CCIE SP recorded as .avi file that I can play in my Creative Zen Vison W. So everytime I have spare time but no access to my lab, I can listen to the Two Brians explaining the SP technologies. Even the Zen screen is small, I still can see the command typed in the video. And just FYI, Zen has a slot to plug the CF card from my digital camera.
Yeah, vote Zen for CCIE-wannabe-that-must-travel-all-the-time!
I have to admit that many times I was tempted to delay my lab date. But then I told my self, if I delay this once I may do it again and again later. So no more excuse, I will do it in the next 60 days. Unless for some reason I don’t get the Schengen Visa to go to Brussels or my company asks me not to go.
As Leonidas said:
“Spartans never retreat! Spartans never surrender!”
For tonight, we dine in Hell!
But I’m not going to discuss about how those 300 Spartan soldiers fought for their country in Battle of Thermophylae. 300 here is the number of hours in the lab that I’m planning to do before I take my CCIE lab. Why 300? Same reason with King Leonidas, I guess. Or maybe it’s because I spent about 900 hours practicing in the lab for my first CCIE. And for the second, about 600 hours. Now I’m going for my third CCIE, and looking at the pattern I told myself I need to do at least 300 hours.
I have only 60 days left before my lab date, so if I want to lab for 300 hours I must do at least 5 hours a day. Doing 4 to 5 hours a day is not difficult since I always stay until late anyway, so I can do it after I finish my work. Yeah, right. That’s if you work for 9-to-5 company. In Cisco I don’t have to come to office at 9 as long as the work is done. Which means I may work for more than just 9-to-5. Well, it also means I may work most of the time. And I don't even have to come to office at all (except for the free bananas :))
The key here is to fully utilize the weekend. 5 hours a day means 35 hours a week. If I can do even only 2 hours lab during working day, I still have 2 days in the weekend where I can lab for 12 hours a day.
So when is the time for social life?
Uhm.. what is that, anyway?
My only challenge is with the frequent flyer life style. My lab is located somewhere in Cisco internal network so when I travel sometime I don’t get Internet connection to access them. Or the Internet might be very slow. Traveling also means it’s difficult to bring the books along since they are heavy. And I really don’t like to read from my notebook.
Fear not, I got the Internetwork Expert Advanced Technology class-on-demand for CCIE SP recorded as .avi file that I can play in my Creative Zen Vison W. So everytime I have spare time but no access to my lab, I can listen to the Two Brians explaining the SP technologies. Even the Zen screen is small, I still can see the command typed in the video. And just FYI, Zen has a slot to plug the CF card from my digital camera.
Yeah, vote Zen for CCIE-wannabe-that-must-travel-all-the-time!
I have to admit that many times I was tempted to delay my lab date. But then I told my self, if I delay this once I may do it again and again later. So no more excuse, I will do it in the next 60 days. Unless for some reason I don’t get the Schengen Visa to go to Brussels or my company asks me not to go.
As Leonidas said:
“Spartans never retreat! Spartans never surrender!”
For tonight, we dine in Hell!
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Finding Talents
I just returned from Hongkong for some Cisco internal training. Wait, it doesn’t sound right.. let me re-phrase it:
I went to Hongkong to go to Disneyland, roaming around to take pictures and to check out the night life. While I was there, coincidentally Cisco conducted some internal training that, they said, I must attend. So I decided to pass by Cisco Hongkong office and attend the training since I had spare time anyway.
Well, you don’t have to believe this statement. But one thing for sure, going to Cisco office also means free soft drink and snacks, and if you are lucky you may get free banana :)
Anyway, the training was about finding my talents. It is not the talent in playing piano or such, but more into discovering my talents that related to professionalism at work, and turn it into the strengths that can make my work more efficient.
Yeah, you may think: that’s just another physiological crap. But I had to attend it regardless, and here are my top 5 talent themes I got from the website that I must take before going to the course:
Adaptability: prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time
Significance: want to be very important in the eyes of others. They are independent and want to be recognized
Positivity: have a enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do
Activator: can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient
Harmony: look for consensus. They don’t enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement
Okay, I like the Adaptability one, especially the part of "discover the future one day at a time". But I think the rest of them are not the top 5 talents for an engineer. Top notch engineer, I believe, should have the following:
Analytical: search for reasons and causes. They have ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation
Learner: have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them
Achiever: have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive
Self Assurance: feel confident in their ability to manage their own lives. They possess an inner compass that gives them confidence that their decisions are right
And just add the Adaptability because it sounds cool. Those are the talents that I wanted to have. Imagine, an engineer like me doesn’t even have Analytical and Learner. And without Achiever and Self Assurance I can imagine losing my path to go to the next level.
I really wanted to change my talent themes during the training (I can, since the output from the assessment on that website is sent only to me and not to Cisco) but deep inside I have to admit that all of them are correct. Most of my work so far requires flexibility and my ability to adapt for changes (Adaptability), I always want to feel that my work is important and get recognition from others (Significance), I like to influence people to take CCIE and move ahead (well, I count that as Positivity), I have no patient to grow, no obstacles should be in front of my project or my development (Activator) and I notice that I’m fit in the project where there are many engineers from different background involved and I have to collect all the proposed designs from them to come up with a design that I hope can satisfy everyone (Harmony). Those are the talents that I have been using in my role as Consulting engineer. So it looks like my current role and my life style are fit with my talents.
So the question now is whether I want to accept my talent themes as they are and focus on developing them to become my strengths, or try to dig deeper to shape those talents that I want (Analytical, Learner, Achiever, Self Assurance) to become a top notch engineer.
Ah well, why bother.
Like you said: it’s just another physiological craps, isn’t it?
But after reading this if you feel curious, I suggest you to check the book that was used in the course: Now, Discover Your Strengths.
I went to Hongkong to go to Disneyland, roaming around to take pictures and to check out the night life. While I was there, coincidentally Cisco conducted some internal training that, they said, I must attend. So I decided to pass by Cisco Hongkong office and attend the training since I had spare time anyway.
Well, you don’t have to believe this statement. But one thing for sure, going to Cisco office also means free soft drink and snacks, and if you are lucky you may get free banana :)
Anyway, the training was about finding my talents. It is not the talent in playing piano or such, but more into discovering my talents that related to professionalism at work, and turn it into the strengths that can make my work more efficient.
Yeah, you may think: that’s just another physiological crap. But I had to attend it regardless, and here are my top 5 talent themes I got from the website that I must take before going to the course:
Adaptability: prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time
Significance: want to be very important in the eyes of others. They are independent and want to be recognized
Positivity: have a enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do
Activator: can make things happen by turning thoughts into action. They are often impatient
Harmony: look for consensus. They don’t enjoy conflict; rather, they seek areas of agreement
Okay, I like the Adaptability one, especially the part of "discover the future one day at a time". But I think the rest of them are not the top 5 talents for an engineer. Top notch engineer, I believe, should have the following:
Analytical: search for reasons and causes. They have ability to think about all the factors that might affect a situation
Learner: have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them
Achiever: have a great deal of stamina and work hard. They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive
Self Assurance: feel confident in their ability to manage their own lives. They possess an inner compass that gives them confidence that their decisions are right
And just add the Adaptability because it sounds cool. Those are the talents that I wanted to have. Imagine, an engineer like me doesn’t even have Analytical and Learner. And without Achiever and Self Assurance I can imagine losing my path to go to the next level.
I really wanted to change my talent themes during the training (I can, since the output from the assessment on that website is sent only to me and not to Cisco) but deep inside I have to admit that all of them are correct. Most of my work so far requires flexibility and my ability to adapt for changes (Adaptability), I always want to feel that my work is important and get recognition from others (Significance), I like to influence people to take CCIE and move ahead (well, I count that as Positivity), I have no patient to grow, no obstacles should be in front of my project or my development (Activator) and I notice that I’m fit in the project where there are many engineers from different background involved and I have to collect all the proposed designs from them to come up with a design that I hope can satisfy everyone (Harmony). Those are the talents that I have been using in my role as Consulting engineer. So it looks like my current role and my life style are fit with my talents.
So the question now is whether I want to accept my talent themes as they are and focus on developing them to become my strengths, or try to dig deeper to shape those talents that I want (Analytical, Learner, Achiever, Self Assurance) to become a top notch engineer.
Ah well, why bother.
Like you said: it’s just another physiological craps, isn’t it?
But after reading this if you feel curious, I suggest you to check the book that was used in the course: Now, Discover Your Strengths.
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