Well… After making the most of my Qantas club membership on Monday night and not being in much of a state yesterday to do anything (Boss sent me home from work) I thought now might be the time to write up about my experience of the 20th…
I wanted to not hit the booze for a few days beforehand… make sure I would be all good. However I was forced to have a beer on Friday night and sitting out the front of the Stag Hotel in Adelaide in 28º weather with the sun setting made that rather difficult. Especially with the “view”. I was able to limit myself to one beer.
Saturday I attempted to study. I went though half a Narbik mock lab and byt about 1pm I thought, “bugger this, I’m over it, and if I don’t know it by now I may as well not bother” So I proceeded to sit on my arse for the rest of the day.
I left Adelaide at about 11am Sunday, and arrived in Sydney at 1:30pm (I think). Caught the train from the airport to St Leoonard’s, and used the GPS in my phone to tell me where the hotel was. Got to the hotel, checked in relaxed for a little. Got something to eat around 3 or so, then realised how dead St Leonards was. Apart from the train station and the McDonald’s and similar food shops there, there is not much to see. I have previously been to Cisco on Chatswood (and North Sydney) for other reasons and there is much more to do there. Shopping Malls, Cinemas, restaurants etc etc. For the traveller Chatswood is a far better lab location. I was forced to return to the hotel and spend $30 and enjoy one day’s worth of Internet. Yahoo. I love the Internet.
My action for the day was limited to rescuing a bird from being hit by a car on the way back to the hotel. The poor/stupid thing was sitting in the middle of the road trying its best to be hit by cars. I went out to the middle of the road and waved the cars past it (Pacific Highway is rather busy!) and then when it was clear enough I picked the thing up then put it in a small garden out the front of an office. When I went back an hour or two later it wasnt there. That made me warm and fuzzy because that was much better than seeing the thing meet its demise by a big truck on National Highway 1.
Had dinner at 7pm or so, and was in bed by 9:30. My plan was to wake up early, shower, brekky and have an hour or so to let the brekky settle and then go to the lab, which was right by the train station (900m from the hotel). The plan was all well and good… until I woke at 2-2:30.
I couldn’t get back to sleep until about 4:30. I knew the whole time I was awake if I could sleep for one more hour I should be ok. All my work for the past decade would have gone down the gurgler if I was tired. Luckily I fell asleep again and my wake up call came at 6:30.
Got up, SSS (Shit, Shower, Shave) then went downstairs to have a delicious eggs benedict for brekky. Back upstairs, pack my stuff, sit down for a bit then went for a walk to the lab. On the way I popped into the chemist and purchased some earplugs, just on case.
Got into Cisco at 8:15. Lab was due to start at 8:30. There were four other guys doing the lab. One fellow was Malaysian (SP), two English guys (R&S) and one other Skippy bloke from Brisbane (Security). The proctor arrived at about 9:10 and by that stage we were all ready to jump out the window. Luckily the reception and lab is on level 3 and we may have survived the jump. I believe the lab in Chatswood was on level 9. I am sure the elevation of the lab was a factor in considering the new location.
The proctor briefed us and gave us all the answers for the lab. I am glad he likes fine Barossa Valley Shiraz.
Just kidding.
We started work, and I proceeded to read the exam book cover to cover. It was in between 1 and 1000 pages long. The pages were made out of paper. There was ink on them, which was dry. The ink spelled out a variety of words. One of them was “Cisco”. I hope that last bit helps you with your studies… 
Seriously though, setting up my L2, all seemed ok. Started on L3 and I broke a few things and it all went into a screming heap. Took a little while to fix, but got it working. I took a little longer than I wanted with IGP but I was still on track. I wont say any more about this I’m sorry.
After lunch, I skipped a few sections which I wanted to do last because I knew I could get things done quicker. So bang points per time and all that. There were a few things that I had never seen in my life before, so luckily the ? key and the doc cd are there. I am able to find anything I want in the doc cd in about 30 secs. I strongly advise you to learn to do the same. I think this got me 10 points in the end. I checked all my configs for just about everything in the doc cd just to make sure.
I asked the proctor about 5 questions throughout the test. I think the wording of the questions were ok but the proctor was able to clarify what I was asking.
I was “finished” with about 90 mins to spare. I then went through the whole book again checking everything. I changed two things, worth a total of 6 points. Of course I do not know if my changes increased or decreased my total but to be honest right now I really dont care :P Once I did this check, I had 40 or so mins to go and I did one more check. Nothing else was changed and I thought the whole thing was working ok. 15 minutes to go and I was reasonably happy. Of course I was not 100% that I passed, but I thought it looked ok. Just OK.
So it was time to go. The proctor informed us that the Brussels lab would be marking our labs. Remember this point for later.
Three of us caught the train back to the airport. I immediately took my sweaty stressed out body to the bar of the Qantas club and immediately proceeded to make the most out of my membership fee. By this stage it was about 6:30 and one hour after the lab was over. I set up my laptop, and wasted time on Facebook and other fun things. I also perpetually pressed “refresh” on the CCO page for the lab scheduling tool.
After an hour or so of sinking vodka, lime & sodas and abusing the “refresh” button, a popup says “pass” for my lab. About 30 secs later I got an email telling me to check my result. I clicked the button and my number was not yet ready, however I got a congratulations message. The first thing I did was ring my parents to tell them. There I was sitting down the bloody Qantas lounge with about 8 empty vodka glasses with tears in my eyes in front of my stupid laptop talking to my father. I told him the news but my mother was not home, so I went to call her on the mobile….
BUT!!! now this is a HUGE BUT…..
I clicked somewhere else, and then it said FAIL. FAIL FAIL FAIL. Bad luck but feel proud you paid your money and sat the lab. I was like… “WTF??? How can you do this to me??? You just told me I passed!” I had to run out of the Qantas club, and out onto the tarmac to pick my heart up, which was down in the basement somewhere by this stage. When I returned and refreshed, the page then updated to say pass, but I still had no number. I was very wary. I spoke to Narbik and he said it took a while to sync to all the pages. I called Arden to ask him how long it took him to get his number. He didn’t answer! I was shitting broken glass…. “What if something was wrong and I really failed?” I clicked on every bloody thing I could and all I could see was “PASS”. That was ok. Still no number. BACK TO THE BAR.
Now, my ex girlfriend lives in Brussels. She works in the same area as Cisco. So I called her in my state and asked her to go and visit Cisco and flash her boobs at the Proctor for me to see if that would help me pass. She is rather attractive so hopefully that would work.
By this stage my plane was ready to board and I was a right vulnerable mess. I arrived in Adelaide 2 hours and 3 mini bottles of Shiraz later, logged on at Adelaide Airport the second I got off the plane and still no number. It was 10:30pm.
I got home at about 10:50. I logged in again and kapow. #22386. My ex did a great job.
Now… How did I do it? I really only seriously started in about March or so. The two words you need are Narbik and Bootcamp. The combination of the training plus the workbooks were invaluable. If you know everything in those lab books, you will pass. Thats it. End of story. Also sitting the second bootcamp two weeks ago helped. It was a good refresher and jogged my memory about things I may have missed. So if you want those numbers, go and sit Narbik’s course and get your arse into those advanced tech lab books. it worked for me, it will work for you too.
So… Thanks to everyone who has helped me out over the years, thanks to my parents, Narbik and all you guys who read and post to my drivel.
Oh, and thank you Kathleen for flashing your cans at the proctor in Brussels. I knew they would come in handy again some day!
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