Stress

 “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” ― Leonard Bernstein
 

I hate it when I let stress affect my life.  I rarely let it but sometimes I can't help it.
 
And it's the reason I haven't blogged in a while.
 
I got my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) certification three years ago, but I only started working in the field in October when my company finally opened up a position for me. 
 
The certification is good for three years and you either have to renew it or take and pass another test of equal or greater significance on the Cisco heirarchy of certifications. 
 
Mine expires in the middle of April. 
 
The CCNA material was actually fairly easy for me once I got the hang of subnetting and binary math (not as difficult as you might think).
 
I say this because when I took a class for Advanced Routing, the first exam in the track for a CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), you will understand what I mean when I felt like I had been transported to mars! 

Clear as mud?  I just didn't get it.  At all.
 
So I took another class.  These were at the same community college campus where I took my CCNA courses.  Then my company sent me to a corporate training facility.  Ok, a little clearer but still pretty dim.
 
Thousands of practice questions later, I was finally so sick of looking at it that I just said "screw it" and signed up to take the test this past weekend just to get it over with, pass or fail.  At least that way, I would know what areas I needed to work on instead of just answering question after question over and over.

I then proceeded to get food poisoning. 

Great, what if I'm still (actually) sick on Saturday?  I would be out the (not insignificant) test fee as it was too late to reschedule.

Thankfully as Saturday dawned (it's not like I could sleep) my stomach was settled (or at least not unsettled by bad food) enough for me to get myself to the test and be relatively confident I wouldn't have to go running out in the middle.

And....

I PASSED!  I passed so well, if I hadn't screwed up one, yes ONE, simulation, I would have gotten 100%.

So much for stress. 

Unfortunately, while I apparently understand the concepts well enough to answer multiple choice questions and a few basic simulations, I still can't acutally set up a VPN tunnel with IPSec without looking at the notes.
 
So, now the test is over and I have another three years on my certification. 

And two more exams to actually earn the CCNP...

I'm off to study.