What a journey its been.....so far.,

Well first off, I did one of INE's mock labs yesterday. Unfortunately, I failed...barely. I didn't fail because I didn't know the material, I failed due to not managing my time properly, not reading the entire task, and not verifying every task after completion. I finished right about 8 hours. I spent too much time on a route redistribution problem (that was caused by a trunking error) and a bgp problem (that was incidentally solved by a reboot). I know I shouldn't have spent so much time on these two topics. I will be sure to NOT do that in the actual lab. If I manage my time, and verify and re-verify everything, I feel like I got a good shot of passing.

This has been one hell of a journey. Now although my journey is not yet complete, it will not be wasted if I don't get that 25xxx number come Monday. Throughout the last year, I have learned so much. I now know BGP pretty well, I know multicast, I know NAT, in addition to loads of other topics. So if I do not get that number on Monday, I will continue my journey and add MPLS, troubleshooting, VPNV4 and other topics to my repertoire. Then I will try again. This journey will only end when I get that number - no matter how long it takes me.

For now, I have competed my studying. If I don't know enough by now, 1.5 more days of studying isn't really going to help me. I do plan to fire up the INE Core Knowledge SIM over the next few days - just to keep myself sharp on the core knowledge questions.. I've been at it for 12 hours a day for the past 2.5 weeks and I don't feel like I can take in any more knowledge this week.

I will be flying out early tomorrow morning. I will get to RTP, rest, relax and get a good nights sleep. I will be sure to post my results Monday night (provided I receive them then). You can also follow me on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/impiouspunk

Wish me luck - it's been one hell of a journey...so far!

-Matt