2011 Flashback

It's less than an hour to enter a new year.
There're a lot things happened in 2011.
Things that I want to forget and things that I want to remember forever.

2011 was started with the fact that the girl I liked getting married and I could not do anything about it. I didn't even know that she would be married. It's a coincidence that in the meeting my colleague showed me the wedding invitation email which was never sent to me.

I feel really upset that time. Can she just appreciate me as a friend and invite me even for hospitality only? I guess she doesn't know me well that even she invited me, I wouldn't shown up in the party. Why should I?

So I only sent a sms congratulated her, wishing her the very best and she didn't reply me at all. And when she showed up in the office, I asked her if she received it. She said yes without other word which was very disappointed. I didn't know what I was thinking. I expected she to have more manner and politeness but she just didn't possess that kind of things. So I kept telling myself maybe she forgot and maybe someday she would say it.

But after a week with no progress at all, I then told her that it's okay for us to be just friend. As we did not have anything special in particular or something like that, trying to explain everything. I even went further and asked her why she didn't invite me into the wedding party?

And guess what? She responded by told me to shut up, told everything I said and done was nothing important for her. Guess I carried away a little bit that time and went into decision to break any friendship with her forever.

It's unforgivable for her to say those meaning and cruel words to me. I didn't get her, did she ever feel like rejected by someone she like? She's a woman after all! A pretty woman indeed but that's all. With a manner like that, any educated man will feel disgusting to her. So everyone is forbidden to speak to her except when she feel it's important for her?

I offered her a friendship! It took a courage to do it to the one I like. But her respond was out of my imagination. It turned out that I did not know her at all. Not a single piece of her.

But let's forget about her, there are moments, sad moments actually happening in 2011.

The other thing wrecking me down was the failure at JNCIE exam. It's the second time for me and I had written posts about that in this blogs. I'm really honest when I said that life is unfair, because I happened coincidentally to know a friend who took a JNCIE exam representing other company. He passed it eventhough after the exam he admit it he forget something that keep his L3VPN messy. He said to me that he didn't have a chance of passing it either, same as me. But the fact is he pass! How come?

And then his company was trying to recruit me. I reject that offer eventhough I was told I will be guaranteed passing the JNCIE. I never really like the idea of being a doll, a capitalism marionette that is. I never did! And once I accept this kind of offer, then I know I will have to compromising on false things in return. It's just not my style :).

But I don't have to worry that I will lose any confidence about my capability. I wonder if anyone remembers that once I said that I will learn Alcatel because of lack of Juniper project in my company? In fact I did, and I successfully passing all Alcatel exams which are notoriously as having no complete cheat or dump material in IT world in only 4 months!

Some told me I am a genius when I show him/her that fact. I only laugh hearing it because I know I wasn't a genius. Don't forget the fact that I have failed in the lab exams 4 times (2 JNCIP and 2 JNCIE)! I just showed the world what a person in a professional level potentially may achieve if they achieve that level honestly. That's all.

And now the other sad thing happened in 2011 was that I have to lose my colleague as she moved from Indonesia to abroad, pursuing her education. What can I say about her? She's pretty, cute and intelligence. But there's one thing I didn't like about her, is that she showed me too much hedoism. That sign make me doubt about her, whether she is the right person to accompany me in my journey.

But everything will be all right then, since we are separated now. And in fact she told me that she have having been in relationship, a long distance one with someone which I didn't even know. I didn't even know if she said it honestly or just said it for keeping me pursuing her. I only said to her before her departure that actually I like her but hoping she can change her point of view someday.

Hmm, that sound too selfish right? Liking somebody and hoping she will change herself for me. Why must I do that? The reason is because if she cannot change her point of view of how she see the world then she would not understand me forever. I accept the fact that she was raised in the well-being society. I know that kind of society but also hate it. That a society which people respect each other not because of they are or their accomplishent, but their belonging! It's just a situation I hate most.

But I don't have to worry about her. She said she is in a good hand and her boyfriend is a very successful person. So I cannot find any reasons why she must choose me over her boyfriend. If she loves money the most, her boyfriend is the winner. If she loves the younger person, her boyfriend also is the winner. If she loves the prestigious feeling, hey boyfriend can give her that kind of thing as he was being said working abroad right now.

All I can do now is wait and see. Maybe someday we will meet again and who knows what will happen. And even if we don't I believe GOD will introduce me to a better person then.

Happy New Year 2012 everyone :).

Second JNCIE attempt failure...

It's been more than 6 months I do not touch my blog. The reason is I was too busy pursuing my CCIP and SRC certifications. And the last one is attempting JNCIE-M again. But unfortunately I failed again. So frustrating!

My first reaction when I receive an email from my proctor informing about the result was "What the hell? Perhaps he wrongly sent the result email for another candidate to me since he stated that I have a blackhole in my bgp configuration at the exam." I can recalled very clearly that I didn't have any blackhole since last thing I did before I went home is pinging every possible ebgp destination prefix from any routers and all are success.

So I reply the proctor's email asking about it. And he replied as we can see below :

Stevanus,

We have verified that you did indeed receive accurate exam results. We are unable to provide you with any additional feedback or comments, as it would provide no significant detail without violating the integrity of the testing process.

Prior to your next JNCP Lab Exam, we strongly recommend carefully reviewing the exam objectives and recommended study material available at http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/certification/mt_series_track.html#jnciem

Then suddenly I get the idea. It's an exam purposing not for educating people. But an exam for something else (you can guess, right?). Since Juniper cannot provide me a correct feedback because Juniper doesn't want any candidates learn from their mistakes and then -hopefully- success at the next attempt.

It makes me lose my spirit to attempt the exam again. Why?

First : because I have failed 2 times in a row and the last attempt has cost me 50% of the exam fee :(.

Second : because next attempt must be paid by myself and there is no local jncie lab being scheduled at the moment (so the lab fee + travel fee is too expensive for me)

Third : because of the wording of exam objectives, it can lead to several solutions which, of course, Juniper can say as failure if the network configuration is not what they expected to be.

Yes, I have failed because of the third reason this time :(. Because when the exam is finished, I feel like this gonna make me pass the test since on my network, there has not been any routing loops, hidden routes, blackhole, etc. And I have configured all the requirements in all sections.

But unfortunately, it still isn't enough to pass the test. And then I wonder what may make me fail the test. After getting the feedback above, I realize that my bgp design is not optimal. Even in my opinion, it doesn't violate the objectives stated in the exam, there is apparently better design. So they may take point loss badly from it.

And the second place where my point loss would be is mpls sections. Because the wording of the exam objectives is too general that I can think several possible alternative ways to solve it, and it's definitely bad for me. Why bad? Because there is only one best solutions according to Juniper and if your configuration is not the same as what they expect, then sorry, you fail!

At least this is what I can think of now. Why do I think that way? Because on the replied email, Juniper states that I must review the exam objectives very well. And then they advised me to enroll to their bootcamp course from the URL provided.

Okay, I admit bootcamp is the source of enlightment for all problems we may encounter in the JCNIE-M exam. But for me, if I have already taken bootcamp, then the exam would have had no meaning at all, more like having a paper certification. Now tell me, what is the purpose of having a paper certification? If you have been told the solutions before the exam, then will you have the capability to analyze and design the network as desired from JNCIE holder? I think it is not necessarily true!

And when think the opposite way, will you in any single real world task, will be limited by 8 hours to do all the analyzing and designing your network? No! Real world task will be more complex and sophisticated than the exam and requiring days even months for gathering the data and then analyzing and designing it appropriately.

Another reason for me to oppose bootcamp is the very expensive price tag they give. $5000 for me is not a little money to ditch. I have thrown out the idea of taking next JNCIE-M attempts because it would cost me approx $2000 for exam and travel fee, so if I can afford bootcamp fee then I must be crazy =)).

Okay, okay so I failed again. But what's the big fuss about that? I think it's normal since I'm in a process of learning something. Sometimes our opinion is not the best opinion and in a short time I have in the exam, I have to make decision. And when the decision I make cost me my failure, then let it be. At least I know what I have done (and the proctor should too, if he checked my exam manually. Maybe if he did, he can understood some of my thought in the exam. But I doubt it, I heard the proctor use some kind of script to generate the result).

The only things that make me regret it is that I'm losing money for the second attempt but it's inevitable. And next time when I take the Juniper lab again, I hope I can overcome the Acer laptop keypad used in the exam. Since I realize I also lost much time because of uneasy feeling with the keypad make me make a lot of typos mistakes. The delay of remote lab connections problem is another issue since it's also inevitable. But the typos mistake, I think it can be improved.

Nevertheless, we are human. We are not perfect. Often times we make mistakes. And the good things is we can always learn from our mistakes and make us better and better every each days. I have done many mistakes, countless I think, to be able at the stage where I am right now. And to be here for me is a special things. It's so rejoicing!

Thank you for reading this :).