Well, I've put it off for far too long and when I stopped putting it off life interfered, but finally, finally, I will take the TSHOOT test for my CCNP today.

Let me tell this story briefly, just because now that I'm looking back on it, it's amusing.

I scheduled my test at Achiever's Academy in Salmiya. Salmiya is one of the districts surrounding Kuwait city, and if you've never been to an Arab country just think of Egypt from the Indiana Jones Raiders movie, and insert brightly colored billboards EVERYWHERE in Arabic. That's it.

So anyway, I drive on down to the local area, but the testing center has moved. I learned the block numbers for the new one (didn't help, of all the signage up everywhere, no street signs) and went on down. 40 degrees Centigrade and oh... close to 100% humidity with a blinding sun burning out of the sky as though presaging Armageddon.

Car broke down. I'd given myself an hour and a half to find the testing center and I spent MOST of that wandering around on foot with a sixty pound bookbag on (with reference material I'd planned to cram with before the test). Never did find the place and wound up having to take a taxi to work, which I had later that day. 200 bucks for the test, a case of near heat exhaustion, and nothing to show for it, not even a failed test.

This time the test is scheduled on the base where I work and I know exactly where the building in which I'm to take it is located. I've taken the day off preceding to study, and the day after is the beginning of my weekend.

If I fail this time, at least it will be because I actually took the test and failed, not because I wound up wandering around like a dazed tourist in an awesome but older movie set.

In ten hours, give or take, I'll update this journal with pass/fail. Wish me luck if you care to. :)

EDIT:

Failed. I R RETARDED.

I have no fucking words.