modemgirl

NEWS FLASH:

My phone has this crazy app that allows me to talk to my friends IN REAL TIME. All I do is find them in my contacts > click their name > click call > and then it magically connects directly to their phone and notifies them that I’m waiting to talk with them. It’s great for catching up and making plans, or letting someone know if I’m a bit behind schedule or lost. This way I don’t have to text back and forth a million times, which is especially handy when I’m hanging out with someone else IRL and don’t want to sit there like a JERK ON MY CELLPHONE ALL DAY.

I’m tired of hanging out with people and their phones. I realize this is somewhat hypocritical because I am one of the most digitally connected people I know, but I also would like to point out that if you and I are spending quality time together, you’re very rarely going to see me pick up my phone and text someone else without specifically apologizing for “being on my phone.” I understand that sometimes you’re in the process of making plans for the future, and that’s fine. We all do it.  But if you NEED TO MAKE PLANS RIGHT NOW, how about you pick up the phone , excuse yourself, and call the other person? If it’s not urgent can you please stop wasting my time? It’s pretty rude.

The other day the lovely cayley jane cooked a delicious meal for group of new and old friends. She cleaned the house and even pulled out THE DINNER TABLE, all of which is exciting for someone who generally eats alone sitting in the middle of the floor or in front of a computer. We opened our wine while my one friend furtively texted under the table.  We said our thanks and began to enjoy curry extravaganza, but his plate remained untouched as he was preoccupied with his phone. The conversation was enjoyable, but carried entirely by the three of us who were present, until something inside of me snapped.

“Hey Dude, how’s your phone? “  I asked cautiously, not really WANTING to be a bitch.

“Yeah, how rude are YOU!?”

Another guest thankfully backed me up, and he sheepishly put his phone away, explaining that he was just making plans with so and so.  I really don’t like to be a jerk like that – especially putting a friend on the spot in front of a group – but I’ve just had enough. I’m tired of spending time with people who are only half there.

I got my first blackberry about four years ago. It was given to me for work purposes, as being “the  I.T. girl” for the an office of engineers required me to be reachable at all times, in case someone needed me to push a button for them. As a result, I developed a fairly compulsive blackberry habit, because I was essentially on call – always. But it was nothing compared to earlier digital addictions I’ve dealt with.

Prior to the blackberry, I was a self proclaimed MSN addict. Whenever I was at home I was always logged in and usually in the middle of a handful of rarely useful, mostly pointless conversations with friends who were also online all the time. A fun and easy addiction to slip into – especially when you’re living somewhere that it’s freezing cold and you have no money to go out with – but it can really  damage your social skills. You develop a need for constant reinforcement and take for granted that you’ll always have someone there to respond to every little comment you make. Suddenly when you don’t have that reinforcement there feel panic, depression, and anxiety. Also, you can lose the ability to actually make plans, go out in public, have real conversations, and look people in the eye when you talk to them.

I realized that IMing had become a real problem for me sometime in 2005, so for January 2006  I detoxed and went cold turkey for a couple months. It was extremely challenging, especially considering I was in technical school at the time and was on a computer for most of my days. Thankfully I was too busy working to really notice, and eventually the hook in my brain lessoned it’s grip, and I no longer felt the compulsion to be logged in all the time. I didn’t need an electronic version of my friends to validate my existence anymore, and that was a very liberating feeling. I got the blackberry a few months later, around the time when texting was really just starting to become a thing that people did, but I didn’t REALLY get into it. I used my phone to check the 29381290 emails from work a day, to blog during my commutes, and an INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS DEVICE, but that’s really it.

I guess I shouldn’t be so judgemental of my friends who are stuck to their phones now as I was once stuck to MSN messenger. It’s still new and exciting for many people to now have this amazing connectivity to their peer group, and just because I couldn’t control myself doesn’t mean everyone else will get stuck as badly as I once was. In a way, I feel I am lucky to have already gone through my digital adolescence, because I think the risk for addiction is a lot greater now than it used to be. With the advent of things like facebook, adsense, SEO, every 0 and 1 is tuned specifically to your interests and directed with the intent of sucking you in. Also straight up usability has improved exponentially – I can take a high resolution photo on my phone and have it distributed to almost every person I’ve ever met within about 14 seconds. That’s just…. both awesome and terrifying.

I think the key difference is that my addiction wasn’t mobile. When I left the house, I left MSN behind, and even when I first got a blackberry I refused to install any instant messaging clients on it. The thought of having a facebook chat client on my phone terrifies me – if you want to talk to me in real time, you must first prove yourself worthy of  being given my phone number. Then we can use the “call” app, makes plans, meet IRL and discuss over a nice pitcher of sangria. or on our bikes. or really anywhere other than through a screen.

I’m sure your parents would agree.

I wanted to update the diagram of my internal network topology. What do you think?

ALSO:

I PASSED MY CCNA last week! :)

this is very exciting news! mainly, because i don’t have to stress about it anymore. my goal was to write it before my first anniversary with PEER 1, which came and went in the beginning of March, so it’s been looming on my conscience since then.  halfway though the exam i was positive there was no way in hell i’d pass – i messed up big time on a couple of the bigger “simulator” questions, and then drew a total blank on something very simple early on in the exam.

the test is quite structured and you’re only allowed 90 minutes to answer about 50 questions. once you click ‘done’ on a question there’s no going back, so you have to budget your time accordingly, without any idea of what you have left to do. thankfully i was able to jumpstart my brain, cut my losses and get on with it, but i lost valuable time and had to rush through the remainder of the exam,  running out of time halfway through the last question.

the exam questions take a variety of formats. the majority are multiple choice, with a few matching, which are fairly straightforward as long as you’ve done your studying. the hard questions are the simulations, which provide a situation and corresponding network diagram which functions as a simulated environment and allows you to log in to the necessary network devices, make configuration changes and solve the given problem. these questions can be quite long and complicated, and you are only given the bare minimum IOS to complete the given tasks. this can often throw the test taker for a loop, as you may not have access to certain commands that you might normally use in a given situation. like… SHOW RUN for example. no show run for you!

the test is written at a certified testing center and graded automatically. so after a small brain meltdown at the beginning, i rushed through the remainder of the exam, convinced the difficulty i had with my EIGRP configuration would be my downfall. despite all intention to stay optimistic, at that moment i was sure my career as a network analyst would soon be over. UR DOIN IT WRONG, SERRA! my brain screamed at me until suddenly the timer expired. my heart stopped, the screen went black and when i saw the word Congratulations! i was sure it was mocking me. considering that the passing grade is around 82% and i messed up bigtime on a couple of the big simulator questions…..wait… CONGRATULATIONS?!!!  i made some sort of squawking noise and then ran squealing with joy out of the test center. somehow i managed to pull off an 87% and i could start breathing again!

people keep asking me – so what is this certification, and what does it qualify you to do? well, the cert is cisco certified network associate, and it pretty much qualifies me to do the job i already have. it’s considered an ‘entry level’ networking certification, but for an entry level cert, it’s hella hard. the amount of material you need to know is huge, and very theoretical. also DRY AS HELL to study. i find networking interesting, but it’s not a very exciting thing to study unless you have a good teacher. i spent a lot of time watching chris bryant’s videos on youtube – he is a great teacher and explains things in a way that’s easy to follow and then reinforces the concepts with real world examples, which really helps with retention. sitting at home reading through one of the two 600+ page text books…. not so much.

so why write a cert when you already have the job? well, i don’t have a degree. i have a diploma from a technical college that no one has ever heard of,  so it’s nice to have something that officially recognizes that i might be a semi reputable human being who could warrant employment in the future. i’d equate this cert to having a BA or Bsc – it’s not really useful on it’s own, but in combination with experience and generalized awesomeness, it’s going to make me more employable and hopefully help me land jobs over my non-certified peers. not that i plan on leaving my current job any time soon, because i love PEER 1, but you never know.

another thing that rules is i actually learned a LOT while preparing for this exam. it really filled in a lot of the cracks and i feel a lot more confident in myself at work. the position i work in can sometimes be quite high pressure, and you will get a lot of clients on the phone who will throw terminology at you without always knowing what they are talking about. being able to understand what they want and explain to them the reality of the situation is key, and confidence is essential.

so now, what’s next? CCNP perhaps, but first i think it’s time to relax and enjoy the summer while it lasts :)

hey i have a photoshop challenge for anyone who’s up for it! i’d like a mashup of these two images, however you see fit. i’d do it myself but with work + studying + mixing+ sun = can only handle so many hours in front of a computer before my eyes fall out of my head.  plus i realized i have a lot of designer friends who are far more excellent at photoshop than i, and it will probably take you like four seconds to spit out something that will take me all afternoon.

there’s another image here that might help, and one here that might make your head explode.

also… i am offering like +5453453 awesome points to anyone who understands why this combination of concepts is hilarious. because it is! and so is the mix. crystal distortion, trollybus circus, biroshima, britney spears and REM finally together at last. freetek!!!

<3serra