After weeks of reminders, both email and visual (i.e. seeing other ppl walk around with new laptops), I finally handed up my laptop to be upgraded. This required a certain amount of prep as certain types of files, most notably the audit software that our company uses, is NOT automatically backed up. Hence, I had to make a backup copy and since I was at it, I might as well throw some stuff on the server too.
Our tech guys said that as long as we successfully completed an automatic backup, we'll be fine, but IMO they've learnt the language of auditors, and so they say "most files are backed up" as opposed to "all". Ordinary ppl might consider the probability of losing something they actually care about, and come to a (probably accurate) conclusion that the level of risk is acceptable....but I'm not at that point yet. When in doubt, err on the safe side.
Anyway, stayed in the office late last night for work and also to prep my laptop for the upgrade, altho I finished neither. Work gets done slower now that I've set limits on the number of hours I spent on it -- not that it's making me any happier, on the contrary, having the limits is what keeps me from falling off the edge entirely in my quest to address review notes and complete year-end rollforward testing. As for the laptop prep, I waited to fully backup the contents of my laptop itself, but after seeing the tool restart itself a handful of times, I decided that I'd best do it at home where I could at least get some shut-eye -- brought back the battery pack for good measure. Luck of course dictated that the backup would complete in a minute (no exaggeration!) once I connected from home. Carried that weight home for nothing, doh!
So, the upgrade was going to take 4-6 hrs, depending on content, and I'd scheduled it for the morning. It all worked out as planned -- I'm pretty pleased with myself. Basically, since the prep was completed the night before, I showed up at work and turned in my computer right away, then did an errand at Bay-Bloor, killed some time at the Indigo bookstore there, then caught a cab with MD back to the office, then went straight into lunch with members of the counselling group.
Lunch was at Canoe. Duo of white bread and purplish walnut baguettes came with chickpea spread to start. As appetizer, I had the Cumbrae Farms Steak Tartare w Cookstown chips, truffle creme fraiche and black trumpets. Main was Roasted Lamb Sirloin w northern woods mushrooms, sweet peas, basmati rice and garlic confit. For dessert, the Dark Chocolate Pot de Creme with Osi de Morti and cocoa nibs; and also a cappucino. Generally, I thought it was all nicely done -- if anything, my biggest complaint would be the table setting as it was rather run of the mill. If you're going to put the effort into the presentation of the food, accompany it with minimalist but warm decor, and top it all off with wall-to-wall views of the city (on the 54th F no less), why skimp on tableware? I've been to Jump (part of the Oliver Bonacini group of companies too) but at least they could say that we were sitting outdoors and it would naturally have fewer frills. Coworker also noticed that the wait staff didn't make us feel very special as they didn't come by to check on how we did and also didn't bring pepper and salt for his soup, but personally I just want them to be there when I need them -- which they were.
Halfway through lunch, the phone rang and it was NM. After the initial how are yous, I found out that the CISA results had been released and she wanted to know how I did! Honestly, that was quite a surprise and rather coincidental, esp since lately ppl have been asking abt when I expected to hear the results -- we'd been told "6 weeks" but with no word and after a check on the website said "8 weeks", I'd resigned myself to only finding out on Feb 10 or something.
So, imagine my impatience then! I just wanted to get back and check my email, but then again, my laptop wasn't ready for pickup yet. So, tried logging onto our webclient from LK's machine, but he didn't have the client installed and I didn't know if he would mind. Then, tried MD's instead, but her IE froze when it tried to load the client -- I guess the client won't load if it detects that we were already connected to the internal network? Just when I was beginning to despair....the phone call from tech support came -- my laptop was ready!
It was obvious what I had to do once I got it back -- check email! And yes, I'm sure the title of this blog gave it away...I passed. Not with flying colours, but I passed, along with everyone else from my office who wrote the exam with me. The notification email also had a breakdown of how my scaled score looked like, and I only really did badly (relatively speaking) in the disaster recovery/physical security section -- justifiable considering that I've barely done any work on the area. Scored highest on system development (no surprise there considering the amount of time I spent working on this section for the s5970 report) and second highest on the encryption stuff -- surprise surprise, since I found that section tricky in the exam. Now, another 1.5 years of experience and I can add 4 letters to the back of my name....
It's amazing how motivating news like this can be. After the results, I felt renewed energy at addressing those damn review notes.
It would've been a thoroughly good day if I didn't get a stomach upset -- sad to say, the culprit was probably the dish I liked best from lunch, the steak tartare, probably due to the rawness of the meat. :S The hardiness of my digestive tract has wavered since coming to Canada....
Well, win some, lose some.
