Small line of silver in the cloud of life

I had been closeted for more than 50 minutes and when I finally wanted to hit the Exit button on the screen and informed the Coordinator, who was sitting in her small cabin next to mine, I was forced to see a wry expression in her face and was told to revise all my answers in the test since I had around 40 more minutes to complete the test. I did not relent and badly wanted to exit the test. I insisted and persisted. She gave another dry look at me and grudgingly allowed me to exit the test screen. Boom! My eyes widened and my face lightened up by the horizontal rectangular bar in the test results page: it showed that I had passed the test with 89% way above the required 59% for a pass in the test! Wow! I am a proud owner of my first IBM certification. I am an IBM Certified Database Associate now! The words of congratulations naturally flowed from the Coordinator's voice, as though she could not believe the test results!

Often, among the distressing events in life, there might be some interesting asides in the form of broken lines of silver in the cloud of otherwise traumatic life. And, last Thursday, I had my first such line of silver as I had passed my first IBM Certification test for IBM's database DB2. I had planned to take the test almost three weeks back and the journey since had been an interesting one with my planning, collecting the resources for the test, studying, practicing, thinking, revising for the test giving my best and living in the present most of the times!

It had been sometimes tough for me given that my body does not often cooperate with me! I had to often study the material lying down on my bed since my back would not permit me to sit straight! And, often, my eyes would slow down and stand still with moisture in them filled to the brim! I had decided to test my own limits both physically and psychologically by planning for this test. And, finally, all my efforts paid off! When I saw a kind of strange and proud glow in the eyes of my parents and an ecstatic stream of words from my sisters and friends, I felt I did something at least for myself. After all, an achievement in these times of distress and trauma in life, at least makes me feel that I have a life! And, after all, this one silver line lightened up my little own world! :)