Finished PMP Exam

I passed the PMP exam!! Gosh, it was one of the hardest exams I have taken given how lengthy and scenario-based the questions are. And oftentimes, several options are so similar that it's hard to decide on a correct answer.

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I want to reflect on my whole experience for this PMP exam and what it was like to take the Pearson VUE exam from home. So I’ll reflect on each one separately:

Let’s start with the exam itself first and how I studied for it.

I must admit the exam was considerably difficult even though I practised sufficiently enough on question banks and practice exams. After completing my 35-hour pre-requisite course for the exam, I purchased on Skillcertpro (USD 20.00) the questions pack for PMP. In total, I practised 5 sets of test sets (each consisting of 65 questions). I felt demoralised after practising here as my score was always in the 40-50% range. After finishing the 5th question set, I realised that the questions were all testing on PMP 6th edition but the exam I was taking was already on the 7th edition. This was when I decided to make a switch and went ahead to purchase the PMI Study Hall Plus (USD 79.00) instead.

In Study Hall, I began going through the guidebook essentially thinking that reading content would help, but it was kinda dry and not enjoyable, so I went ahead to do the practice questions provided. There was a total of 200 practice questions which essentially makes up to be one full-length exam. My score was 65% and I felt a confidence boost. The 7th edition questions were largely on Agile concepts and highly scenario-based instead of the older format in the 6th edition which focused on predictive (waterfall) methods. At this point, I was two weeks away from my exam. In the days before the exam, I redid the practice questions and went ahead to do 2 full-practice exams in an exam setting (meaning a 4-hour time limit for 1 full exam session without help). Both the practice exam results were 73% and 70% consecutively.

Having read on Reddit that if you are getting 65-75% on Study Hall, you're good to go ahead with the exam. That made me feel confident that I was ready.

Came the exam itself and my honest opinion of it was - damn it's difficult. Many Reddit users wrote that it was moderately difficult and answers were clearer than on Study Hall, but in my case, I felt the opposite. During the exam itself, I had a hard time deciding between 2 options and often stared at the question blankly. One issue I have is that the questions were very wordy, and even though I have done numerous practices, none of the questions appeared the same - it was always a fresh question, or repeat question with fresh options. To me, the difficulty was almost like the expert-level questions I did in Study Hall. There were even questions where it asked of topics that I had never seen before - too bad I cannot remember anything any longer. 

My advice is to get Study Hall and just practice it inside out. 

Week 3 on Testosterone

Want to first celebrate my achievement for completing 6 consecutive weeks of consistent workouts. There were days that were hard, I had thoughts of not turning up, but I did it and I’m proud of myself.

My testosterone jab was on 2nd Feb so only 3 out of 6 weeks were boosted by testosterone.

I shall keep up this good work and make this year worthwhile with my best ever physique and fitness.

So back onto the updates of my testosterone effects on week 3. I caught a dry cough and felt sickly in week 3 and that likely caused a slight decrease in my energy levels. I also noticed that I did not drink coffee on one of the days (I’m a daily coffee drinker and sometimes 2-3 cups a day), and all of a sudden my energy dropped to extreme low levels that I felt sleepy the entire next day. I was worried that it was the TRT starting to wane. I drank lots of water and slept 9 hours and took naps on that day. The very next day I was still groggy in the morning so I drank 1 cup of black coffee and all of a sudden I became alert again. So luckily it’s not the TRT issue fingers crossed.

Overall I feel good and effects of T have been similar to the previous week but maybe slightly less intense. Maybe more of what normal feels like.

I have a major exam coming in two days so I shall focus wholeheartedly on that - PMP exam

What is your natural baseline?

I am fortunate that I did my testosterone blood test three years ago as it was able to show my baseline high level of testosterone in comparison to my low level this year.

Three years ago: 24.86 nmol/L (716 ng/dL)

Now: 15.4 nmol/L (443 ng/dL)

Male reference range 8.64 - 29.00

That was the evidence that helped me to get on TRT and gave me clear reasoning as to why I was feeling the symptoms now. If I had no testosterone history to compare against, then there would have been no basis of comparison to which a doctor can justifiably offer me TRT.

Even with the data, there were medical personnel online that doubted me and told me that TRT should not be for me. This is added to the fact that in Singapore, most people don’t know much about testosterone treatment and the immediate idea of using it is resulted from muscle gain intentions because of bodybuilding users who abuse it, which is tragically not the case and many men who suffer depression / emotional fluctuations / performance anxiety would seriously benefit from optimising their testosterone levels.

It is important for young guys in their twenties to go get their testosterone levels checked so as to have a knowledge of how high they were at (peak natural levels). This is the optimum level that you will want to live at.

TRT is not natty

Going back to the issue of whether I am natty or enhanced given that I am on TRT, I have read up on this topic and come to the conclusion that as soon as I started TRT I was no longer natty.

The reason is that even though my testosterone levels are optimised only to the upper ranges of natural physiological levels in males, my testosterone level on TRT does not fluctuate, unlike the body's natural production which will peak and trough through the day.

The adult male naturally produces on average 6-10 mg of testosterone a day and the amount is the highest in the morning and goes down by the end of the day. Testosterone production is also affected by lifestyle factors such as sleep quality, stress levels, nutrition and sexual habits. Some days the testosterone levels of a man will be low, and some other days it becomes higher.

However, for men like me who are on TRT, the exogenous testosterone levels do not fluctuate on a day-to-day basis but follow a wider peak and trough across the 10-week cycle as shown in the graph below.

At the 1-3 weeks mark after the injection of testosterone undecanoate (nebido), my testosterone will peak at the upper level of total testosterone at 800-1000ng/dL. Subsequently, as a result of the elimination half-life of testosterone undecanoate in castor oil, the testosterone levels will deplete up to the 8-10 week mark where it returns to my baseline level of testosterone.

Adding a note, even though I am enhanced/optimised, it is nothing compared to the enhancement that performance-enhancement drugs give, which would bring the hormone levels to supraphysiological levels (way above natural human achievable capacity).

Cialis while on TRT and the costs

Since I was prescribed by my doctor testosterone undecanoate jab (nebido) for low sex drive and tadalafil (cialis) for erectile dysfunction, I thought to give it a try and stack both the cialis with nebido to see if my erection function works better.

I was issued 4 pills of 20mg cialis tablets at the beginning for my “weekend use” as advised by my doctor due to the long acting 36 hours active period. My doctor also added that I will have to get an erection myself by getting turned on first before the cialis can work its magic. How cialis works is that it “plugs” open the bloodstream once the penis gets an erection so that it stays erected and takes longer and harder for the erection to go away. 

Hence, I did not take the cialis when I first got it because my sex drive wasn’t that spectacular and I felt that it’ll be pointless if I took cialis without being able to get hard in the first place.

Over this weekend, marks my two weeks mark into my first nebido 1000mg/4ml testosterone injection and I have begun to feel wonderful effects from it. Most notably, I have been having healthy morning erections and erections through the day. With that, I decided to pop one 20mg cialis pill as I was going to meet my partner for the weekend.

I took it on Friday evening and the effects were astounding I must say. Right on that evening, I had an erection like never before and could stay hard without continuous stimulation for a much longer period of time (from 1min to 10+ minutes). Moreover, I was harder than ever before as my penis had popping veins. It made me gain back my confidence once again and I felt an inner joy deep down that I’ve not felt for a long time. 

There were no major side effects and I drank a lot of water to prevent any potential headache that might happen (which thankfully never did). But I did get light headed after doing my 2.4km run on Saturday and had some asthma/wheezing which were very minor (but cannot be sure if caused by cialis).

My erections came naturally through the weekend and even on Sunday I was getting hard really easily. TRT with cialis has really been a miracle drug combo. I’ve always been mostly the bottom (receiving) during sex because my dick doesn’t work and I could not reach climax easily unless I jerked myself so my partner would be the one fucking me. This time round my erection was hard and solid so I could top my partner and even ejaculate like a cum blaster 9000. I’m really amazed and full of sexual confidence once again.

With that, I’ve been thinking about the monetary cost of sustaining this health enhancement for a continuous time:

Testosterone Nebido jab $350 + $50 assisted injection every 6-8 weeks (about $200 per month)

Cialis pills $100 for 4 pills used over each week (so $100 per month)

That works up to be roughly $300 per month and considering I would need regular blood work and checkups it might rise to $350-$400 per month on average. To me, yes it is pretty costly but if the cost is able to provide me with priceless benefits that improves my quality of life, confidence, motivation and health improvement, I think it is very well worth it. 

I shall think of there are alternative ways to obtain generic forms of cialis but if not then at least I should request from my doctor and fixed prescription so that I can get it easily on a repeated basis without worry in case I cannot get access to the same doctor.

The Death Grip

Ever since I decided to take action on my health, I started on TRT, ate 10 eggs a day and practised nofap and noporn. The aim is to improve my erections and make my libido stronger as I always felt that I had lower than average libido, and my erections took a while to get hard and subsequently become soft pretty quickly.

On the topic of nofap, my aim is to increase the sensitivity of my dick and raise the sensation and stimulation from having sex with a person instead of by myself and using porn to turn myself on. Throughout my life, I have been using porn to get off frequently and it has become such a deep-rooted habit that it has affected my sex life significantly. I would jerk off night and day even when I was not horny just because I started watching some porn videos and would use the death grip on my soft dick to try really hard to jerk something out. It was this mindless act that made me want to cum even though the actual sensation of cumming brought me no joy thereafter. This behaviour, I believe, led to my ED and lack of sex drive.

Having done nofap for two weeks, I definitely feel hornier and I feel more 'alive' instead of 'flat' from post-ejaculation fatigue. I do require more self-discipline to keep myself from touching my dick and I am glad that as of now I have kept to my words. I feel more animalistic three days into nofap and my mind would run astray and start going into a sort of hunting mode, making me want to fuck and have sex intensely. My mind would start thinking of sex and the urge to mate with someone would flood my mind. This gives me the training to test my discipline and self-control from finishing myself and diverting the focus to socialising and expressing my improved confidence with others.

One week into this nofap (no ejaculation also), I was so horny that I needed to nut myself so I gave myself the exclusion that allowed me to nut if I used a Fleshlight and thrust into it without any involvement of my hands. This simulation of sex would 

These are the rules I have set out for myself that are different from the general Reddit guidelines of what nofap should be:

1. I cannot jerk my dick by myself at any time 

2. I can jerk myself if I have sex with someone

3. I cannot use the death grip at all times

4. I will use lube along with 2 finger grip for jerking off with someone

5. If someone else jerks me off, that is fine

6. No porn while jerking 

7. If I need to release when alone, I will use a Fleshlight and thrust into it instead of hand assistance

8. I can stimulate my nipples and ass anytime by myself but no touching of my penis for self-stimulation

1 week on TRT

Week 1 Observations on Testosterone:

Sexual

- Sex Drive: My sex drive has improved a little bit, nothing drastic but I do feel horny more easily. I started to feel how I felt when I was younger. I changed from a flatlined non-sexual person who needs loads of stimulation to get turned on, to a man who now has an itch in his loins that needs to be scratched and the urge for sex is now present there if nothing is done for three days (nofap/noporn/nosex).

- Erectile Function: The amount of visual/physical stimulation needed to get an erection is reduced. Previously I had to jerk myself off for a while and look at porn to get hard but I could now get a hard erection just with thoughts in my head. I had morning wood recorded on 3 out of 7 days compared to 0 days before starting TRT.

- Nipples: My nipples feel more sensitive now and even a slight brush against an object would feel good on the nipple. Nipples are in the slightest bit more meaty and rubbing them would turn me on.

- Testicles: No observable changes in size.

Physical

- Muscle Strength: Over the last week's workouts I have managed to increase my PRs by 5-10% for barbell compound lifts. These exercises have stagnated in weight for some time (bench press 100 to 105kg, military press 60 to 65kg, bent-over rows 80 to 85kg, squats 80 to 85kg). I think likely that it is not just testosterone that contributed but also the change in my diet (10 eggs/day) that improved the numbers.

- Tendon/Ligament: With the increase in muscular strength from my workouts, I had three muscle strains all within the span of the first week. After my back day doing bent over row, I suddenly had a lower back muscle ache that got pretty bad. Whenever I bent to pick things up I could feel the strain. Then after shoulder day my right thumb started to get strain when extending. The funniest one was my neck muscle when I got horny at the end of the first week and decided to take out my fleshlight (it’s counted as nofap since I thrusted instead of using hands?). When I was ejaculating I had the most intense orgasm and as I was looking at myself in the mirror my neck was striated and flexed beyond what I’ve seen and then the neck strain hit. The strains are pain but I push through them by continuing my workouts anyway and they seem to subside when I mobilise them.

- Muscle Mass: My weight was 89kg on the day of the jab and now I am 91kg. Notable steady increase of about 0.4kg per day with some fluctuations in between. But with an increased appetite, I can see how this has increased my body weight.

- Muscle Pump: The pumps are bigger and more intense now after workouts at the gym and DOMS stay for longer. Before TRT, the DOMS would only be felt the next day on the muscle I was working out on. However, now I would feel DOMS across my body even though the workout was focused on a specific body part. For example, I did a shoulder workout and the next day I felt muscle swelling and soreness across my chest, back, shoulders, legs and arms. It could be that I am lifting heavier weights more intensely now so it is engaging more muscles across my body. Who knows.

- Sweating: Sweat glands are definitely starting to work harder now because I sweat more easily and my body odour is muskier and denser if I make any sense, like it's not so much a bad germy B.O. but more of a masculine smell that I like the smell of. It's probably the testosterone doing its work on my pheromones. To me, it's a plus because the smell now gives me more confidence (weird I know but I like my own smell lol).

- Thirst: Likely directly linked to the increased amount of sweating, the amount of water I need to drink on a daily basis has increased. In the past, I would fill my 600ml water bottle up to three times a day, but now I drink so much water that I would fill up the bottle 4-6 times.

- Acne: No observable acne occurrence.

- Water Retention: No observable water retention symptoms

Lifestyle

- Appetite: My appetite is BIG. When the hunger hits I really do feel it now. I can eat huge meals and get hungry again a few short hours later, and when the hunger hits I get a strong urge to eat right away. It's not the kind of hunger where I'm like okay maybe I will pick up a snack to eat. No. It's an urge to eat a full hearty meal. About that, the preference for food selection also tends toward high protein and meaty diets. I have no more cravings for sugary / processed / fried foods. My body craves eggs, meat and foods with solid nutritional value. Coke and candy do not interest me any longer.

- Sleep: I have better sleep now but I am unsure if it is by pure coincidence that I fitted air purifiers in my room to clean the air just last week (yes I am crazy about optimizing my health right now). I feel that I sleep more deeply and do not wake up in the middle of the night. Based on my daytime alertness, I would say that I am having better sleep. But the fatigue does come in naturally when nighttime hits so it's not like I have excess energy that keeps me up even at bedtime.

- Mental Clarity and Alertness: I am more awake in the morning hours and clearer in my thoughts, my vision feels more vibrant like I can focus in my present state more clearly.

- Mood: I feel more calm and collected. Negative thoughts do still stay in my head but I think I care less now of things if I feel like it's not important. 

- Motivation: Big improvements in motivation and I think this is where testosterone manages to pull all the improvements together. The saying that testosterone makes effort feel good does hold true. I have increased aggression (not in violence but an effortful drive) to push myself to do things and make myself better. There are less of the what-ifs and more of just taking action and doing things and getting things done to make myself better. Previously, it would take me quite an effort to drive out of the house and get to the gym on a weekend (when I could just rest in bed), but the drive now is more intense and I want to get myself going and doing things and not just be comfortable.

- Energy: Greater energy in the daytime, I feel more athletic and willing to move around. I do get a little restless when I am stationary for too long, but as long as I keep myself occupied with things and move out and about, the energy is burnt off well, and then I'm good. 

- Stress and anxiety: I think I was put in some stressful situations during the week, especially during the Chinese New Year period when I had social gatherings and social anxiety would usually run strong. I feel more calm and can handle my emotions better. In fact, my emotions have become more masculine and I no longer become emo or sad when I encounter problems. Which is definitely a big plus.

Am I enhanced or optimised?

With my first shot of TRT to bring up my testosterone levels from the low end of the range up to the middle/upper range, I can't help but think to myself, am I enhanced or am I merely optimising and taking back what I should be having - a healthy testosterone level.

On the idea that testosterone is used as a shortcut to get better, I do not think I am taking any shortcuts as I have done my duty of maxing my potential in the other aspects of my life - sleep, diet, stress management and fitness. I take a myriad of health supplements, I wake up early to get healthy sunlight and I actively get myself moving whenever I can. In that sense, I feel that I have put in the work. Taking exogenous testosterone helps to put them all together and makes me more motivated, such that it feels good to put in effort once again.

Assuming that sex drive and erection symptoms are not the issue here, some might argue that my testosterone level is normal for that of a man in his 30s (15.4 nmol/L). However, I'd question back why would I want to just be normal? If I have the potential to optimise my testosterone levels to that of a man in his 20s, why would I not do it? 

Aside from the health risk of killing my sperm and potentially having higher cancer risks in the prostate and colon in the long term, I see testosterone as a greater benefit. After all, people are willing to drink alcohol and smoke to comfort themselves and make themselves feel better, why then is exogenous testosterone seen as the bigger villain? 

On top of that, I am not bringing my testosterone levels to supraphysiological levels like those of professional bodybuilders giving them the enhanced potential beyond normal human means.

If people were to ask me if I am on TRT, I would be very transparent and tell them I am, but I would go further to explain that it is different from steroids in that I am not enhanced above human testosterone levels. The normal male T range is 10 to 35 nmol/L, whereas bodybuilders can reach 50 nmol/L or even more. TRT should replicate our natural physiological levels from when we were at our most healthy (early 20s). My testosterone level three years ago when I was 27 y.o. was at 24.86 nmol/L, which clearly shows a marked drop in amounts. That is the reason why I have had significant symptoms of low test recently (and some others that I noticed have grown since some years ago).

In 6-8 weeks, I have to come to a decision on whether I plan to continue getting Nebido TRT shots, and that decision would determine how TRT will continue with me down the years. The longer I sustain on TRT, the greater the barrier to me getting out of it cold turkey.

In the meantime, I shall continue to observe the changes in my physiological and mental conditions over the next few weeks.

PL-300 Power BI Exam

Just completed the PL-300 exam and I must say it was one of the harder exams among the few I have taken recently for my career growth. The passing score required is 700/1000 and time seemed so tight I literally used the entire time given down to the last 5 seconds with the last few questions unable to be reviewed.

I gotta say it's a sigh of relief when I saw my grade attained to be 770/1000 (Passed). I was honestly mentally prepared that you know what if I fail, it will be okay because it was that difficult. But I'm grateful for this outcome.

In hindsight, some reflections on what helped and what could have been done better:

1. Skillcertpro

Using a study question bank really helped me. I bought from Skillcertpro a study pack of 30 exam question sets. Funny enough I only practised on 8 exam sets because it was a lot (each exam practice took me 2 hours to finish). This was I think the biggest contributor to my learning.

2. Online Instructor Course

I took an online instructor-led Power BI Data Analytics course that follows the Microsoft Learning Path. The course provided me with exposure to Power BI and Power Query and made me understand the foundation of these two software. I must emphasise the foundational aspect because the PL-300 exam was far far beyond what was taught in this class. Beyond learning the ETL process on Power Query and creating visualisations for a dashboard in Power BI, you have to understand the WHY behind doing the actions because the exam focused a lot on case studies. I'd say take a course to get an understanding of Power BI if you never touched the software before but if you have experience with the software then this is not necessary.

3. Skillable guide lab practice and Microsoft Learning Path

The Skillable lab practice provided as an additional self-assessment by the online course was beneficial because I took the practice on my own time and completed it myself to better understand Power BI. It is very comprehensive in learning Power BI hands-on, and since the class might be slower and miss out on some parts, this Skillable lab really covered each chapter accordingly. However, one issue was that it only covered the basic Power BI topics (transform data, create data models, visualise data, share data). The harder topics like DAX Functions, Data Connections, RLS Data Security, Data Modes and PBI Service were barely touched upon.

Ultimately, doing practice questions from the question bank really helped me tackle the exam questions because I did notice a trend after a while that questions kept reappearing. 

Now I can finally put away this stressor and focus on my next upcoming major exam at the end of the month: PMP 

Shall we ask each other these questions?

If you’re in a room with everyone you ever met who will be the one you’d look for?

If someone gave you a box of everything you ever lost, what is the first thing you’d look for?

If you had a chance to relive one day of your life, which day would it be and why?

If you could receive a letter from your future self, what advice or insight would you hope to find in it?

Imagine if you had a chance to revisit a moment in the past, which moment would you choose, and what would you do differently?

If you had to define your purpose in one sentence, what would it be and how does it influence the choices in your daily life?

Started TRT

Last week I took the step to go see my doctor for testosterone issues as I felt that my libido, sex drive and erections have suffered significantly since a few years ago. What pushed me to go forward was my recent low drive in life, not having the same aggressive energy that I used to have, and when my doctor asked if I had any morning wood, I knew that was the kicker.

I have not had any morning wood for some years, never once was I concerned about it, until the doctor asked about it and I realised that was something that’s been missing.

So 3 years ago when I did a health checkup, my testosterone level was at 24.86 nmol/L, now the report came back at 15.4 nmol/L at the lower end of the range. 

My GP, who I really like because he takes his time to explain and clarifies my concerns, told me that I can give Nebido a try 1000mg/4ml (Testosterone Undecanoate).

So came the injection with a whopping 4ml of oil into my butt (2ml on each butt cheek). I was afraid that the needle would hurt because so many reddit users said the giant needle was painful as hell, but when the needle entered there wasn’t any pain. As the doctor took his time to inject the oil, there was this growing discomfort (not pain but just a really sore feeling expanding inside my cheek) and I could feel some ache going down the leg. One needle of 2ml took about a minute to inject I think, so two of that on each cheek.

I started to ponder to myself, would I be doing this lifelong? Would it make my life much better? What’s going to happen from here?

I’d say this first experience was a good one, and surprisingly fast to get administered from my first consult.

I shall journal my experience as the days go by, what symptoms or improvements are felt.