It's Finally Over

It's been a week and a half since I last posted, and with good reason.  I took my last section of the CPA Exam on Tuesday.  My schedule the week before the exam went something like this: work, eat, sleep, study, repeat.  On the weekend, I knocked out the work part, and added an extra dose(s) of studying.  From Friday at 8 PM to Sunday at midnight, I put in 20+ hours.  I was miserable, it sucked, and it's not something I would want to do again.  It's actually kinda funny, but the more I studied, the more miserable I became, which motivated me to study more.  Because I'm a sado-masochist?  Not exactly.  The more miserable I became, the more motivation I had never to have to study for a CPA Exam again.

Tuesday morning I woke up, got ready, and took the nice 2 hour trip down I-95 to Towson, Maryland to take the exam (see November 10, 2008 post).  I actually forgot to perform my pre-exam routine, which made me nervous about halfway through the trip when I realized my mistake.  O well, I'd have to persevere.  After getting off the exit, I was a little bit nervous that I wouldn't find the test center.  I quickly realized that would not be an issue when I found the test center, tucked neatly into a corporate center, right behind an Applebee's.  For those of you who have taken the CPA Exam, you may realize that this sounds familiar, as every Prometric testing site has a list of prerequisite qualities.

• Located at a "Corporate Center"
• Tucked behind a national restaurant chain (i.e. Applebee's, Friday's, etc)
• Joined by other small businesses that you've never heard of

Since I arrived early, I spent the next 30 minutes cramming for the exam, reviewing all the lovely tax rules, and generally trying to shove as much information into my brain as it could possibly handle.  After having the registration lady chastise me for memorizing my entry code, (you would too if you were checking your scores everyday for 3 months, bitch) I began taking the exam.  Overall, I thought it was pretty difficult, and my lack of proper preparation definitely showed.  I did receive a lot of bullshit questions regarding minor issues that I ignored while studying, which annoyed me throughout the 3 hour exam.  But, I finished up with 7 seconds left and let out a huge sigh of relief when it was over.  I think I passed, but we'll know officially when I get my scores back in a few weeks.  Until then, I'm gonna try not to think about CPA stuff for as long as possible, and by that I mean the rest of my life.

The CPA Exam has been a long, crazy, and often torturous journey.  I began studying May 12 and took my last section November 25.  I took a 2 month break in September and October, and hardly did any studying in that time.  To be honest with you, I'm really surprised at how quickly I was able to study for and take this exam.  I always thought it would take many months to study for the CPA Exam, and I thought it would be more difficult.  I have to admit that the Becker software is fantastic, and I don't know what I would have done without it.  If any of you ever have any questions about the CPA Exam, and how to study for it, I'd be more than happy to answer them.  For now though, I'm just glad to be done.

Song of the Day:  Oasis - Falling Down

PS - Happy Thanksgiving everyone!