Slaying REG one handed and getting results faster!

I mentioned in my previous post that this month has not been good and my FAR score was the highlight of my month. While passing any section of the CPA exam would be the highlight of my month, September was not a happy month for me (besides celebrating my 3rd anniversary with my husband. Speaking of my husband, I would not have been able to make it through September - or any part of the CPA exam - without him.)

At the beginning of the month I fell and broke my arm.  I mean really broke it. I had surgery to fix my bones.  I have been out of work since then.  I have not been able to work out. I can't drive. The pain killers messed with my head and made me completely depressed.  I lost about 2 weeks of studying due to my fall.  I don't remember very much while taking it.  I argued with my mom that she didn't come to see me after my surgery for about 10 minutes until she told me word for word our conversation. Oh right, I do remember now. I have emails and text messages that I don't remember sending out. But apparently I did. All I did was sleep and cry. I do remember hooking up my computer and trying to study. Do I remember what I studied? Nope!

I eventually decided that I could handle a little pain to be back into the right state of mind. The doctor said that I could take Tylenol if needed. I decided to stick to the Tylenol.  It took a few days for the prescription medication to get out of my system and for me to feel "normal" again.  When this finally happened I started to study all day long. I didn't even think about it. I knew it was what I had to do if I ever want to be a CPA. I continued on my study plan. Doing questions over and over and over again. Writing index cards. (I broke my left arm. I am right handed.) Writing out all the simulations on my notepad so I could understand the reasoning behind the answers. My arm still hurts but is getting better daily. But the pain of my arm is nothing compared to the pain of not achieving my goals.

At this point in time I still didn't know when I was going to take the exam. I still didn't get my FAR results back yet. So I had to push and learn as much as I could about REG in the time I had. What would happen if I needed to retake FAR?  I would take REG at the beginning of October and FAR again at the end of November. When I got that FAR score it relieved a little bit of stress. I didn't have to retake FAR. I had passed.  So considering I lost two weeks of studying to my broken arm I was able to push REG back without having to stress over the time needed to study. I scheduled REG for November.  But that has not hampered my studies. I still wake up every morning, turn the computer on and start studying for the day.  I am not wasting this time while I have to be home on disability. I am still "working" on my accounting skills. I hope I can go back to work soon. I am not getting paid but the bills keep coming!

I knew the results process of the CPA exam were going to change this quarter.  In prior quarters you had to wait until the third week of the third month of the quarter before receiving your score.  Today the AICPA released a memo concerning the score release for this quarter. This means I should have my REG score by the beginning of December! How nice will it be to enjoy the holiday baking, decorating, shopping and wrapping!

So with one good arm I will use my time wisely to study REG. I will get my score back before the end of December! I'll be slaying REG one handed and getting results FASTER!

Slayed "The Beast" Twice

Financial Accounting & Reporting (FAR) is known as the beast in the CPA Exam world.  It is 4 years of college accounting classes (plus information never learned in college) crammed into a four hour exam. It has the most amount of material covered in any of the four parts of the exam. 

It was the first section I finally passed. I will never forget the day I received my passing score the mail. It was a great day.  But 18 months later, I still had not passed all four sections of the exam, so I lost FAR. I cried and cried and cried. I think I was more upset that I lost FAR then the fact that I didn't pass the last part I was trying for.  All I could think about was the amount of material I had to reteach myself. Not only was it all the information from before, but if you know anything about accounting, you know that accounting rules change and more aspects are added to the accounting world and the exam all the time.  So I had to teach myself all about international accounting.  What the F^&K? I don't work on any international accounts. I work at a mid-sized accounting firm. Yes, I know that doesn't mean I will never need IFRS but 99.9% sure I won't need it while working here. While I like where I work, I am still young and it doesn't mean that I will never change jobs where I could possibly need this information. Beyond maybe needing IFRS in my job, I KNOW I will need those three distinct letters after my name to advance my career no matter where I am working. So I plugged along and learned as much as I needed to know for the exam.

Since day 1 I have been praying and studying HARD at every free second that I came across to pass this exam. I will explain in a later post, but this month (blackout/score release month) has not been a happy one for me. So I prayed more and more for good news during score release week. Some of my twitter friends posted they had received their FAR score before the official announcement from NASBA. I scrambled to find my NTS to check my score. Typing those numbers in and hitting "score" button, I held my breath and closed my eyes. Only to open my eyes and see no score was up yet. Ok breathe. A few hours later the site wasn't working right. I guess it was all the people checking for their scores. But I still closed my eyes and held my breath only to open my eyes with no score or an error processing my request.

I finally stopped for the night and kept plugging away at REG for the night. I was already involved in it. My thought process was even if I need to retake FAR, I am already into REG. Let me keep going.  I woke up the following morning, sick to my stomach thinking about checking my score again because this time I knew it would be available. Here I go again. Type in numbers, hit "score," close eyes, hold breath, open eyes....

Breath let out as a smile came across my face. I am very happy! I slayed the beast twice! All my hard work paid off. But I didn't let my happiness stay too long. I went right back to studying for REG for the day. I know how to pass. So there is no reason I won't pass REG this window!