Life update!

Not so fun stuff first: work is fine. Long hours still to come (I'm working on average until about 7 PM every night now... next week will turn into 9/10 PM), but it's all going well so far. I feel like I've learned a LOT in the past month and a half, but I know I still have 23094820823 things to learn. I've got my own parts of the audit that I'm in charge of, which is terrifying but also nice to have my own thing to work on. Granted, my senior is basically doing the work with me because I don't know how to do any of it on my own, but still. It's nice to 'own' something. I also have a lot more things on my plate now, which is both good and bad. Before, I would finish my assigned task and then just sit around waiting for another. Now I have enough tasks that I'm never really sitting around waiting. It makes the day go by a LOT faster. Getting food is also going well... I haven't terribly messed up anything yet. I'm also not getting food two times a day anymore, because a staff 2 has generously offered to trade off with me every meal. Yay! And finally, I think I'm starting to slooooowwwllyyyyy build some client contacts, which is nice. I received my first phone call from a client today (eeeeeek), so that was fun. I had to be like, 'Um... I'll have to talk with Jen about that..." because I didn't know what the answer was but still. I felt like kind of a big deal. Plus, I was able to answer PART of the question, so I don't think the client thought I was a complete idiot. And my coworkers are SO NICE. I just love them. It makes having to stay late SO MUCH more enjoyable.

Slight worry that came up today, though. My senior on this engagement I'll be on in bufu Indiana from January-February IM-ed me and told me that they are going to put us in a room that basically has no heat. Um, hi. That will not work for me. She said she spent last winter there and literally spent the entire day in her coat, scarf, boots, and GLOVES. She did work in her GLOVES. Also, they wouldn't let her bring a space heater. I'm so screwed. I asked her if she thought it'd be okay if I brought an electric blanket, and she said she'd have to ask. FML. Oh, and this is ALSO the town in bufu Indiana whose only claim to fame is MAKING CASKETS. I kid you not. I really kid you not. Caskets. Alsoooo, they have three places to eat in town, one of which is a deli inside a gas station. Sweet. .....send me care packages?

Other not-so-fun thing in life... I randomly have bronchitis. Who knows. All I know is that Wednesday night I turned deathly ill and could barely move. Friday I went to see a nurse practitioner who tried to diagnose me with like 18 things I was NOT there about, and finally told me i MAY have bronchitis and prescribed me amoxicilin. It's taking me forever to recover, but I'm finally feeling better! I have basically every flu/ear infection/sinus infection/bronchitis symptom you can think of (except stomach issues), so I'm pretty worn out still. I left work early both Thursday and Friday, which was kind of frustrating. I hate feeling like a slacker after only being there a month. Boo.

Onto the better things in life. Aka everything but work and being sick!

Donny and I early-celebrated my birthday on Sunday! We went to Las Margaritas so I could get my staple of beef and cheese nachos :) No margarita, though, since I felt like death and am on antibiotics :( So sad I couldn't get one. Then we came back to our place and he gave me my present, which was this AWESOME wine cooler!!!!! I'm SO excited. I've wanted one of these forever. Wine and cheese night SOON!!!


The blue light is the coolest part fo sho.

I get another birthday celebration next Sunday with my family, too! My mom's lasagna = best birthday meal EVER. Mmmm. Also, possible funfetti cake... it's going to be amazing.

Then, somewhere in the midst of working 60+ hour weeks, there will be Thanksgiving and Megan's bridal shower and the OSU/Michigan game and maybe the 05 reunion and MIAMI FRIENDS!!!! :) Soooo excited.

Okay. Laundry time. Ugh, I'm so domestic now.

Newbie mistakes this past week:

1. Well, this isn't completely my fault. But it made me feel like shit. Sooo I was supposed to be filling in an excel file... pulling info from ANOTHER excel file... but the numbers weren't really matching up... long story short, my senior told me (i thought) to change the format of one of the excel files. this ended up taking me 3-4 hours. afterwards, he told me i shouldn't have done it. i had to undo it. and since it took me 3-4 hours, i had clearly saved multiple times and there was just no undoing (or control-z-ing) the whole thing. he wasn't being a jerk about it or anything, but i legitimately was about to punch someone. there was just a clear miscommunication that happened somewhere.

2. We're having a happy hour for my engagement team tomorrow night. I was told today to send out an email to the whole team (about 15-20 people) about it. I sent it to everyone, including the partner. My SENIOR MANAGER (so like... right below partner status) comes out and asks me to please resend the email with the correct address this time. Apparently there is a NEW bar by the SAME NAME that is JUST DOWN THE ROAD from the bar I thought I was looking up. This new bar also does not exist on the internet, so googling it did not pull up anything except the OLD bar, which I obviously put in the email. Sigh. So now I have to send an 'oops!' email to everyone. Including the partner. I also have to somehow find the new bar's location, even though it does not exist on Google. Bahhhh.

That's about it. Sigh. Newbie mistakes. They are so annoying. Not that I'd rather be making REAL mistakes, but these mistakes are just stupiddddd.

In happier news, I am pumped for SVU tonight. Work isn't terrible as long as there is something to look forward to every night!

Work, Volume II

Another post about work – apologies. However, it’s the majority whatl I do these days so… oh well!

I think the most awkward thing about working in a large company like mine is that I never know who to go to about anything. So many examples:

• I was in charge of ordering/picking up the food for 20 people for a big meeting yesterday. I was told multiple times that I should not mess this up because these people are serious about their food. Okay, no pressure. I was told Panera would be a good idea – fine with me. I get online and go to their catering menu. There are like a million options. How am I supposed to know what these people want? Is there a budget? I have no idea. WHO DO I ASK?!
• We have an office-wide event next Friday morning that’s pretty much designed solely to have people meet with their ‘counselors’ to go over our yearly goals. For new hires this is pretty important because we haven’t set ours at all, and goals are a HUGE DEAL here. My counselor is pretty insistent that I go, but I’m scheduled to be in Indiana that week. My counselor wants me to go to the meeting, but how do I do that? Do I talk to the counselor and tell him I can’t come? Do I talk to my senior on my engagement in Indiana and tell her I need to leave a day early, even though I’ve been here like 3 weeks and have no power to say something like that whatsoever? Yet again, WHO DO I ASK?!
  

Other slight annoyances:

• I’ll try to make this as short as possible. Basically we keep our prior year work just to have as a reference. In order to signify that it’s prior year work, we go through all the files and put ‘zz’ in front of them. That was my task one morning last week. To go through 200+ files, right click on them, hit ‘rename,’ and type ‘zz’ at the beginning. Seriously. Now, no one told me that the zz needed to be lowercase. I did them all uppercase. Now, literally as I’m typing this, I was told to go through them all and change them to lowercase. Jlskfjw;oierjasf. Seriously?
• I don’t get enough email. I’m sure I won’t be saying that in a year, but like… when I have NOTHING to do, I check my email every 10 seconds. Ugh.
• I have to LEAVE my house at 5:30 AM on Saturday to do an inventory. Enough said. I also have to purchase steel-toed boots to do this inventory. Granted, I get reimbursed since they’re a ‘business expense’ (aka no way in hell would I own them if it weren’t for this inventory), but it’s still an obnoxious thing I have to do in the next few days.
• We aren’t allowed to take vacation from January to March because that’s generally our busy season. However, I am going to be on a busy season in November-December, NOT at the beginning of January. I want to take a couple of days off in mid-January to go to LA, but the scheduler is telling me I can’t without a good reason. Like… that’s not fair. I don’t have the same busy season, therefore, I shouldn’t have to follow that rule. That means I can’t take ANY vacation November-December (because I’ll be in busy season) OR January – March. NOT FAIR. I’m still working with her to get it sorted out but… ugh. The even MORE annoying part is that I’m not scheduled for an engagement those days I want off. No one has picked up my time yet. Therefore I think I should be able to take vacation!!!!!!!! Blah!
• I’m supposed to be in Indiana all next week. Today is Thursday. I still have not heard whether or not we’re actually going. People are supposed to be getting back to me but like… I have to book a hotel. I would also just kind of like to know where I’m going to be next week. If we’re NOT going, I need to find something to do all week which means sending out tons of emails asking for stuff to do.
  

But there seem to be tradeoffs for everything. As annoying as the ‘zz’s were, I also do pretty legit work, like testing fixed asset additions and disposals and preparing flux analyses from quarter to quarter. I realize this means nothing to you if you’re not an auditor, but whatevs. The gist of it is that I’m also getting some good experiences.

I also am realizing that, at least at my lowly level, there are tradeoffs in regards to time worked. I know busy season is going to be balls. I’m talking 55+ hour weeks for multiple weeks. However, I have some downtime now. Even if I’m in the office 8-5 every day, I don’t always have work to do so I get to kind of just hang out. Other days I’ve left a little bit early. So I’m working less than I should be now, but it’ll kind of balance out with busy season. Although it’s not necessarily the ideal work schedule, I’d rather have this than work 55+ hour weeks every single week, which is what I’ll be doing in about 2 years :(

PS if I haven’t said it enough already… don’t plan on seeing me from Thanksgiving to roughly mid-March. FML.

Work summary

Here's a summary about how I feel about work:

1) I am torn about how I feel about being the food bitch. By this I mean the 'new girl' who is sent to get food for everyone else. Sometimes I'm a little offended, because really, I have a Masters degree and shouldn't be going on food runs. However, I also get kind of excited because it's a nice little break in the day when I get to go pick up the food. I get to be by myself for 20 or so minutes, and that's always nice.

2) I have been insanely spoiled since I've been at work. My classmates (aka the people who started with me) have been working 12 hour days, even on Saturdays. I get out at 5 every day because I happen to be on a tiny client who isn't really getting us the stuff we need to work on... therefore there's not much to do. I know I'm going to be hit really hard with busy season, which kind of sucks, but I'm trying to enjoy my easy hours while I can!

3) I'm going to get so fat. There is just no way around that. I eat out every day for lunch. It's basically required that you eat with your teams. I don't really want to be difficult and bring a sack lunch to Applebees, so... guess I'll eat out every day. And then when busy season starts, you eat dinner at work, too, which is ALSO a required team event... meaning I'll be eating bad food then, too. Not to say that I'm the healthiest person in the world, but I definitely do NOT want to eat out 5+ times a week. And on top of eating horribly, I'll also not be able to work out during busy season, since that entails 8 am - 10 pm days six days a week. Sigh.

4) I actually think I like the work so far. So far. I don't think I'll like how MUCH of it I'll be doing soon enough, but at least I like the work. Hopefully this gets me through busy season!

5) I LOVE the people I work with. They are just so friendly and helpful. I ask my senior questions 029380375 times a day and he doesn't care. It makes being a newbie a lot easier.

Welp, time for said work. More later!

The Job

Well. It's been awhile! I just got back from my first day of big-girl work, so I thought this would be an appropriate time to update.

First things first: I passed all sections of my CPA exam. There's really nothing else to say about this except that the day I found out I passed the last one was probably one of the top 5 happiest days of my life. Also, I cannot WAIT for my CPA bonus. Holy crap. It will be awesome.

Donny and I have moved in together and it's wonderful!! Nothing TOO horrible yet... just minor spats here and there :) It's difficult to be around ANYONE 24/7, let alone someone of the opposite sex... yikes. But we're making it work and it's been awesome so far!

Onto my job.

We had to show up at the Columbus office this morning at 9 AM. Of course I'm an idiot and forgot we had to wear pantyhose if we want to wear skirts. Because clearly it's still 1950. I had already decided what I was wearing and I did NOT want to deal with picking out a new outfit (because that would add at least another 10 minutes onto my getting ready time), so I decided to go to Walmart to purchase some pantyhose. I then had to put on my pantyhose IN the Walmart parking lot, because duh, I had to be wearing them when I walked in. I wasn't going to get to the office and be like, "Hi. Can you show me the bathroom so I can put on my pantyhose? Thanks." So yeah, my professional career got off to a wonderfully sophisticated start.

I got to the office right on time. It's nice, because I know two of the guys starting with me. One was in the MAcc program with me and the other guy interned with me in 2008, so it was nice to see him again, too. We basically just spent the morning hearing about random stuff and taking a tour of the office, etc. We had a conference call with the woman in charge of our schedules. We also got our schedules from now until the first week in February. Let me just have a chat about my schedule.

So it's pretty much expected that you'll work at least one busy season as an auditor. Generally this means January-March, since most clients have a December 31 year end. However, the Columbus office has all these random year end clients, so our busy seasons are all over the place. SOMEHOW I got scheduled two busy seasons back-to-back, which will be just... amazing (note the sarcasm). I'm the only new hire assigned to the first of my two clients, and they need me during the week that all the other new hires are having another week of training. Somehow this means that I'll be attending training in Dallas with other random Texans. Like... what? How on earth did you pick Dallas, Texas as my training spot?! Bizarre. So yeah, that will be interesting. I've also been assigned a couple of inventories already. This basically means I'll be going BY MYSELF to random warehouses and acting like I know what I'm talking about... and I'll be counting stuff. Lots of stuff. As in... just... opening boxes and counting. And if a box is wrong (aka it says there's 25 shirts and there's only 24), then I'll have to choose another FIVE boxes to count. Oh, did I mention these are done on the weekend? YAY MY LIFE!

What this means for me is that I will be MIA from around the time of my birthday (ugh) through at least Valentine's Day. I was told I would probably be expected to work the weekend of Megan and Jake's wedding, but have no fear, I put a stop to that. And I don't really think they can force me to take a vacation day on a SATURDAY, so that's good. I just have to clear it with my engagement team, but I'm sure it'll be okay. Thank goodness. I'm going to need to DRINK that weekend for sure.

This means that the entire holiday season for me will be slightly less than holiday-like. I'll be working at least 50-55 hours a week. In January, they've got me scheduled for 55 hours a week for 3 weeks. You know when you already know 3 months in advance that you'll be working 15 hours of overtime a week it's going to be a FUN job.

Sigh. I'm trying not to stress about this. I just REALLY love the holidays and now I'm not even going to get to enjoy them. Aside from the inventories I already know about, I'm 'on-call' 12/17 to 1/7 (on the weekends) to run to whatever inventory needs done. It's not just me, it's all 8 of the people I'm starting with, but still. Like... this means I could be called New Year's Eve to go do an inventory. And that's actually VERY likely, because tons of companies take inventory on December 31 or January 1. I'll also not be allowed to take off any days the week of Thanksgiving (except the day of, obviously), because my first client's busy season kind of peaks that week.

So goodbye to my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve and Day, and Valentine's Day. I'll hopefully see you next year.

Anyway. As I said, I'm trying not to stress but it's not working very well.

Perks of my job? Many. Great benefits, a pretty good 401(k) plan, awesome people (seriously, they're all so fun and friendly), lots of office activities (happy hours, sports leagues, community service), a pretty decent salary, aaaaaaaaand my CPA bonus. As soon as I submit my paperwork showing that I passed the tests, I will get a pretty freaking awesome bonus. Yayayayay I CANNOT wait!!!

So in summary, I'm going to despise the hours I'll be working, but I'll be working with really great people, so hopefully it'll go by quickly. Apparently I lucked out and got on an AWESOME team for my first big client so thank goodness for that.

I'm off to Cleveland tonight for two days of orientation (getting our laptops, explaining benefits, etc), and then back here for the weekend, then to Cincinnati for a week of audit training, and then onto my first job! Eeek!

Friends

Today was great :) I was able to spend time with Kiley this afternoon, just sitting and talking which is pretty much all we do when we're together haha. Although this afternoon we mixed it up a bit and went DRIVING while talking. I just drove us in circles though haha meh. Anyway, I just am obsessed with the fact that we're able to not see each other for months at a time and then just pick up like we were still at Miami and saw each other for hours every day. Love. love. love. it. Plus there was the bonus of having Jamie call WHILE I was with Kiley so we got to all be on speakerphone together... sigh. So wonderful. Those girls just make my life.

Then I went to Chipotle and to see Charlie St. Cloud with Megan, Katie, and Shelley tonight! (PS Charlie St. Cloud is dumb. Don't see it. And this is coming from a girl who likes pretty much every movie she sees.) It's just so nice to be able to go out with the girls and just chat about all sorts of different life topics :) It probably makes me happier than it should haha. Like, I just really really love girl talk. And I feel like we're growing up now, so we have more grown-up discussions and it's so nice to have people to grow up with, if that makes any sense. We're going through the same things so it's nice to have people to relate to.

Then after I got home, Shelley and Katie were still hanging out and I realized I shouldn't be lame even though I have to get up for work in like less than 7 hours haha. Oh well. So I went back out to meet up with them at Johnny Rockets and we just stayed and chatted for a couple of hours. It's just nice to be able to talk about your feelings with people, as mundane as that sounds. But think about it - do you really have people that LISTEN to you on a day to day basis? Who are REALLY interested in what you're doing or saying? If so, I think you're lucky because I think that we've all become so self-absorbed that we don't pay attention to other people as much as we should. So when I get to have moments where people DO listen to me, and not just my stupid stories about my day-to-day events, but my actual feelings, it gives me hope for the world haha. And it makes me feel loved. It's just little moments like these that get me through :) It was nice to be able to open up to Shelley and Katie in a more intimate discussion (as opposed to a large group setting) and to actually talk about our feelings and our fears and what we're going through in life. It's just so refreshing to be able to get stuff off your chest like that, and I think girls nights are an absolute must. But small girls nights... not like 15 girl girls nights haha. 15 girls is like... go out to the club girls night. Which is ALSO enjoyable, but I'm getting completely off topic. My point is that I think everyone should get together with 1-3 girlfriends every once in awhile and just spill your guts. It's pretty therapeutic.

I still wish I had like ONE girlfriend that was my BEST friend and I was her BEST friend, though, you know? I've always wanted that. Like, just one person who ALWAYS had your back and who didn't have any other best friends, if that makes sense haha. I realize that sounds selfish lol but... it's true! I've just never had that. Obviously I have several wonderful awesome girlfriends, but I haven't ever had one that was just MY best friend. That might sound petty, but growing up it's what I always wanted. A girlfriend with whom you didn't have to discuss what you were doing that night, because it was clear that the two of you would be hanging out... a girlfriend who you could just always count on for everything. And a girlfriend who didn't have a bunch of other best friends. But I guess as much as it might make you want to puke, Donny's kind of become that person for me, which I guess is okay too :) He just came a little later on in life. And I, of course, still have my friends, and hopefully always will!

Okay I really do need to get to bed, yikes. But in summary: today was full of girlfriends and I loved it :)

Blah

Fingers crossed that after Friday, I will have NO MORE UPDATES about the stupid CPA exam... meaning hopefully I pass the section I'm taking on Friday. If I can pass this one, and if I passed the one I took in July, then I'll be FINISHED!

Oh wait, no I won't be, because then I still can't call myself a CPA until I've had 2 years of experience. UGHHHH. It never ends!!

Anyway, studying sucks even more than usual. I've just completely lost any and all energy I once had for studying. And now that Donny's home for GOOD (!!!!), I have even less motivation. Hang out with my boyfriend who I haven't been in the same city with for more than 3 months at a time since 2005... or study? FML.

In other news, I cannot WAIT to be done at the call center, either! It's getting to be that hectic time when kids are about to start leaving for college... and of course people wait until like, the DAY before their student moves to be like 'Hey, I need to order linens... also, I need them here tomorrow at 6 AM because that's when we're leaving." Like... no. Sorry. That can't happen. Today was especially bad. I had a lady cry on the phone within the first 45 minutes of my shift. Seriously. People get REALLY REALLY upset about linens for some reason. Don't they know they can just drive to Bed, Bath, and Beyond??!?! and on top of that lady, I had three sup calls (short for 'supervisor'... ones where they ask for my supervisor because apparently I'm incompetent) and our systems just completely shut down for about an hour. Phew. Like I said, can't wait to be finished!

Donny's back and it's basically the greatest. I haven't actually been able to see him a ton because I've been studying so much, but the few times I've seen him have just been great. However, as we had predicted, we ended up hating each other yesterday. We were completely right!!! We predicted we'd despise each other by August 3 hahah. Meh. We're better now. We just aren't very good at being physically near each other haha. It will work itself out.

Other than that... let's see. Moving's coming up soon, HOORAY! Donny and I have been discussing cable/internet packages, etc, and figuring out utilities. I forgot that we're moving into a place thats exactly twice the square footage of my current apartment, which means twice the gas/electric bills :( Boooo spending money.

Also, August 21 is coming up, which will be a blast! We're getting a cabin in Hocking Hills with some of the Westerville crew to celebrate Donny and Jake's birthdays! Can't waaaaaaittt, it'll be so nice to get together with everyone before we move in!

Other exciting August things:
Kiley's in town (but I can't see her until I'm done studying, boo)
Jamie's ALMOST in town
probably going to see the Titanic exhibit at COSI with the fam!
Wicked with Donny and the fam!!!!!!!

Yayayay Friday at 2pm will be the start of a great month :)

Laughing gas

I just got back from my second dentist appointment, to finish the last of the fillings. Let me just say right now that I truly wish they put me on laughing gas from the moment I enter that building and only take off the gas when I step out. Not necessarily just because of the procedures they do, but because of the stupid, stupid things my dentist says. When I'm on laughing gas, I don't want to punch her as much. I mean, I do, but I at least think it's amusing. Today she was getting a good chuckle out of the fact that the federal government is trying to get rid of the Arizona immigration law but we are also making mortgage brokers get fingerprinted. She then began talking about how terrorists are coming into the US from the southern border because they can pass off as Mexican. In her words: "They can't come in from Canada anymore, because, well, they don't look like Canadians." I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. Then she said that Connecticut or another eastern state has the same laws already in place and no one's making a big deal of that... then she said, "But I mean, they probably don't have to enforce it like they do in Arizona... because like, they're not going to try to get rid of Canadians coming over the border into Connecticut." Who gives these people medical licenses?

But truly, laughing gas is the greatest. I kind of wish I could get my hands on some to use recreationally. While on laughing gas for like, 25-30 minutes straight today, I decided that laughing gas would be my drug of choice. Some people choose weed, some people choose coke, I choose laughing gas. While the dentist was busy annihilating my teeth, I decided that laughing gas gets me to the point where I feel like I'm drunk. But a good drunk. The kind of drunk where you go to the bathroom and all of a sudden you're like, "Holy crap. I'm drunk!" and it just comes on really quickly and in full force. Like... you're pretty drunk but not to the point of being miserable and/or sick. When I close my eyes when I'm on laughing gas, I feel the feeling like when I'm drunk and I finally get to go to bed and I just lay in my bed and think how happy I am to be laying down and not in heels and a dress anymore. THAT kind of drunk.

Well, I suppose that ends my ode to laughing gas.

The poor hygenist from last time was assigned to me again today. She was like, "Are you going to want laughing gas?" And then she realized who I was and said, "Oh yeah. You'll want laughing gas." Hahaha. Oops. Apparently I was memorable last time. What was it, I wonder? The tears? The bitchiness that came out after I had been waiting 50 minutes to get a damn filling? Who knows. Either way, I'm excited that they're so willing to give me laughing gas.

I sound super creepy, I realize, but I have been through more than one traumatizing dentist experience in these past couple of weeks. Let me have my laughing gas, at least.

Oh my slash yay?

Oh dear.

Update on the whole thing on how I'm suddenly going to be a teaching assistant at OSU for a few days in September.

So the last thing I heard about this, I would be leading sessions from 1:30-5 PM on seven separate days in September. Basically the students will be doing problems in teams for half the session, then I'll bring them all together and go over the problems for the second half. This already makes me want to cry. It seems like a lot of pressure. Plus these people are my age, if not older. Sooo... I will have absolutely no authority over these people. Yikes.

Then today I received an email just confirming that I'd be available, etc. The professor in charge ALSO just informed me that I will likely need to prepare 4-6 HOURS for EACH DAY of teaching. OMG. Whaaaat??! Seriously?!?!? This is becoming a MUCH more intense thing than I thought. Keep in mind that I was originally asked if I'd like to 'grade papers.'

...

So I mean, there's that. They DID say they'd pay me for my preparation, so... that's a perk. I'm going to be getting WAY more money than I'd previously thought. I'm thinking this 7 day gig will land me about $650 (pre-tax). So... holler. Still. I'm getting more nervous now.

Even more snippets.

Another gem from the girls at the call center. This is word for word, because I wrote it down soon after it happened. I have started to be on the lookout for more dumb things they say. Too bad it's illegal to record someone without them knowing. Hearing them speak is really the only way to get the full effect. Anyway:

Girl 1: yeah so unfortunately Ryan and Amy both got me the new Usher cd for my birthday.
Girl 2: Um, I'll take one!
Girl 1: I mean you can totally have it if I can't get any money back for it.
Girl 2: Do you have a receipt?
Girl 1: No...
Girl 2: Then you probably can't get a refund...
Girl 1: Oh my God that's so retarded.
Girl 2: I know right...

This girl also got a $75 Forever 21 gift card from her boyfriend (Ryan). He ALSO took her to the Melting Pot... their bill was $90. Oh, rich kids.

Then today there were two guys sitting hear me, which was a TINY bit better than listening to girls until they pulled this:

Guy 1: Dude bro [seriously, he said both of these together], at Lake Erie this weekend I saw the hottest chick I've ever seen in my life.
Guy 2: Dude, I don't really like, know your type of girls, so I can't really know if she's hot or not if you describe her.
Guy 1: Dude, seriously, though... she's so hot. Anyone would think she was hot. So I was just sitting there and she walked onto the beach and I was straight up staring at her, and she saw me so she gave me like this little wave. It was cute as fuck. So I was like, 'Ok, she's like, an inviting person.' So I just went up to her and started chatting with her, and got the digits, so we hung out the rest of the time I was there. Like... she's seriously a perfect 10. She is so hot. She's got like a perfect body, because she runs track, so her stomach is flat and she has nice legs and a nice ass and... she's so great on top. I'm thinking like, a high C cup. And her teeth are like perfect and she has pretty eyes.
Guy 2: So like, does she have a 6 pack or something?
Guy 1: There's a little definition there.
Guy 2: I mean, really you just want a flat stomach. You don't really want it too flabby or too muscle-y though.
Guy 1: Yeah she might have like a two-pack. But dude, seriously.. so hot. I would just do the most terrible things to that girl.
Guy 2: Dude then why are you even back at work? Why aren't you still hanging out with her?
Guy 1: Dude I have to work if I'm scheduled! But listen, she totally lives in Hillard! So I'm gonna try to get with that.
Guy 2: Duuuude seriously she is like RIGHT HERE! You should not even be at work right now.

Omg. This is seriously what I listen to ALLLLL DAAAAYYY.

Worst Dentist Experience of my Life

Well. I have just returned from the worst dentist trip of my entire life. Let's start at the beginning.

I was told last week at the dentist that magically, in the course of 6 months, I had 4 cavities develop, two of which were one level away from being root canals. A few problems with this. One, nothing in my dental hygiene has changed in any way, shape, or form in the past 6 months. So... that's odd. Two, I really just think it means that they missed it the last time I was in. Because I really don't think a cavity that severe develops in a matter of a couple of months. Maybe I'm wrong; I'm not exactly a dental expert, but whatever. It seemed fishy. So then they told me I needed to get them filled, and they suggested breaking it into two appointments. I was like um, false, I hate your office more than anything else in the world... I'm not coming back TWICE. Do it all in one appointment. They rolled their eyes (literally) and scheduled the appointment for today.

So I freak out all day today about getting these cavities filled. I get to the dentist's office at 2:45. They immediately ask how I'm going to pay for these. I just stare at them and say, "Um, you always just bill my parents, and they pay the balance when they're in..." And the lady just glared at me and was like, "Ummm... nooo... that's not how it works. You need to pay the balance the day you get work done." And I'm like... bitch you are crazy. I have been coming here BY MYSELF since I was 16, and I've never ONCE paid myself. So, no, you're wrong. And she was like [BIG SIGH] Well.... I guess JUST THIS ONCE we can let you go without paying..." Like... just get over yourself, please. I am not making this up. I don't have hundreds of dollars just laying around to pay you, and I never have. The hygienist was standing there to take me back, and as we were walking, she told me the policy just changed. Like.. okay. Do NOT act like I'm a freaking nut job when YOU just changed your policy!! what on earth.

So we go back, I sit in the chair. The hygienist is being super nice, and offered me a blanket because they keep the office at approximately 40 degrees (slight exaggeration but still). I wait about 5-10 minutes before someone comes in. It's the hygienist and the dentist. They ask me if I want laughing gas - clearly the answer to that question is ALWAYS going to be yes. So all they were apparently doing was numbing me. It seemed kind of dumb to give me laughing gas for a shot in my cheek... like, I get shots in my arm once a week, I get millions of shots in my back for allergy testing, I used to have shots in my cheek at my old dentist all the time. So it really is not a big deal for me. Then they tell me that they need to wait 10 minutes for the numbing stuff to set in, and they'll be back.

.... 50 minutes go by. I am getting FURIOUS. I text my mom, who tells me that numbing takes 30 minutes. That's fine, but they probably should have said 'thirty' instead of 'ten.' And there's no way I mixed up the numbers, because, well, ten sounds nothing like thirty. I finally get up and ask a hygienist how much longer it's going to take and she just says 'soon.' Okay, great. Soon. So I've been waiting for 50 minutes, and I'm already TERRIFIED about getting these fillings. So letting me sit in a chair for 50 minutes to ponder this is definitely making things better...?

By the time they come in, I'm like... near tears because I'm a mixture of utter frustration, anger, and fear. They pretty much begin drilling immediately. I have only felt worse pain twice in my life: when I had my ACL surgery, and when I had a ruptured ovarian cyst. It was just... complete agony. So I just start sobbing haha. Like... tears were FLOWING out of my eyes. They finally realize and finish up quickly. They THEN tell me that I should have TOLD them that it hurt. Right. Right. I was going to SPEAK while you had a drill against my tooth. Definitely. Then later the hygienist was like, 'You should have raised your hand!!' Right, again. I was going to hold up my right hand, risking hitting the dentist's hand, which is holding a drill inside my tooth, or hold up the left hand, risking hitting the hygienist's hand, which is holding the suck-y up-y tube against my tooth and could easily hit the drill. Right. Like... you've got to be joking. Somehow this all turned into my fault.

They asked if I wanted laughing gas. OBVIOUSLY. Like... you were going to give me laughing gas for a shot, but you weren't going to give it to me to DRILL INTO MY TEETH? Omg. So they put me on laughing gas again which was just fantastic. It's like being drunk but with no horrible side effects. So they finished up with the other cavity. But while they were working on it, they then took the time to start scolding me. "You really need to floss more." "You really need to pay more attention to between your teeth." Like... can you please stop? I'm sobbing, you are drilling my teeth in half, and you're scolding me? I think I understand that I need to floss more at this point. They then told me they highly suggested I come back later to get the other two, because I'm clearly in so much pain. At which point I agreed, because, well, I was drunk on laughing gas and just hated them so much that I just wanted to get out of there. And tears kept coming out of my eyes because, well, I'm still annoyed, and because once I start crying, it's hard for me to stop.

The dentist left, and left the hygienist to finish up doing whatever she was doing in my mouth. She then took my tears to mean I'm like, a gigantic baby, so she started treating me like I was 2 years old. Some of the various things she said:
-"You're going to smell a really stinky smell..."
-"Now I'm going to put water in your mouth.... now I'm going to suck the water up from your mouth... now I'm going to pull on your tooth a little bit... now I'm going to pull a little more..." Like... JUST DO IT. You don't need to walk me through every step!
-"You raise your hand if this hurts at all, okay?" (she literally just put the lamp in my mouth. The lamp. That dries the filling. ............ no, the light from the lamp does not hurt. Surprising, I know.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHH. So that was the dentist. Now my teeth don't feel like my teeth, and it stresses me out. The right side of my face is also still numb and does not seem to be getting any better any time soon. And I get to go through this all AGAIN next week for the other two cavities! HOORAY!

More snippets from work

I find that I work in a terribly boring place, yet it can sometimes produced some amusing anecdotes. I thought I would share some with you.

More on the recent Desales graduates:

[between one guy and one girl]
Guy: Dude, are you seriously reading Harry Potter right now?
Girl: Omg yesss, it's sooo good.
Guy: You are seriously the biggest dork ever. You are such a geek. It's kind of cute though.
Girl: Omg I know but I still love it. I don't like, go around telling people I love it though.
Guy: Yeah, people would think you're so weird.
Girl: Omg I know. Amy thinks its like the weirdest thing ever. She keeps calling me a freak whenever she sees me reading it.
Guy: Dude, I read the first three books and they're like, just so repetitive.
Girl: No, you TOTALLY have to read the last ones. They're SO much better.
Guy: Oh really? So I should like, read those?
Girl: Yeah, totally. I have them if you want to borrow them!!
Guy: [thinks is the funniest thing he's ever heard] Haha, okay. Do you like the books or movies better?
Girl: Omg, the books for sure.
Guy: Dude, yeah, Daniel Radcliffe is like, such an over-actor. He's so retarded. The movies are terrible. [slight exaggeration, but okay.]

I have found that their favorite words tend to be 'freak' (as in, 'omg you're such a freak!'), 'retarded' and 'gay'... clearly signs of their maturity level.

They also complain about how stupid customer service is, and how much it sucks, and how hard it is. They complain to the people who have been here for like 4+ years. Clearly they are going to get absolutely NO sympathy from us. Like... please. You just started. Shut up.

Another gem between a different guy and a different girl:
Girl: What are you doing tonight?
Guy: Going ouuuuut I can't wait [keep in mind that he's probably 20, tops]
Girl: Oh yeah? Are you drinking tonight?
Guy: A better question is will I be able to BREATHE tonight!! [chuckles to himself at the joke he just made]
Girl: What do you like to drink?
Guy: Um... beer?
Girl: Oh like what?
Guy: Bud light, Nati, whatever.
Girl: Ohh okay. So like is that the cheap stuff?
Guy: I mean, yeah. I used to drink Absolut like all the time because that stuff gets you fucked up but it's too expensive to drink all the time.
Girl: I like rum.

Oh my.

And then there's the customers:
Me: Okay ma'am, could I have you look in the bottom, right-hand corner of your order form? There should be a code in a box. Could you read that to me?
Woman: [long pause] ... do I have to unfold the order form?
Me: [equally long pause] ... yes. You would need to unfold the order form, if it's folded up. Otherwise you would not be able to see the order form, including the code.
Woman: [paper rustling] Oh, okay. I see the code now.

Or there's the similar conversation:
Me: Do you have your order form with you?
Customer: Yes.
Me: Could you read me the code that's located in the bottom right-hand corner of that order form?
Customer: I don't have the order form.
Me: ..... You just said you had the order form.
Customer: No, I just have the catalog.
Me: ... So you DON'T have the order form?
Customer: THAT'S WHAT I JUST SAID.

These are legitimate conversations that I have had MORE than once. Oh my gosh. Why do these people exist slash reproduce slash let their children go to school?

Random tidbits

As usual, my life has no one definite reason for me to actually ever write in this thing, so here's another jumbled assortment of things going on with me:

1. I took the CPA exam on Saturday. Let's just say it did not go well.
2. Right after the CPA exam, I left for Pittsburgh. It was a great, great time, minus one little incident but... c'est la vie. I suppose 48 hours cant be COMPLETELY perfect.
3. Now that I'm home, I'm ready to start packing up my place! The problem is that I don't know what to pack. I have 203489207 books (approximately), but I can't put them all in one box, because I'll never be able to lift it. My solution last time I moved was to basically just move in a few stacks of books at a time. I would like to have a slightly faster move-out this time, so does anyone have any suggestions on how to pack books?
4. Donny and I have started a wish list for our apartment. This feels creepily like a wedding registry, but oh well. It also is a little more out there than a wedding registry. For example, it includes things such as a punching bag, a shower curtain liner with low VOCs, and a beef jerky maker (guess whose additions those were). The beef jerky maker is what happens when Donny and I go into Sur la Table. Sigh.
5. A few weeks ago, my boss from OSU asked me if I was interested in grading papers for the PreMacc. I said yes. Somehow, 'grading papers' turned into 'teaching students how to do really difficult financial accounting problems for 3 and a half hours straight for 7 days.' FML. I'm terrified, mostly because these students HAVE to know this stuff going into it. And I have to like... prepare and learn how to do these problems myself. This stresses me out slightly.
6. I've lost my TV remote and this stresses me out even more than the thought of teaching a class full of students who are probably smarter than em. Like... it is NOWHERE in my apartment. So now I'm sitting on the couch, annoyed because now Kathy Griffin is on tv and I don't feel like getting up to flip through channels. Blah.
7. Round 4 of the CPA exam has commenced. I am 5 pages in. It is not going well. Not because it's hard... it's not. But it's because I have zero energy left for this. I would just like to get it done.

That is perhaps all.

Dumbbb

I'm a huge moron. For at least the past month or so, I've been convinced that I scheduled the next section of the CPA exam for this Friday, June 9th.

Nope. I did it for the 10th.

Meaning a few things:
1) I unnecessarily called off work on Friday.
2) My trip to Pittsburgh obviously cannot begin until Saturday afternoon, now. Meaning I will have less than 24 hours in Pittsburgh :(
3) I'm dumb
4) This is probably a bad omen to how the exam is going to go.
Sigh.

I CANNOT WAIT to be finished with this stupid section. Donny's roommate just took it and he didn't really sound very encouraging haha. Yikesss. If I can pass this one, I should be good to go, because apparently the one I saved for last is the easiest. Fingers crossed!
In other news, Pittsburgh will be MUCH NEEDED, even if it's only for a day. My paycheck that I'll get on Friday will ALSO be much needed!

As soon as I get back on Sunday, I'm going to start packing up my apartment. I don't care if it's a month and a half early. I am SO READY to be done with this apartment. The combination of sex boy and his roomie, the shady management, the people across the hall with the noisy bird and noisy dog, the people who honk their horns at 7 AM repeatedly until the person they're picking up comes out, the garbage trucks who let the giant dumpsters fall to the ground at 6:30 AM, the large amounts of dog poop people leave everywhere, and the crazy Indians who walk their children in strollers at 10 PM in the dark while wearing dark clothes so that you almost hit them with your car... have basically made me lose my patience.

If you're friends with me on facebook, you've likely already seen these pictures, but I'm posting some again just because I love them. Background: while at my grandparents' for the Fourth of July, I stole (slash borrowed) a container of pictures my grandma had. She like... could care less about pictures. She maybe took like 10 rolls of film the entire time my mom and uncle were growing up haha. And they're all just thrown in boxes now. There's ONE album she put together of pictures of them when they were little... the rest are still in the envelopes from the developer. Ohhh grandma. Anyway, here are some good ones...

This is my grandma, grandpa, and my mom on a road trip. My mom looks exactly like my sister Melaney here. Which is weird, because in other pictures she looks exactly like me or my other sister Lindsey. At least none of us were adopted?

I highly enjoy this picture. There are five generations here!! On the left is my great-great grandma Kreager, my great-great-great grandma Courson (she lived to be 101, crazy woman), my great-grandma (who died when I was in middle school) Williams/Dotson/Giles (yeah, she had three husbands) .. and my uncle Steve is in her lap. Then in the back is my grandpa, and he's holding my mom. So yeah, five generations. Awesome!

I just think that's crazy because the oldest person I've ever met from my family was my great-grandma... can you even imagine meeting your three-times great grandma? False. That's insane.

I wish I sometimes had something more interesting to say. C'est la vie.

Update:
It's about two hours after I made that original post. Guess what has happened to me since then?

THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH.

UGHHHHH. TWO DAYS before the CPA exam and I get the blue screen of death?!!?

Let's also recall that my computer CRASHED the DAY OF my CPA exam in April. THE SAME DAY. I had to go out and buy a new computer... aka this one. Clearly this is some sort of fate... I am obviously not destined to become a CPA. I mean... serious computer problems before taking two of the three sections? And I need my computer to study... it's not like I can just read the book. There are thousands of homework problems on the software that are really the best way to prepare for the exam. So yeah, apparently I'm not cut out to be a CPA... so glad I spent the last five years of my life and over $50,000 to be one. Not to mention countless hours of studying. FML.

Anywho, Ryan from HP (who secretly sounds like he's from the Ukraine or something) helped me and two hours later, my computer is currently running. Knock on wood. He also told me he can't guarantee he fixed it, which is just fabulous. Ohhhh HP and how I hate you and your computers. Cannot wait for my CPA bonus so I can buy a Mac.

Jumbled

My entries never have a common theme anymore. They're just a bunch of jumbled thoughts. Apologies.

- I am BEYOND excited to move. You have no idea. I want to start packing NOW... even though it's still a little less than 2 months away. I'm already trying to go through and figure out what I can start throwing away.
- I got to see Kiley this weekend!!! And Jamie the weekend before!! Simply fabulous.
- Both Toy Story 3 and Date Night were hilarious. I recommend them both. And yes, I realize Date Night came out ages ago. What up dollar theaterrr.
- Today I saw a woman with a 'baby on board' sign on her back window... and she was smoking. Like... seriously? You're concerned that I'm for some reason going to have the urge to slam my car into yours UNTIL I see the 'baby on board' sign... yet you're not concerned about what smoking is doing to your child? Insane.
- Within 5 seconds of seeing the disaster listed above, I also saw a couple that was out on the sidewalk advertising for ballroom dancing lessons. Like... you know how sometimes you'll be driving and you'll see people on the side of the road holding signs saying things like, 'Mattress outlet!!' or '$5 hot and ready pizzas at Little Caesars!'? It was like that... except for ballroom dancing. Not only did they have to stand on one of the busiest intersections ever (Cleveland and Shrock), and not only did they have to hold an obnoxious sign, but they were ALSO required to BALLROOM DANCE on the SIDEWALK. Not joking. They were clasping hands... as you do in ballroom dancing... and between their hands was the giant obnoxious advertisement. And they were dancing. So sad.
- My FAVORITE HOLIDAY EVER is coming up - The Fourth of July!!! I LOOOVE the 4th. It's everything great rolled into one (minus presents) - warm weather, people in good moods, America, the color red (my favorite), family, friends, parades with candy, popsicles, corn on the cob, lemonade, grilling out, and FIREWORKS. Omg. Yesssss. Sadly, Donny will not be home :( Bummer. However, I am still determined to have a wonderful day.
- I take the next section of the CPA exam in a week and one day. This test is definitely not looking good. I definitely feel less prepared than I did for the other two... yikes.
- The call center is the usual. Boring. Soul-sucking. Freezing cold. Full of only two types of people: 1) ghetto people 2) 18 year old Desales graduates who talk about 10 octaves higher than anyone normally should. 'Hiiiii, this is Kimberly, how can I HELP you today?!!?!?!?!?!?!' When they're not on the phone, all they do is discuss the following topics:
1) Which $300 purse they're planning on buying. I am not joking.
2) Credit cards. By that, I mean the conversation went as follows:

Girl 1: Um... so like, the person I just talked to, their credit card had declined. What does that even mean?
Girl 2: Um... I think that's like where you spend too much money.
Girl 1: What do you mean?
Girl 2: Like.. the bank only lets you spend so much money on your card.
Girl 1: Weird. So like... how do you know how much they let you spend?
Girl 2: Ummm... I have no idea. Maybe they call you or something.
Girl 1: Omg. Good thing I don't have a credit card, hahaha... I would be soooo broke. My credit card would decline like ALL the time.
Girl 2: Yeah probably.

3) People they don't like
4) How stupid every single customer is. Since these girls are all new, they don't realize that the customers are asking LEGIT questions that we get all the time. They think the ONE customer who wants to know the thread count just called them. They'll get off the phone and be like 'omg. that lady just asked me like 4 questions about the thread count!!!!!!!!' Like... hi. I answer roughly 15 calls a day SOLELY about thread count. You sell linens. This is to be expected. Shut up. This one girl today was also laughing HYSTERICALLY (on the phone... AT the customer) because the customer thought this girl was at her student's school. This happens all the time. It's because our company sends out brochures specifically with the student's college's name on it. Therefore a lot of times the parents think the school is selling the linens themselves... when they're really just contracting through us. So it's not a ridiculous question. They'll call us and be like 'Hi, can I talk to the housing department?' But this girl was legit like, insulting the customer by laughing at her. Sigh.

Other than the call center, life is good. Moving right along. I'm trying to be as LAZY as possible until September, since that's basically when my life ends... AKA I start working 50-60 hour weeks. Hooray.

Yay :)

Things have been going just... so well lately. Some highlights:

- Jamie came home this weekend and we spent a wonderful Friday together shopping, stuffing our faces with the Pizza Hut lunch buffet (omg yum) and laying out!
- I also got to see a lot of friends I don't usually get to see... Laura, Sam, and Heather!!!
- I PASSED THE AUDIT SECTION OF THE CPA EXAM!!!!!!!! And please keep in mind that this is the one I took in May... I still haven't found out the score from the financial section which I took in April. Dumbest thing ever, but oh well. I passed!! I got an 83... a 75 is a passing grade. However, I feel like I did better on audit than on financial, which worries me because that means I did WORSE than an 83 on that section... not a lot of wiggle room. Eek. Fingers crossed, because I do NOT want to take ANY of these again.
- First paycheck from the call center comes on Fridaaaayyyyy!! AND I found out today that I will be getting an extra FIFTY dollars on my paycheck because I had both the highest average order (a $25 prize) and the highest percentage of people upgrade to a better threadcount (another $25). Yesssss. Granted, it's not really fair, because I was only there for like 4 days, so my percentages are a little skewed (for example, getting people to upgrade on 6/8 calls is obviously a lot easier to do than 600/800 calls)... pretty sure I'm not going to win any more of these contests for the rest of the summer haha. So I'll take it while I can!
- I have seriously gotten like 15 books in the last few days from my Amazon orders. This makes me happy to no end. I'm such a dork.
- Donny graduates in just over a month, and then that means he and I will FINALLY be permanently in the same city!!! I don't even know what to do about that. It's going to be a huge change. But a very, very exciting one.
- I probably shouldn't be happy about another person's misery, but... oh well. The NASBA coordinator for Ohio was fired recently. This is the guy that ignored my 10+ calls/emails/voicemails. It's his fault it took me 9 weeks (instead of 6) to get my notice to schedule for the CPA exam. He's just... a disaster. When I couldn't get ahold of him, I ended up calling the Accountancy Board of Ohio, and they were NOT happy with him... so I'm wondering if that's what kind of set this in progress. Oops. Oh well. For something as important as a CPA license, they should NOT have idiots in charge. We're all better off now. Like, seriously. That's exactly like having someone in the Bar Association just ignoring calls of prospective lawyers who are trying to take the bar exam. You can't do that. And it feels like a small personal victory for me haha.
- My boss from OSU just emailed me asking if I wanted to help grade papers/be an assistant for the Pre-MAcc program in September!! Hooraaaay extra money!!! (It's $11 an hour to grade papers... yes please.) The PreMacc is basically a program for students going into the MAcc that did not have accounting as their undergrad degree, so they may still need to get some prereqs out of the way or just brush up on what they've already taken but probably forgotten. Thank goodness for extra moneyyyy.

Wonderful day so far!

My day is going wonderfully so far! Reasons are listed below:

1. Perhaps most exciting... Donny and I got the townhouse we wanted!!!!!!! We'll be moving in late August. I'm SO excited, you have no idea!! Twice the room I have now for barely $100 more a month, too!
2. It's finally NOT 90 degrees outside! It's beautiful!
3. I spoke to Cindy McCain on the phone today. Like... John McCain's wife. Seriously. She called the call center to check to see if we got her fax order. I was suspicious it was her, because their address was in Arizona, but obviously I wasn't going to ask. I looked at her student's name and sure enough, it's one of her children's names. CRAZY. She was really nice, although I basically made a complete idiot of myself. I was trying to look up her order by using her last name and zip code and I couldn't hear her because she was speaking so softly, so I asked her to spell her name for me. Then she did and I was like ah. yes. And I rambled on for ages about how we may not have entered the order into the system yet because we don't always enter fax orders in the day we get them... blah blah blah. Like, glad I just wasted 5 minutes of Cindy McCain's time. Anyway, while I could certainly not be called a McCain supporter, it was nice to know that she's doing all these menial tasks herself! I'm sure she's incredibly busy.
4. I've started to get shipments from Amazon on the HUGE purchase I made a few days ago... HOORAY! I love getting new books :)
5. I got my diploma in the mail today! ... in a shitty looking cardboard folder, but oh well. I'm going to get it framed eventually, I suppose. Anyway, it was exciting to see in the mail!
6. I'm ALMOST caught up on CPA studying... almost.
7. I'm going to a farmer's market near campus with Raymond in a bit, and then later tonight the midnight showing of Toy Story 3 with some friends :) Should be a good time!

A few thoughts

A few thoughts:

- The Westerville Public Library is far too big to have such a dinky parking lot. Please fix. Thanks.
- I was a moron today at said library. When trying to do self-checkout, I kept scanning the book's original barcode, not the library's. So then I waited in line at the front desk for 10 minutes, claiming that my card must have something wrong with it. The woman at the desk was like um... no, you're just scanning them wrong. Ooooops.
- Second day at the call center and it's ALREADY a long summer. AND I'm only working part time. I can't imagine my attitude if I was working full-time. However, I have a new supervisor this year and he is quality.
- The only thing I like about working at the call center again is that I get to be in Westerville again for little spurts of time :)

Year end wrap up

I'm officially (well... kind of) finished with my MASTER'S program. It just seems too crazy to even type.

I say 'kind of' because I'm really not even finished with my finals yet. I'm just close enough to make this blog post haha. I just turned in my final paper for one class this afternoon. I have a final on Monday morning at 7:30 AM (seriously?) and a take-home final due Monday at 9:30 AM. Siiiick. I've been working on the take-home final on and off since Wednesday... probably about SEVEN HOURS combined so far, and I'm not at all near finished. Like... honestly, is that necessary to make an exam that difficult? I can't even google the answers. Anyway, so Monday at 9:30 AM I'll be finished with all of my work. Then I get to do NOTHING all week (!!!) until Friday which is our MAcc pre-commencement ceremony. I'm not going to the REAL commencement, so I'm considering this my real graduation And it's only going to be like an hour long, HOORAY! They've requested that we wear business formal... I'm not really sure what that is. If they mean business professional, that means wearing a suit... and HELL NO am I wearing a suit at 4:30 PM in the middle of June. No no no. So I bought a cute sleeveless professional-ish dress. Meh.

I'm also excited for the bar crawl on Thursday! Goal = not to still be hungover at 4:30 PM the next day haha. My favorite part about this upcoming bar crawl is that since we're doing it as a group (ALL Fisher grad students), we are having a twitter feed for where we are hahahhaa. Like, omg. Business students WOULD use twitter to update everyone about where we are. Love iiiiitttt.

Anyway, I've been wanting to do this since Jake started doing them ages ago... so yes, I'm completely copying off you, Jake...

here it is, my year in the MAcc program:

Classes taken: 11
Amount I will have paid after interest on my student loans for ONE YEAR of school: $32,000
Times I have cried after taking a test: 3
Times I have cried WHILE taking a test: 3 (2 of which are during my take-home final for the class I mentioned above... sad face. And yes, this means 1 was during an actual exam in a classroom. Embarrassing.)
High school GPA: 4.22
College GPA: 3.72
Grad school GPA: 3.4 (notice a trend?)
MAcc phone numbers in my phone: 21
People I will probably talk to after a year or so: 3
People I will be working with at E&Y: 1
Hours I worked as an ambassador: 300
International interviews performed: 29
Students I took on visits: 15
Amount by which my starting salary for E&Y was decreased: $2,500
Additional amount I was supposed to earn at E&Y for having my Master's: $2,500
Hours spent studying for the CPA exam so far: 263 hours
Sections of the CPA exam taken: 2 (of 4)
Amount paid for the CPA exam: $963 (not counting the $3,000 more I would have had to pay for my review materials if E&Y wasn't amazing)
Weeks I waited for my notice to schedule for the CPA exam: 9
Weeks my classmates waited: 2 (story of my life)
Presentations given: 10
Times I have cursed myself for taking Accounting for Mergers & Acquisitions: Every day of my life since beginning the class
Subway points accumulated: 68
Times I've cursed Taco Bell for being located so close to my apartment: countless
Lunches that turned into drinking at the Varsity Club: 2
Times I've been to Gateway this year: 3 horrible, horrible mistakes.
Lokos I've attempted to choke down: 2
Diet Cokes I've purchased in the Gerlach vending machine: Dear lord. Probably close to 150. Yiiikes.
Times jumping in Mirror Lake: 1
As of this fall, number of people in my immediate family who will have gone to Ohio State: 4. The only 4 that are college-aged. We are kind of sickening.

Others:
Most enjoyable class: governmental/not-for-profit accounting. I liked the subject (this is my second time taking it), I liked the professor, and I liked only having two projects.
Least enjoyable class: Accounting for Mergers & Acquisitions. God-awful. The professor is clearly just there for research. She's just... not good. The exams were horrible. Every class was an hour and 48 minutes of hell.
Worst class I know I'll be glad I took later: Financial Management 2. All sorts of awful things like hedging and derivatives and credit swaps. Ughhhh. This is also the class I took where I cried during an exam. But I also know I'm going to need to know this stuff for my job so... gross.

I'm sick of making this list. 05. 05 has pretty much been my motto for the entire MAcc program, so I guess that's fitting haha.

Recipes!

I've decided to make a recipe box. I had a binder where I put recipes, but I decided that wasn't cute. When I was little, I LOVED reading my mom's recipes on cute index cards so I decided that, although I don't have any adorable recipe cards (does anyone know where they sell them?!), I do have index cards, and I'd love to have the same sort of system. I think there's something just... so traditional and cute about having your recipes on little cards. You can give them to others to borrow, you can keep them in a nice tidy box... overall just really adorable.

So I've added all the recipes I have to this box (90% of which I haven't actually attempted haha). I color-coded them, too... pink is desserts (duh they need their own category), yellow is entrees, green is appetizers, and orange is random stuff... haha as of now, orange solely consists of really yummy-sounding cocktail recipes I've stolen from Cosmo and other similar places. Mehhh.

Do you guys have any recipes to share?? I'd love to add to my collection! ... Keep in mind that I don't like any chunky foods. Haha.

Here's a SUPER simple one... I probably shouldn't even call it a recipe, it's that easy. It's basically a take on an ice cream sandwich... just like, a thousand times better for you and I personally think it tastes better:

Graham Cracker Ice Cream Sandwich
Ingredients:
Low-fat graham crackers
Low-fat or sugar free Cool Whip

Um... that's basically it. Put one or two spoonfuls of cool whip in between two graham cracker halves. Freeze them in a big Tupperware containers, and enjoy!

Best part: They're 100 calories. Compare this with your average ice cream sandwich which is 240 calories. They're also very low in fat, since you're using low-fat stuff... only about 4-5% of your total saturated fat. The average ice cream sandwich (At least the ones I found online) are 25% of your total saturated fat. Soooo yummy, too, and very light. Perfect for summer :) The only problem is actually only eating one at a time.

A few random things

1. No, I have not yet received my CPA scores from the first section. I could get them anywhere from today until June 30. You know, any time in between. Ridiculous. At this point, I'd rather NOT know my scores until after I take the next section (one week from today! YIKES)... because if it turns out I failed it, my confidence is going to be completely shot.
2. People have just been bugging me today. Especially drivers. Seriously, water being on the road does not mean we all must drive 20 mph under the speed limit. You will be just fine if you go the prescribed speed limit. Promise.
3. I'm getting a temporary roommate tomorrow! Merrie will be living with me for a few weeks while she looks for another place to live. I'm slightly nervous, considering I haven't had to think about anyone else for the whole school year haha. I think I got used to living alone pretty quickly. But it'll be nice to have someone around... it'll make me less lonely and less likely to pig out on food. And more likely to actually try to productive so she doesn't think I'm a loser. Ha.
4. In case anyone is keeping up with Donny's travels, he is in India at the moment... he's been doing some traveling, but he's headed for Delhi either today or tomorrow where he'll spend the last week of his trip. The highs for this week are around 113 or 114 degrees. I'm not joking. Ewwww. He also thinks it's the beginning of monsoon season. That pretty much sounds like my two of my least favorite things in the world: sweating and lots of rain.
5. I'm watching an E! True Hollywood Story about women who date rapists and murderers even while they're in prison and it's creeping me out.
6. I CANNOT WAIT for this year to be over! So close! Less than 25 days, to be exact. Holding me back are four case studies/papers (one of which also includes a 30 minute presentation) and two finals. Bah. Just hurry up already.
7. I haven't really studied much for the CPA exam in the last couple of days. I am struggling. This time, the material is much different. In the last section, it was like... PURE rules and math and 'calculate this' and whatnot. This section is NO math... just a lot of rules. It's so difficult. Everything sounds similar. And, as mentioned in another post, there are like infinite amounts of mnemonic devices and it just makes me want to puke. I feel like all of my energy went to the first section and now I'm just like meh. I hope I can get my shit together and actually start studying hard.
8. SVU finale tonight!!!!!!!!!

Ohhh, Nicaraguan grandma.

My Nicaraguan grandma (my dad's mom) is just.. so weird. I have never really liked her. She's just not a nice person. She is SO rude to my mom and is just generally pretty obnoxious.

That being said, since I've been trying to find out more about my ancestry, I decided to email her.

Some background info: My grandma immigrated to the US in the 1950s (I think) from Nicaragua with her brother and sister. I think they ended up in California. As I said in an earlier blog post, my opa immigrated from Germany in the 50s as well. He went to Missouri, but then ended up in California, which is where my dad says the two of them met. They had five boys (and a girl who apparently died when she was 1, which I didn't know about until like a year ago), my dad being one of them. They divorced in the mid 1990s and don't really get along. They're just really awkward people. For example: at my Miami graduation, my family was arriving to my apartment. My Opa comes in and says, "Where is my ex-wife? I would like to say hello to my ex-wife." This is like... in front of all of my friends and other side of the family. Who says that? Who asks for their ex-wife? Just say her name or something. Ugh.

So... 1) clearly I don't know a lot about my dad's side of the family, and want to know more and 2) even though my grandparents dont really like each other, I knew my grandma would still want to see the manifest of the ship my opa came to the US on. So I attached it to the email I sent her, just showing her what sort of things I could find on ancestry.com and I told her I'd love to find out more about her family.

This is the email I receive in reply (copied and pasted)

Please let me have day of rest and I will answer your most welcome letter. You should have a lot of information on your Opa's side as Hittler checked them out to make sure they were pure arian. I just got back today from Uncle Kurt and Aunt Doris. Came to find some of the switches don't work for the outside lights. The Security system I have, called me twice that the alarm had gone off. They called the police, for a false alarm and they are not happy. They left a note to the effect. Love Grandma

...........

Like... seriously? 1) Thank you for the history lesson, but I am actually already aware of who Hitler was and what he did. 2) I don't really understand how Hitler's Aryan race means I have a lot of information about my Opa's side. I am not really seeing the connection? I have info on Opa because he told me, not because of Hitler...? Whatever. 3) It sounds like you are very angry about Opa coming from Nazi Germany. Um... you didn't have to marry him? That was your choice. 4) You need a day of rest to talk about your family, but you can write me an email about your security system? Seriously? 5) I have no idea what you're talking about with your security system.

She is just... so weird.

Genealogy

Greatest recent decision of my life: doing a 14 day free trial of ancestry.com.

I will seriously purchase a membership afterwards, too.

I have found SO MUCH COOL STUFF. Granted, I am a self-proclaimed genealogical NERD. I LOVE researching my genealogy... whatevs. My uncle and I both have really had an interest in it, but I hadn't done any REAL research, as in like... looking through census records and stuff until I just signed up for the website.

I'd say the coolest things I've found, other than census records of my ancestors from as far back as 1860, are the following:

My Opa's documentation of immigrating to the US from Germany. He's the 'Kurt R Peters, age 20'... awesomeee.


My grandparents' wedding announcement!!! It's probably too small to read, and unfortunately I can't really even tell that's my grandma, the quality of the picture is so bad but... it's freaking adorable. They go into SO MUCH DETAIL!! Like, here's a quote: "She carried a white Bible, a gift of her parents, topped with a white hybrid orchid and a shower of white charm roses and feathered alabaster roses." Like... what on earth. Anyway it's the most adorable thing I've found and I love it.


And my grandparents' engagement announcement!!!! Gahhhh my grandma's picture haha she totally has the 50's glasses. I love love love it. I also think it's hilarious that the caption is 'Norma Jean Lane- Bride-elect.' Like... what? Haha.

Yayayay genealogy!

Stupid.

Tell me how "a CPA CO CAREs about CURVed assertions" is a mnemonic device. Seriously. 1) That's just a dumb sentence. 2) It doesn't make sense. 3) THERE ARE 13 PARTS TO IT. THIRTEEN LETTERS! Four of which are 'C'!! How on earth am I EVER going to remember that? And it's not like this is the only mnemonic device. For this ONE section of the CPA exam (which I am only 2/5 of the way through studying) I have already encountered the following mnemonic devices:

1. CPA CO CARE CURV
2. IMACPA
3. FIND
4. TIP PIE ACDO
5. RAPMEAM
6. ADMITS
7. FINE (Obviously completely different from FIND)
8. RECC
9. DORCS
10. PRIME
11. HELPME
12. ALARD
13. ULIARCPA
14. AMIASAD

I truly wish I was making this up. I could not tell you what a single one of those is, other than FIND and CPACOCARECURV are even about, and that's only because I just reviewed those. I don't even know what the letters in CPACOCARECURV stand for, I just know what it's a mnemonic FOR.

Keep in mind that I am still less than halfway done with this exam studying. Meaning... at this rate, I will have about 30 of these to memorize.

Here's another one for you: FML.

Pay it forward

Hopefully I'll have time to make a full blog post later, but for now I just wanted to share with you a story I heard on the Morning Zoo on WNCI this morning:

A woman wrote in to the Morning Zoo to tell them about an experience she recently had. She said that this past year has been rough for her, as both she and her husband lost their jobs. Her husband has been working at a temp agency, and she has been cleaning houses part-time. So they were really excited to get their tax refund in the mail. As soon as they got it, they deposited it and went to Walmart (the one I go to!). She said they 'went crazy' in Walmart, picking out clothes and tons of household items that were falling apart at their house, making them depressed since, until this day, they couldn't afford to replace these broken-down things. When they were finished, they went to check out and found out it had totaled $609, which is obviously a ton, especially to a family that is struggling. However, the check would cover it. Unfortunately, they found out that the check hadn't cleared yet, so her credit card was declined. She called the credit card company and they told her it would be another 24 hours before it cleared. She said she was incredibly embarrassed, so she was speaking with the manager about holding the items for her until the next day. While this happened, the manager asked her to please wait a minute, and went to speak with the customer behind her in line (I think the customer called him over or something). A few minutes later, the manager came back, gave her a receipt, and told this woman that her entire order ($609!) had been taken care of by the customer behind her in line. The woman ran to catch up with this other woman in the parking lot, and she said, "I think you've made a mistake..." and the woman replied, "Just let it happen. I'm just trying to pay it forward." and with that, she got in her car and drove away. So this woman who wrote into WNCI was basically letting people know that people really do pay it forward. She said something like, "Obviously I can't pay for someone's $600 grocery bill, but I'm so determined to find something I can do to pay it forward."

Is that not just the greatest story ever? I cried haha. Little stories like this just make my day :)

Lots going on!

Lots going on recently... here's my quick attempt while procrastinating on studying for the CPA exam:

• Computer broke. Lost my draft of the exit exam for my program. Luckily it wasn't too far along, but still. Annoying. Paid $150 to have them tell me my computer was broken. Paid $400 for a new laptop (a great deal, but I still don't have that money just laying around). Luckily parents are helping me out!
• Beyond annoyed at my parents for inviting NINE people to my MAcc graduation ceremony. It's NOT like the official commencement... it's like a small, intimate gathering. So inviting the equivalent of 10% of my MAcc program is not exactly going to go unnoticed. I'm so embarrassed. Everyone else is bringing 2-3 people. Awesome. Just awesome. The best part is that my parents were thoughtful enough to email the woman in charge of the ceremony to see if SHE thought it was acceptable to invite that many people... but they failed to ask ME if I thought it was okay. You know, it's only MY graduation. No big deal. I realize that it's really, really awesome that that many family members are willing to fly in to see me at this ceremony, but I just would have appreciated being contacted first.
  
• Going to Pittsburgh this weekend... suuuuuper excited but also trying not to stress about the infinite amounts of work I will NOT be doing while I'm there.
• Saw a movie last night... sneak peek for a movie that'll be out in June. Hilarious at parts, but overall not so great. I already forget the movie title... oops? Anyway, it was fun going.
• Overwhelmed by my mergers & acquisitions class. It's awful. I would have dropped it if i knew of any other good classes to take. but i don't so... here i am. stuck. my group presents a case on thursday and it's killing me. not to mention the punk ass girl that's in my group that i want to strangle. she's the type of person who... well let me just tell you what she did. We present on Thursday. The case was made available online on Saturday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon, she had finished the entire case (at LEAST 3-4 hours of work) and emailed it to our group. Like... I'm sorry, I thought this was a GROUP project? THEN she gets mad when I bring up potential problems with her answers. Like... bia, you could have just waited to do this as a group. Don't get so defensive. UGH. Not my fault you're such a ridiculous overachiever. And she is sending emails to the whole group that are addressed to me... "Britney, you're being contradictory in what you wrote in the last sentence to #7D..." um... okay. whatevs. sorry for trying to help out on our GROUP project. And then we like split up the parts for our presentation via email... how awesome for her that she chose the EASIEST section. Like, what?!?! you had the balls to take over the entire case, including the REALLY hard parts! freaking have the balls to explain it in class!
• speaking of this presentation, i'm terrified. our professor is just... so intimidating. at the end of our presentations, she doesn't just let us sit down. she makes you stand up there and GRILLS you for about 15 minutes on topics we don't really understand. if someone doesn't know the answer, she just stares at you. seriously. she does not say a word. After awhile, she'll just say, "Okay. My next question is..." and never tells us the answer to the first question!!! what the heck! how are we supposed to learn from that?! bizarre. just bizarre.
• the only class i like right now is my governmental/not for profit accounting class which is OF COURSE the one class i dont have any real grades in. like... its the ONE class i could find motivation to study for. we don't get our first grade until 1 week before finals week. omg. what. we also only have 2 grades... a presentation and a case study. sigh.
• i'm over a week behind on the cpa studying. fab.
• i'm trying really, really hard to not be so negative but i just feel like i've been beat down constantly lately. i've just had issue after issue (computer, allergies, M&A group, this graduation drama with my mom, etc.) and i just want to be issue-free for like, a day or two. i know it'll come sometime, but sooner rather than later would be wooonderful.

i'm going to make myself say some good things because this entry has been somewhat emo. let's see...

• my rent is $30 cheaper this month because we didn't have to use the heat so much last month! YAY!
• pittsburgh will be wonderful. pittsburgh will be wonderful. pittsburgh will be wonderful. PLUS donny's roommate bought a 55 inch tv... yesssssssss.
• less than 2 months until graduation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• less than 6 months until real money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

phew

Dixie Carter

Sad news in the entertainment world (at least for me)… Dixie Carter died :( If you didn’t know me in middle school, you likely don’t know how much she meant to me. If you don’t know who she is, she was an actress, most famous for her role as Julia Sugarbaker in the tv show Designing Women. She was basically a badass, loud-mouthed, but classy as hell feminist. Aka my role model haha. Seriously. I started watching Designing Women when it was on Lifetime when I was like, in sixth grade. How ridiculous haha. How many sixth graders watch Lifetime? Actually, my earliest memory of Designing Women/Dixie Carter is actually one of my first memories EVER... I was about 3 or 4 years old and I was watching Designing Women with my mom (when it was actually airing for the first time!) and I went into the kitchen to get something to drink during a commercial break, and I had my mom's HUGE late 80's glasses for some reason. I was dangling them in my fingers like Julia Sugarbaker so often did, and I said, 'I'm Julia Sugarbaker, S-U-G-A-R-B-A-K-E-R," and I must have been repeating a line from that episode, which, now that I've seen all the episodes, I actually know well. See, I was a fan from a very, very young age :)

Anyway, for some reason, the show just SPOKE to me; I don’t know. I’m not Southern and I’m not an interior designer, but the themes the show addressed just like… made sense to me. I would record (on a VHS… ha) the shows because they would be on right after I got home from school, and I always had to do my homework right when I got home. Then I’d spend the night just watching the episodes. I was OBSESSED. Julia Sugarbaker was by far my favorite character, and I just wanted to be everything about her. I wanted to be classy and educated enough that I could just RIP someone apart that insulted me or made me mad haha. Her speeches on the show and the things she fought for truly shaped me. As an impressionable young 10 year old, I learned about issues relating to women’s rights, because the show’s main writer was a huge feminist. Social issues were really featured on the show and really influenced me. Julia was kind of the liberal feminist of the show and her tirades were famous on the show… here’s a few samplings:

Allison: Oh, Julia, just so you know, the next time you see your lawyer on company time, it's going on your record.
Julia: Just so YOU know... The next time you speak to me in that tone of voice, you're going to the moon.

[Background: a guy wanted to come take pictures of their design firm to feature them in an article called ‘Women of Atlanta’ but then when he got there he was trying to take all these super sexy pictures of them…]
Julia: I'm saying I want you and your equipment out of here now. If you are looking for somebody to suck pearls, then I suggest you try finding yourself an oyster. Because I am not a woman who does that, as a matter of fact, I don't know any woman who does that, because it's stupid. And it doesn't have any more to do with decorating than having cleavage and looking sexy has to do with working in a bank. These are not pictures about the women of Atlanta. These are about just the same thing they're always about. And it doesn't matter whether the clothes are on or off... it's just the same ol' message. And I don't care how many pictures you've taken of movie stars - when you start snapping photos of serious, successful businessmen like Donald Trump and Lee Iacocca in unzipped jumpsuits with wet lips, straddling chairs, then we'll talk.

So anyway. I’m incredibly bummed. Dixie Carter was just as classy and awesome as her character and she will be greatly missed.

Now they just need to hurry up and release every episode ever of Designing Women. I mean, I have the first few seasons on DVD, but seriously… all of them, please. Kthx.

Oh, my. Oh, my.

So. I took the CPA exam today. Well, the first of four sections.

People keep asking me how it went. I have no idea, honestly. I could have passed. I could have failed. Who knows. Some questions I just stared at and thought, "Fuck if I know," before just randomly selecting an answer that wasn't a round number (ususally the answers like 430,293 are more likely to be correct than the 450,000 answers). Some I flew through easily, which was nice. There was one section that I bombed... whatevs.

But let me start at the beginning of the day, because, really, that just kind of sets up what sort of day this has turned out to be.

I set my alarm (well, like, 8 alarms) for 6 AM. I knew I had to leave my apartment by like... 7:10 to get there when I wanted to. That left me about an hour to study (obviously I had no intention of showering, etc.). So I woke up, walked to my computer, and attempted to turn it on. Yes, attempted. Turns out my computer would not turn on. Turns out my computer IS BROKEN. Seriously. OF ALL DAYS.

So I woke up an hour early for nothing. I wasn't able to do practice problems, like I had planned. If I fail this exam, I honestly would like to sue HP for the $300 it cost me to take the exam. It's completely their fault. Kind of.

Anyway, LUCKILY I had already printed out my 'notice to schedule' which was a piece of paper I was required to bring to the test. Like... what if I hadn't printed it out ahead of time? I wouldn't have been able to print it. Aka I wouldn't have been able to take the exam. It's not like the library is open at 6 AM so I could have gone there. Nope, nowhere to print. So thank goodness I'm OCD and had it printed out like, 2 weeks ago.

So then I get to the testing center, and it's fine. They actually let me start at like, 7:45 which was nice. I went through the whole test, and then I hit submit. It looked like it was sending, and all of a sudden it was like, "error." ummm awesome. I'm like, getting upset thinking about it so I'm going to stop talking about it now, but let's just say that I'm not 100% sure my test even went through. I THINK it did, but I can't be positive. AWESOMEEEEE.

And that's my life. On top of my horrid, horrid allergies and my sinus infection and my ear infection. And I think I lost my 'fearlessness' necklace which... I also can't talk about without getting upset.

omg. vom. Off to take my computer somewhere to see how horribly it's broken... luckily it'll only cost me $150 to even have them LOOK at it... because clearly I have that kind of cash laying around.

Whew.

I'm falling asleep as I write this, so let's hope I make it to the end.

Donny and I spent a full day looking at/researching apartments. This included 3-4 appointments at various places. I think we have it kind of narrowed down. There's only one place that we're completely sold on, like YES, we want to live there. The only problem is that it's a very small community, so it's completely possible that a unit won't even be open when we would need to move in. They're townhouses that like, legit families live in, so it's not like people are coming and going every year. There's probably only about 50 townhouses at the MOST, so... yeah. We'll see. We don't really have a back-up plan yet, so that's what we're working on now. PS... going apartment shopping with your boyfriend immediately makes you feel really, really old.

I came home tonight (to Westerville) to spend the night here before waking up in the morning to do Easter baskets (yes, I still get one, and they're AMAZING) and the Easter egg hunt (my 13 year old sister insisted we still continue this haha) and then heading to my grandparents for lunch. My family decorated the Easter eggs today (this is the first year I've missed doing it... booooo)... i got to look at them when I came home. My family is just... absurd. A sampling of the things written on the Easter eggs:

• "My name is Britney and I'm love-nest shopping."
• "Green." (the egg was green.)
• "AK-47" (This was one of like, 4 eggs my brother decorated with various gun names.)
• "Mark loves boys"
• "Mark sucks"
• "Mark really sucks"
  
• "The person who decorated this egg loves Nick"

There were also numerous puke-green eggs dyed by my dad. My dad also likes to draw pictures on his eggs... so we have an egg with goldfish, an egg with my cat, etc. We also have two eggs that say Ohio State, but none that say Miami because my mom refused to put Miami on an egg.

This is seriously my life.

Update!

Update on my earlier post from today:

Bahahahaha. The people at the Accountancy Board of Ohio are AMAZING. They somehow got in contact with the guy who has been eluding me for weeks. I am pretty sure he's in trouble. He sent me an email today (!!!!!!!) and there were two people copied on it that work at the Board. Hahahahaha. Awesomeeeeee.

So yeah. I'm eligible to sit for the exam. Apparently there was a "processing error" and my application was "misfiled". Suchhh bullshit. Whatever. I'll be getting my notice to schedule via email within the next few days. Hopefully there are still spots available for me to take the exam the first weekend in April.

Ridiculous. I'm literally shaking my head in disgust.

Oh my.

Let's see. Where shall I start? Perhaps I'll start with the bad/annoying news, then go to the good news!

As many of you know, I have applied for the CPA exam. The plan was to take the first (of 4) sections the weekend of April 2 (either April 2 or 3). However, it looks like that won't be happening now. Why? Because the people who approve applications are absolute morons. Let me explain. I submitted my application and paid the $963 (YES... almost $1000...) application fee on 1/20/2010. I purposely submitted this really early because I knew I wanted to start taking the exam the first weekend in April, and I also knew that they promised you'd receive your Notice to Schedule (NTS) in 6-8 weeks. 6-8 weeks from 1/20/10 was 3/17/2010 at the latest. The LATEST. Well, it's 3/24/2010 and I still haven't received it. The NTS is what gives you a code to take to Prometric and use to schedule what time/day/where you'll take the exam. So like... I really need it. I've essentially planned my entire YEAR around taking this exam, and not receiving my NTS is really messing up that plan. Like... a lot. If I don't get it in the next week, I'm going to have to take at least one section of the exam while I'm working. This is just... completely insane and no one in their right mind does it. Like, sure, let me work from 8 AM until quite possibly 7 PM, then come home and study for 3-4 hours. False. Not happening. That's why I PURPOSELY APPLIED EARLY so that I could get it all done by August.

So anyway. I've been in the 'final review' stages for 3-4 weeks now. My online application status says this should take 'no more than 5-7 business days'. Um, yeah. It's clearly been more than that. So I've contacted the Ohio coordinator for NASBA which is the ONLY contact info I have for ANYONE at NASBA. He literally has not responded to a SINGLE one of my 3-4 emails or 3-4 voicemails. My voicemails HAVE been getting progressively more bitchy, but I mean... it's your job. Please just answer me.

I literally think about this maybe every 20 minutes. That's how stressful it is to me. So yesterday, I decided to contact the Accountancy Board of Ohio. Let me explain - NASBA is an organization that receives my application and decides whether or not I'm legit and whether or not I should take the test. The Accountancy Board is who actually CERTIFIES me... that is, they're the ones that give me my license once I pass all the parts of the exam. I talked with my mom, and she said she's always been really impressed with the board, so I decided to email them. Best decision ever??? Yes. Definitely. I emailed a random woman whose email address I found off the website... it said she was involved with licensing, so I was like 'Hmm, maybe she'll care that NASBA is ignoring me." She emailed me back this morning and 1) was very apologetic 2) said herself that the Ohio coordinator is frustrating and won't respond to their emails either and 3) that she would forward my email to another woman who deals with inquiries like this. Within 20 minutes of reading that email, the 'other woman' emailed me, also apologizing and saying that she would personally contact the Ohio coordinator and get an answer for me by tomorrow at the latest.

HOORAAAAAY!!!!!!! So excited. Anyway. So that was the bad news that literally turned good WHILE I was typing this email because that's when I got the response email from the Accountancy Board haha.

Now I'm tired of typing. Good news entry (aka visiting Atlanta) will come later today hopefully :)