Taxes.

Attention: Just because I am an accounting student (and I will soon be an official accountant) does NOT mean that I know anything about taxes. Seriously. Yes, I had to take ONE tax class in undergrad, but I tried to forget it as quickly as possible.

Accounting actually has several different paths. The main two are tax and audit, especially if you work for a public accounting firm. The two paths are VERY different. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that tax people are generally more reserved, they rarely have to leave the office to go to client sites, and never travel. They work slightly better hours. Auditors are generally more outgoing, are at clients' offices 85% of the time, and travel anywhere from 10-90% of the year, depending on their clients. They also work shit hours. I'm in auditing. Good and bad, I guess.

But it's GOOD because I don't have to deal with taxes. At my company, 'tax' really means doing taxes for HUGE corporations. We rarely do personal income taxes... we only do them for very wealthy people who have a very complicated tax situation. ANYWAY.

So this quarter, the MAcc Association is offering the opportunity to do VITA. This is an IRS-sponsored program that has volunteers prepare tax returns for low-income people. They are generally very easy returns that can be completed in about an hour or so, and that don't require a lot of tax knowledge (no crazy investments, etc.). As a volunteer, I have to complete VITA training, and then I will be scheduled to work a few weekends throughout the next quarter at various sites around Columbus. It's going to be a really great experience. HOWEVER... the training is balls.

Please look at this picture:

Each of these links is a lesson within the "Basic" training. Each lesson says it takes about 45 minutes. You do the math. THEN do the math to find out how much time I'll spend doing the "Intermediate" and "Advanced" courses as well. EFF. ME.

I just keep telling myself it's going to be worth it to see how happy these people are when I tell them how much they're going to be getting in tax refunds...

Oddities of the day

Strange day today. And it's not even over yet.

Random occurrences:

• I had two horrifying dreams. Since the beginning of the day, I've already forgotten one. The second one, however, had to do with my car plunging into a lake and me not being able to get out. Yikes. I rarely have nightmares, so it was odd that I had two in one night.
  
• On the bus home today, this girl was on her phone and said, "Wait, so you ARE pregnant?!" [short pause] "GIRL I CANT BELIEVE YOU ARE! YOU ARE SO CRAZY!!!" [ridiculous laughing] Like... I don't really know many girls my age that think it's hilarious that their good friend got pregnant. I may totally be misjudging the situation, but based off the rest of their discussion, said pregnant girl didn't exactly seem to be like... married and financially secure or anything. Very odd.
• Also on the bus back to the parking lot where I park... someone got on the central radio and said something along the lines of, "I'm at Carmack 1... a woman came onto my bus and told me that she hit a man with her car and that he needs an ambulance." For those of you non-OSU-and-west-campus-parkers, there are like at least 4 carmacks in this GIANT parking lot I park in. The buses go to all carmacks during their route. And IMAGINE... I park at Carmack 1. So I'm secretly kind of excited to see the drama going on. Two ambulances FLYYYY by our bus about 2 minutes later. We got to Carmack 1 and had to be let out a little before where we usually are because of the ambulances and policemen blocking the drive. Which was fine, because then I got to walk by slowly and observe. I think the man was fine, because the ambulances weren't rushing off with their sirens blaring or anything. They just sat in the lot. I didn't see him at all. but I DID see the police talking to the woman who supposedly hit this guy. Oooo dangerous snowy parking lots. So yeah, everyone BE CAREFUL driving in parking lots. I don't know the end of the story, because I figured I probably shouldn't loiter during a police investigation.

I know there were other odd occurrences but whatevs. I forget them.

Other news:
I had my other two classes today, Fraud Examination and Managerial Negotiations. I think both classes will be decent and certainly relevant to me. Fraud Examination is taught by the same professor that taught my research class last quarter. Here's to hoping the class is INFINITELY more exciting than that one. I think it will be. How can fraud NOT be interesting? Plus we get to watch movies... always amazing. Granted, they'll be about accounting, but still.

And Managerial Negotiations is a class from the MLHR (Master of Labor and Human Resources) program that we're allowed to take. It's basically exactly what it sounds like.... learning how to negotiate and get what you want in various situations, whether it be salary disputes or how to do a union contract negotiation. I'm absolutely horrible at negotiations and confrontations in general, so I'm hoping to gain something from this class. It was so odd though... there are only MBA and MAcc students in the class, plus one lone MLHR girl. The MBAs sat on one side of the room, and the MAcc students sat on the other. Very representative of our feelings towards each other haha, although I don't think it was really intentional. I think we all just sat by people we knew, who all happen to be in our program.

Other other news:
I spoke with the property manager at my apartment complex about sex boy. They seem to be handling it completely well. They are very honest and very helpful. So let's hope he shuts up.

Day 1 of Quarter 2

Well, I finished my first day of my 2nd (of 3) quarters today. Same old. Nothing incredibly fascinating. I have a "Foundations of Accounting" class which sounds supremely basic but I have feeling that will be the hardest class I have. I truly have no idea what it's about, even after sitting through an hour and 48 minute class of it. It seems to be very, very conceptual. We'll see. We'll see.

My second class of the day was Assurance Services... aka auditing... aka what I'm doing for the rest of my life. I have a feeling this will be a hilarious class. Reasons:
1) My professor's hair looks a lot like this:
2) My professor's son's name is Chip.
3) He (the professor, not Chip) plays the synthesizer for his church.
4) He let us play a stock market game for about 45 minutes. We find out which team won on Wednesday. If our team wins, we EACH win $20. Like, real money. Um... clearly I am excited about this.

In other news, I unsuccessfully negotiated with Time Warner. That is, I'm actually paying $18 MORE a month than I was before just to get digital cable and DVR. DUMB. But... I AM waiting to hear back from WOW Cable to see what they can offer me. If it's anything below what I have now.... sucks to be Time Warner.

Other relevant news: I bought incredibly too many groceries today. Donny leaves Wednesday morning and I'm sad. I feel like this break brought us even closer together... something I never think is possible, but always is. I'm obsessed with watching the West Wing ever since I got the ENTIRE series for Christmas. I have to call back my apartment complex to have a discussion about Sex Boy. I am slightly nervous about this conversation slash happy that they are willing to hear from me.

That is all.

Email to my apartment complex RE: Sex boy

Copied and pasted directly from the email I sent 30 seconds ago:

Hello,

I previously wrote your office an email regarding the tenant living in the apartment directly below mine (I live at xxxxxxxxx, Apt D... I am speaking of the tenant(s) living in Apt B). The email stated that I was unhappy with the very loud music frequently coming from their apartment. Specifically, the bass was usually turned up so loudly that my family room floor vibrated. Unfortunately, the problem still remains.

I have now gone downstairs to complain about the noise six or seven times. Keep in mind that I have not gone down to complain every time their music is loud - sometimes I have to leave my apartment to escape, and sometimes I just give up. I have written them notes and put them on the door, as well, since often they do not hear my knocking (to me, that's a clear sign that the music is too loud). Since writing you the email, I have been woken up at 2 AM on a Monday morning because they turned their bass UP at that time. I had a final exam at 7:30 that morning and was especially annoyed to receive very little sleep. When I asked them to turn it down, they apologized and assured me that they would. It took them 10 minutes to do so. This is absolutely unacceptable to me. Currently I am writing this email from my bed, because I cannot stand to be in my family room due to the constant music blaring up from their apartment for the past FIVE hours. The fact that I cannot study or function in my apartment as freely as I should be able to is incredibly frustrating and ridiculous. I can't watch TV when their music is on, I can't work or study when their music is on, I can't sleep when their music is on, and I can't even entertain my own family and friends when their music is on. I am not sure what action was taking last time I emailed you, but it has failed to adequately resolve the situation. Part of the problem is that our walls our absurdly thin - this is not the tenant's fault. However, I am not willing to accept that I should continue to have my life interrupted due to the unfortunate thinness of our walls. I am sick of dealing with the tenant myself, and do not think I should have to do so anymore.

If you are going to take action, please forward me any communication you have with the tenant so that I may have it on file. I am certainly willing to call the police about this situation with my downstairs neighbor but I would rather avoid doing so.

I trust that something will be done soon.

Thank you,
Britney Peters


So now I'll just wait. Let's hope they maybe do something a little more impressive than stick a note on his door like they did last time.

2009

2009 was full of ups and downs. As Joanna said in her blog, I feel like this is one of the most life-changing years of my life thus far.

Big Life Events of 2009:

- Getting in to grad school
- Graduating from college
- On that same note, leaving my Miami friends
- Moving in to a new apartment/living by myself
- Starting grad school
- Doing big girl things like taking out loans
- Me and Donny celebrating our 5 year anniversary

It kind of blows my mind how much I accomplished in 2009. Granted, none of it was SOLELY accomplished in 2009... graduating from Miami was a 4 year process, and graduating from OSU will continue on into next year. But I feel like a lot happened. And of course, there were other great memories of 2009... Green Beer Day, our senior campus/bar crawl, 05 CRUISE!! (and winning Quest), spring break in West Palm Beach, Megan and Micah's wedding, spending time with Donny in Pittsburgh (a new city for both of us), getting to see my family much more often than I did while I was in Oxford, watching my friends move on to bigger and better things... it's been a crazy year. I'm SO proud of all that my friends have accomplished, but I'm still so sad that a lot of people have moved away. Some of my best friends are now living in LA, Atlanta, North Carolina, Colorado... but I am still fortunate enough to have some great friends still in Ohio.

2010 is shaping up to be an even bigger year, with even more grown-up things happening. I feel like 2009 is like the training bra for 2010 haha. It's tried to teach me how to handle 2010... hopefully. 2010 will include all of the following (plus more!):

- hopefully moving into ANOTHER apartment... WITH DONNY. AHHH.
- graduating from grad school
- taking and passing the CPA exam (I'm being optimistic)
- starting my full-time job
- doing things like paying off loans, buying a car, etc.
- Megan and Jake's wedding
- Donny getting a job
- Spring break to Atlanta and Pittsburgh
- Hopefully taking an RV trip west to LA with Donny (and others?)

Crazyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I'm SO excited and SO nervous for the new year. I hope you all have a wonderful New Years Eve/Day, and GO BUCKS!

I love Christmas :)

I just love the holidays. I know sometimes I get way too stressed out over it all (mostly just being at the mall and trying to park and just driving at this time of the year in general), but when it comes down to it, I really love this time of year.

I'll try to do a year-end wrap up between now and New Years. But for now, let's see. We're having our annual family Christmas Eve dinner (immediate family only) tonight... steak and shrimp, yum!! Then we'll rush around for a few hours, wrapping like crazy. Then we'll get our yearly new ornaments from my mom, put those on the tree, attempt a few family photos in front of the tree, and open any presents from relatives that have been sent. Side note - it's extremely saddening when you no longer get presents from relatives because you're grown up. It's just... awful. Not the fact that I don't get presents anymore... just the fact that I'm old. Anyway, then we'll wake up in the morning (as we're getting older, we're able to wait and wake up later and later... YAY!) and open presents. We always come down, wait for my mom to start the monkey bread we have every year for breakfast, then open stockings and open about half of our presents. Then the monkey bread is finished baking, so we eat it, then come back and do the second half. And the kids all get the same number of presents so we can all open one together :) Aaand then it's off to shower and get ready for Grandma and Grandpa's! Donny is coming this year, which is REALLY exciting for me. It's the first time he's come to our Christmas celebration! Then he'll leave to go to his family stuff, and I'll eventually make my way over there - first time for me, too.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS. THAT'S ALL.

Everyone that's traveling over the next few days, please be safe! And Merry Christmas!

Growing Up

It's weird how quickly time goes. Honestly, every single time a Thursday comes around, I'm shocked. I felt like I JUST was celebrating the end of the week like, the day before. On a more long-term scale, I was reminded of how quickly time flies today. For my job, I brought a group of students from a small, in-state liberal arts school to visit our program. There were 6 students and one professor. The students ranged from sophomores to seniors with varying levels of interest in doing a MAcc. It wasn't really a "prospective student" visit; it was more of a "here's what a MAcc is, here's why you should consider getting one, and here's why our program is good," thing. Just in talking to the students briefly I realized how INSANELY young they seem to me, and how absurdly old I feel around them. And I'm young for my age! I mean, I should be 23. Anyway, it was just crazy. The sophomore came up to me and asked about my internship experience and about applying for them. She said, "Yeah, I'm just now starting to look into them, like where I want to apply, and what kind of internship I want..." First of all, props to her because she's actually almost a full year ahead of schedule. Second of all, it seriously does not seem like that long ago when I was sobbing on a daily basis about getting an internship. But that was actually over two years ago. And think about how much has happened in those two years!! I had my internship, accepted a full-time offer, graduated from college, moved out of my parents' house, started grad school, saw good friends get married.... Like... I'm sorry, WHEN did this all actually happen? Because apparently I missed it!

And then I think about how crazy this next year is going to be, and I have a feeling that it's going to fly by, too. One year from now, I will have graduated from my master's program, taken (and hopefully passed) the CPA exam (oh, you know, just the most important test I will ever take in my life), and STARTED MY FULL TIME JOB. Oh, and possibly moved in with my boyfriend (how grown uppp). It doesn't even seem possible. I'm freaking out haha. Slash... I'm really, really excited. The past few years went crazy fast but they were beyond enjoyable. So I'm certain this next year will be just as great :) But... oh man. Time is just crazy.