Bobby is a new NINJA CPA Blogger.

Greetings number crunchers.

Do you remember the first time you found out about Jeff of Another71.com? I think I had failed my first exam. Of course that was many years ago.

In my frustration of receiving a 63 on my BEC exam I was searching for something to draw some inspiration from failure, and again and again, candidates pointed to Jeff's story.

I felt much better after reading it.

Knowing that as much heartache and grief that I went through with that test, at least I wasn't as bad off as this poor schmuck. That was a lot of failures ago. I'm not counting, but probably enough to pale the former stats that I was so certain could never happen to me.

Hello, everyone. I'm Bobby, and I'm beaming to you from North Alabama. I'm a father, husband, and a perpetual test taker. And I have done more than just fail.

I've failed, passed, lost credits, given up, screamed at teachers on DVDs that couldn't hear me, and after all of the years, and gnashing of teeth, I am back to square one.

Though I'd like to think that having passed BEC and AUD in the past, that I could possibly do well on those again, so maybe that's square 1 3/4. But that's still not going to get me to Hogwart's. I've never taken Regulation, or studied for it so that will be a bear I have to wrestle in the future, so that only leaves me with my old friend, FAR.

Because of the familial nature of this website, I'm going to withhold the personal acronyms that I have come up with for F.A.R., as well as the childish name calling in general. It does bring my story up to speed though, as it is the section I'm currently studying.

I'm hoping to take the exam (once again) in April. I'm not sure why this portion seems to be such a pitfall for me. That pitfall was once BEC. Then one day, I just figured out how to tackle that one, and I did. I'm not sure there's something comparable with FAR.

I feel like I know a lot of the material, yet I'm currently sitting on a 66. A couple of reasons to look at that with optimism, though, is that it is within the single digits of being a passing score, and that it is higher than the first grade I made on BEC (63), and I eventually passed that.

HEY, IT'S ALL I'VE GOT, PEOPLE!

I'll not be moving any further until I can pass FAR. I've made the mistake before of passing other exams, and the clock starts ticking, and then I have an enormous load of material with the pressure of a time crunch.

At the moment, I'm watching (once again) lectures on DVD. After that I plan to follow along as Jeff has provided guidance for with the NINJA Study Method. I haven't done that before, and I figured, why not? I obviously already know how to fail the exam, so trying someone else's methods might be the key here.

If any of you have any spare discipline, informational retention, and test taking confidence, make sure to send it my way. I want this exam to not be a part of mine and my family's life anymore. I don't remember what it feels like for it not to be, but I look forward to finding out.

Bobby