David is a new NINJA CPA Blogger.

I have been eligible to sit for the CPA Exam since 2002, and took it for the first time in 2002 when it was still “paper based” and only given twice a year.

Three weeks before I sat for the exam, my family experienced the ultimate of tragedies. Without going into details, I ended up sitting for the exam since I had already paid for it, and needless to say, failed all 4 parts.

The next year, I got married … then had kids … life happened, and the CPA Exam was placed way on the back burner due to my new responsibilities. In 2011, I lost my job, and my wife forced me to get back on track with the exam, so I took my time away from work to start studying.

I figured REG would be the best place to start, since I have a tax background. I ended up passing on my first attempt (78) and then found a new job as a Controller. So study time was few and far between with my responsibilities at work as well as at home with the wife and kids.

I studied 3 times a week after work, and then all day on Sundays. It took me 3 times to pass BEC (71, 73, 79). This obviously put me on the time crunch to pass the remaining 2 parts. Having to pass both in Q3 of 2013, I decided to tackle FAR first, and then AUD.

After destroying my brain studying for the beast that FAR is, I felt cautiously optimistic coming out of the exam. The wait, as everyone knows, was excruciating. I started studying for AUD, but couldn't really get into it due to the anxiety of the FAR score wait.

It finally came: 74.

Yep, Seventy-freaking-four.

The accounting gods were laughing at me … I ended up flying through AUD in 3 weeks and passing with an 83. Meaning that one point on FAR stopped me from being 100% done. After drowning my sorrows immensely over the weekend, I got back on track, and set forth my new goals: Forget about the 74, and act like I'm starting from scratch.

So my goal is to finish the exam in 2013. FAR in the first week or two of October, and then the retake of REG in late November. I always tell myself, this is a marathon, not a sprint, so I'm back at mile marker 13.1 … halfway to completion.