Jeanie is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

Greetings fellow NINJAs.

I have been laying low and working hard on my preparations for the FAR section. I had a little hiccup in my plan, but I am going to take this as the universe trying to show me something.

SLOW DOWN!

I was scheduled for July 6th, which seemed ideal as I have to drive over to Spokane (three hours away) the night before and it was almost exactly two months since my REG exam. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men, it was not meant to be.

Family decided to come visit over the 4th – wonderful, always glad to see them and our tiny town does host a wonderful celebration, but I was going to take my exam that weekend. OK, deep breath, not a biggie – I go to reschedule and the following Saturday is not available.

Mind you, I could ASK to take a day off for the exam and it would be granted no problem, my company is very supportive and just generally really great people, but I have in mind this Saturday thing. So, I am now out to the 20th of July. Did I mention that the family was not able to make it after all? While I will miss them dearly, I am excited about the extra time to prepare.

Back to my studies – using a paid program this time, enhanced with my NINJA Notes and Audio. Some day, I am going to be in an airport somewhere and I am going to hear Jeff speak and just KNOW that it is him. Good thing he has a great voice, because I am determined to listen to the FAR audio pretty much constantly.

I got to the first major section in my review course and I hit a very big wall – really, this is the start, this should be the easy stuff. Oh, wait, that is right, I graduated from college in 1994, not last year, so perhaps some of this basic stuff is not readily available in my aging brain. WOW. Humbled – I am just so humbled by this process.

I reached out to the course for help and the answer really smarted a bit – they essentially said that this was a review course and perhaps I should retake intermediate accounting first. Ouch, true perhaps, but ouch. Well, I persisted and made it through that section.

Based on my study plan with them, I am a little bit behind, but not horridly. I have reserved two weeks at the end for a final review and I am positive that this is going to make a huge difference for me.

My current plan is as follows:

• Complete review course by Friday July 5th

 

• Compete six full runs of the MCQ's, taking notes as I go to learn from the process. That is about 190 questions a day, which may be unrealistic, but I am doing them in small chunks of ten questions at a time. I need to calculate the SIMS as well as I would like to have six runs of those done as well.

 

• Read the NINJA notes at least five times through. I have this broken out to 13.57 pages per day to read – that should be an easy one. I made a little chart with boxes to check off at each four page increment.

 

• Copy the NINJA notes at least twice completely. Here again, I have this broken down with little boxes to check and I am aiming to do this more than twice, but twice seems like a great place to start.

 

• Listen to the NINJA Audio for at least an hour each day. My ride to work is about thirty minutes each way, so this one is a no brainer, but again, something that I hope to do more of.

 

• Review mobile app during brief down times. I have no target for this, just reminding myself that it is there as an asset for me.

 

Now that the plan is in writing, I will be updating periodically to share my progress and what I have learned along the way.

My husband has put a HUGE carrot out there for me when I pass. I actually learned over dinner on Saturday night that he has to actually see the ‘plaque' before I get my reward, so I may be driving to Helena with my last score to demand that my license be issued on the spot. Helena is about six hours each way, this is Montana, nothing is actually close.

I should hear about my REG results this week if I am reading the chart correctly. I PROMISE to not cry – it is what it is and I cannot change it. IF I need to redo, I will hit that at the end of this July test window if at all possible – it will depend on the score and the areas that may need work. There is no sense paying to sit, plus the hotel and travel time if I am not ready to nail it.

Onward!