Leah is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

My story of being a ‘newbie’ is shaping up fast.

After about one month of waiting to find out if my application would be accepted, I finally received my confirmation in the mail! I am now a CPA candidate!

I’m not familiar with the process in other states, but they still do everything by ‘snail mail’ in West Virginia. I anxiously waited to get that one envelope like a kid waiting for the last day of school.

I did a little celebration dance in the post office parking lot in the not-so-private seat of my car.

It has renewed my drive to focus and study, and I’m hoping that will at least get me through to my first exam in April.

It’s the completion of the first step, and it brought me back down to earth thinking about the many months of studying, driving to Prometric, and testing, that is ahead. It’s a two-hour drive to the closest Prometric site for me, and on toll roads no less, so I’ll have to do a little extra planning for that too.

I mailed out my intent to sit form the next day after I received my application approval, and it only took three days before I had my payment coupon in my inbox. I wasn’t expecting to get it so fast, but I guess that is my cue to fork over the first payment. How am I going to get myself to commit to an exam date?

I’ll be taking a week off to go down south before I sit, and I’ll still have about six weeks to prepare for FARE. I’m hoping the break won’t erase what I’ve already learned, but we’ve had this vacation planned since before I decided to sit for the CPA exam. I can’t pack around my huge study book, so my NINJA Combo material will be going for a trip along with me.

I’m glad for portable study material, but I am going to make myself enjoy a little down time on this trip before the big six-week push. There has to be some balance in there somewhere. Study hard, play hard!