Carolina is a NINJA CPA blogger.

Hello NINJAs,

I don’t know if any of you have followed my CPA journey since the first time I wrote for this blog.

Oh boy! Has it been very difficult? Perhaps, this has been the most difficult thing I have ever tried to do.

Only when I thought things could not get any worse, my grandfather passed away.

The man I considered like my father died a couple of weeks ago. Even though he was ill and old, I was not fully prepared to let him go. Of course, this has affected my studying schedule.

I had to travel outside the country to say my last goodbye to my grandfather. It was tough to see my grandmother, mom, and other family members so vulnerable (especially my grandmother, for she was with my grandfather for almost 50 years and she couldn’t stop crying).

I stopped studying for a week and I have been doing only a few NINJA MCQs every other day since I went back to studying. As I said on my last update, I was having difficulties finding motivation to study, now it is even worse.

I do not want to study after a super busy day at work. Since I was out of the office for a week, my workload has tripled (counting that we are short staffed). I’m trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I can’t.

I know I need to do this. I need to pass all these tests, for it has been my biggest goal since I was in high school. How do I do this? I ask myself every day.

I also know I cannot quit, but I’m tired. I just wish that these exams were like the ones in college because I didn’t have to kill myself to pass a test. These exams are a different monster, and I don’t know how to kill this monster.

I wish someday I could write something positive and say “I’m a CPA; it was tough, but I did it.”

I just need to find the strength and the motivation to keep swimming.