First the Worst, Second the Same, Last the Best of ALL the Game

Remember when you were in elementary school racing your friends to get in line for the slide and, being last again, you taunt them with that little rhyme? Well, never in my life have I desired those words to be truer than I do today...

Waking up this morning I feel the pressure weighing me down. I say to myself "by 12:00 this will all be over." If only I could get that stupid voice out of my head saying..."well, maybe." I get up, get dressed, eat some cereal (thanks again Kimmy for letting me use your milk) and get back in bed for a few last minutes of preparation. Something tells me that I should check the address just one more time. Oh my goodness!!! You have to be kidding me!!! I have to be at Penn Station and NOT 42nd and 3rd? What am I still doing in bed?!?! I need to leave, NOW! This is not how I would have liked to start the day. But I say a quick prayer as I run down the stairs thanking Heavenly Father for that warning. I don't know what I would have done had I gone to the wrong place.

45 minutes later I step off the subway and head to 1 Penn Plaza. I give the girl at the front desk my driver's license and credit card. Well, I've passed the first requirement - I am who I say I am. She asks how I'm doing...I say that I'm doing pretty good while in the back of my mind I think "how do you think I'm doing...do you know what I'm about to do?" But I smile as she shows me to my tiny cubicle (30 minutes earlier than expected!!). I sit down and with one deep breath I click "OK" on the computer...

2 hours later I finish just as I had began...with a deep breath and one final click of "OK". As I click on that button for the final time it hits me...this could possibly be the last time ever that I have to go through this!! That weight that I was feeling so strongly this morning is immediately lifted. I can forget all about this ordeal for at least a month...

Now here is the part where I explain how these two completely different experiences tie together. This morning I took my final section of the CPA exam (assuming that I actually passed it and the previous section). And if that little taunt I used to say to my friends ahead of me in line is true...today was the last exam that I will have to take EVER AGAIN!! Here's to hoping, right?

ps - Thanks to all my friends for their support and for understanding why I was shutting myself in my room instead of having fun on the weekends. Hopefully all that anti-social behavior was well worth it!