Today my letter came from the CPA Examination Services confirming I passed the CPA exam. I had been waiting for this letter since getting the unofficial results back in June, but finally three weeks later the Examination Board finalized those results, proving that I have not been dreaming. The mill stone is no longer around my neck, and my head is no longer on the chopping block as fears of losing an entire summer to studying to make the September deadline fade into memory.
Tonight I hung that letter on the wall next to my degrees from Youngstown State and Ohio State (and my really awesome picture of myself and Karl Rove). The Youngstown State degree had not seen the light of day for almost three years, and the Ohio State degree had not been seen since graduation day 2010. I swore never to put them up until I passed, and a few years later, I can actually see what they look like now.
Coming into June, I honestly did not think I would pass this exam. I cannot sit here and tell you truthfully that I planned on breezing through this because I doubted every step of the way.
After coming out of the Financial Accounting part of the exam feeling like I completely blew it (especially since taking two months of studying nights and weekends to get prepared), I was ready to throw in the towel. I had convinced myself in my mind that I failed because never had I prepared for an exam so hard only to leave feeling like a complete failure.
After taking a month off in preparation for the May Primary and to get mentally back on track, somewhere I found some strength to come back to the studying table for Auditing. Like Rocky in Rocky III, I went back to basics after taking a severe ass kicking by a gigantic Clubber Lang sized exam. I remembered studying for accounting at YSU with my friends Hanna, Angela, Anthony, Cecil, and that entire crew and the time we put in on study guides. Study guides never failed me at YSU, and I knew they wouldn’t fail me on the CPA exam if I applied them correctly.
As an aside, I watched a lot of Rocky during May, as well as Star Wars and the Karate Kid—people doing impossible things. A steady diet of that actually can be a healthy thing.
In the end the study guides did work and Auditing turned out to be my best exam of the four. Financial Accounting was truly the shocker—75 right on the nose. As a near 4.0 student, it is the first time I can honestly say I was happy to get a score that low. If I was a bookie, the odds on my passing that exam in my books would have been 99 to 1. Somehow everything came up Mang that day in Columbus.
I do owe a lot of thanks to family and friends who have been supportive over the last two years. You all believed in me even when I did not believe in myself. We finally got there and it means a lot that you stuck by me when things did not always look so optimistic, both in respects to this license as well as things of a more personal nature. I will not forget those people, and for that (as is custom in Italian culture) there will always be that loyalty.
As another aside, there is more than one young professional in the Mahoning County Republican Party and I did it because I think it is important to have a young professional who is not a lawyer. Sorry lawyers, but there are too many of you in Mahoning County. And in that drive to get a non-lawyer young professional into the Mahoning County GOP, I did that one for my own personal satisfaction.
Of course, a great deal of thanks goes to my Lord and Savior. I may not be the best Christian, but I try to see the good in people and treat people with respect (except when I am driving and people need to be told how badly they do so). Church is important, and someday I will get back into the routine, but I have found too often some of the worst offenders of treating people with disrespect and being nasty have come from the people who refuse to miss a weekly Mass under any circumstance. It is part of why I struggle with the faith to this day.
In some strange way I need to thank Congressman Bill Johnson. We have had our differences, and we still do have our differences. But supposing the 2010 Primary went differently, I might be in Washington today without my license and looking at an uncertain redistricting plan. In retrospect and looking down the road, I might go so far to say that losing that Primary (as hard as it was to swallow) might have been the best thing after all.
But I do wish Congressman Johnson and his staff well in this year and in future years. What’s done is done.
Well, that is the CPA Exam Thank-You Edition. I will leave you with this inspiring quote from a movie we all know and love.
“I do have a test today. That wasn't bullshit. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists. It still wouldn't change the fact that I don't own a car. Not that I condone fascism, or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the Walrus. I could be the Walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off of people.”
The Mang
Conservative Capo of Youngstown
