[Monday, May 18th, Late evening]

I just completed my last final of the semester. Actually, I finished two final exams within the last seven hours and I feel just about as stiff and sore from being hunched over my notes and exams as if I had been, well, hunched over all. day. long.

As I finished my tax exam and walked out of the building, I first began to beat myself up about each of the problems that I knew I missed. Then . . .

[Wednesday, May 27th, Again late evening]

After I composed the sentences above, Janssen, my wife, called to let me know she had arrived on campus to pick me up. Nine days later I’m back online to finish this post.

In the end, I was happy with how finals went last week and I’m grateful to my professors for teaching me so much this semester. I feel like I learned a huge amount of information in the last four months, and I’m really starting to feel like an accountant of sorts. I bet I’ll feel even more that way after I’ve started working in three months.

Graduation

This past weekend was graduation for both the MPA program and Janssen’s MSIS program. My parents, Janssen’s parents and younger brother, and even Janssen’s grandparents came to visit and celebrate our graduation, and good times were had by all (even by Janssen’s younger brother, who fortunately had several books to keep him entertained during the graduation ceremonies).

Here we are with Steve Limberg, the Faculty Director of the MPA Program (and one of the coolest, most interesting guys I know):

MPA Ceremony:

Two graduates (Actually, I still have 9 credits to complete over the summer. But the MPA program doesn’t have a ceremony in August, and this worked out better for us anyway so we could walk together and have family visit just once):

CPA Exam

I took my first section of the CPA Exam today. I chose to take the Financial section first because it is rumored to be one of the most difficult sections and I wanted to both get it out of the way and take it while the information I’ve been learning in classes like Intermediate and Advanced Accounting is still relatively fresh in my mind.

I felt like it went pretty smoothly, and I’m extremely hopeful that I pass. Apparently I won’t be receiving my score for a month or so, so I’ll just move forward in preparing for the next section – Regulation – which I have scheduled for July 1.

The first half of summer semester begins next week. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy a few days of stress-free studying intermixed with running, errands, and movie-watching.