September 13, 2016

12:36 AM - Just finished eating a bowl of oatmeal (steel cut groat oats + hot water + some dark chocolate)

finished the rest of 1 case in the morning. 

ate.
took a nap.
it's now
2:12 PM
2:50 PM - looked at my response and sending it to a peer for feedback.

3:23 PM - Just finished the rest of my day 3 case. Going to hand it in right now.

Duuuuude my brain is so awesome right now. It's like BAM, BAM!, BAM!, BAM! everywhere, left and right! Left and right! It's all because i'm doing my best to follow best practices.

Here's what I'm doing so far:

- I am focusing on writing the cases, and using all the resources I have to write them well (food, exercise, workspace, laptop)
- Planning for success (I'm giving my brain a break when I feel it needs one, I'm trying to follow this pattern: study, eat, clean, sleep. Not always in that order but something like that.)
- Understanding how the human body works (see what I said in brackets directly above this).
- Having self control (doing what I think needs to be done, instead of fooling around)
- Having confidence (knowing that what I'm doing will work)

^^^^^^ I'd like to see A LOT of this from myself and very soon :)

Going to start mastering the day 1 case (I would go for the "mock" case, but since there is only a mock case provided for day 2 and 3, I'll just stick with whatever they gave me and whatever I worked on extensively). Since my back up plan was to assure a win for the day 1 case, I'm going to look at any other PRI case scenarios and use them to write any different potential responses that CPA markers will be looking for. Going to get on this right now. TTYL BLOG!

It's 5:44 PM and I'm feeling a bit of fear, and I lack courage! But it's okay, I love the thrill of experience fear anyways.


So Day 1 is supposed to take how many hours? 4 hours. day 2 is 5 hours and day 3 is 4 hours...

which means if I start now I'll stop at 9:44 PM not bad... I can live with that. Okay so... Where's my stop watch *searches* found it! Securexam has a little watch in the bottom corner. And watches aren't really allowed... I suppose I can get used to using Securexam. :) GOTTA LOOK AT THIS LIKE AN OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE REAL EXAM SCENARIOS! I ate well today, so I don't feel hungry or anything. Even if I do feel hungry in those 4 hours, I think it will contribute to my learning. What I ate today:

Eggs + tomatoes + avacados + whole grain rye (low Glycemic Index (GI)) bread
And I had.... dark chocolate!
And I made Hummus! I'd like to eat some hummus before I begin lol... Alllrighty... I also ate some blue berries didn't I... No. I don't think so... wait... Am I eating... hmmm... maybe I wont' eat... I think I'll leave that stuff as a reward... GOTTA EXHIBIT SELF-CONTROL. .This is the way the human body works. It works better when you reward it with food AFTERWARDS not before... people that reward before are gluttons and I am not a glutton.


DAMNIT. I STOPPED during my 4 hour study session. BUTTTTTTT! Even the best can stop ;) Doesn't mean I won't get back on the horsey!  I was so hungry :'( I might want to buy some snacks for the CFE Day 1, 2 and 3... man this hummus is so good... I would bring it to the exam, but I'm afraid I'll get in trouble for the garlic i put in it.. I suppose I could make it w/o garlic WEEEEAK lol... I needed this break LOL. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Okay, I might take another break later... I literally just had one slice of bread (bare in mind this is one of those like ruldolph bakery bread, so it's like the super healthy kind that I keep mentioning in this blog, it's very hard. Not fluffy like a dempsters bread O'Canada!!!! lol. All the products I mention in this blog are sold in Canada, so if you're a Canadian CPA candidate, you may not be a stranger to them.

Okay, so. I'm done eating... It's 7:57 PM. I'll clean my mouth a bit, take a super short nap, and then i'll do it up. Follow the plan, feel the benefits. Before I took a break, I've been looking for ways to make my case writing process very efficient. And prioritizing the parts they will definitely mark, and the parts they might not... I can't go into details, but I can say at least this: you should be writing certain things first. It's obviously great to keep the whole assess the situation process in mind... But if they're only going to mark you on a small portion of that, you're better off not wasting your time and just hitting the points, moving on AND THEN WHEN you're finally finished, feel free to go back and fill in anything to make your report look better.