Today. Oh
man. Roller coaster is what today
was. Maybe I should just walk you
through it. There were really
three chapters to my day.
Chapter 1: The
Genesis
Had to set my alarm a little earlier than I usually do
because I didn’t take a shower last night. Generally, I never shower in the mornings because I like to
sleep in til the very last minute.
Today though, I had to bite the bullet because my hair was getting to
that point where it goes from being dirty to being OBVIOUSLY dirty. Can’t have that when I’m going to work.
I always set two alarms for obvious reasons. What?? No they aren’t obvious? Well let me make them obvious. Christian (that’s me) LOOOOVES the
feeling of laying in bed awake. If
I could keep myself from falling asleep, I would rather lay in bed awake all
night. It’s just the best. Once I actually fall asleep, I no
longer get to consciously feel REST.
Sure, I wake up rested but it’s just not the same. It would be like if someone told me
that instead of watching a great movie, I could just instantly have a memory of
watching the movie in my head. I
would absolutely choose to just watch the movie cause the actual watching is
the fun part.
SO every morning, I set at least two alarms…sometimes
three. Generally, when I set two,
I will set the first one for about an hour or an hour and a half before I
actually need to get up. That way
I have a significant amount of time to lay there and drift in and out of sleep.
For the record, these are not my feet. I do not wear toe sox…
When you set two alarms like this though, you have to do
some serious training. You have to
be able to know which alarm is going off when it happens. Newbies will sometimes try the two
alarm system and will, in a half asleep stupor, turn off the first alarm when
it goes off. Then, an hour later,
when the second goes off, the untrained double-larmer will fail to realize that
this is the second time around and will shut it off again. So be careful if you choose to adopt my
system.
Anyways, I (being fully trained in the double-larmer ways)
popped out of bed immediately after the second alarm went off. I hastened to the shower partly because
it was quite chilly (we’re at that weird temperature outside where it’s hard to
tell whether you should have the heat or the A/C on and last night we chose
wrong) and partly because I don’t give myself a whole lot of time in the
mornings.
The hot shower didn’t really wake me up the way I wish it
had. If anything, it kind of kept
me in a restful/sleepy state.
As I drove to work, I drove in silence (very rare for me)
just because I was still tired and didn’t want to pick any music for a 3 min
drive. I knew I was tired when I
started to pull into the office parking lot and my hand instinctively went for
my garage door opener and pushed the button. Either I’ve been working too much lately and I’m getting
work and home confused or I was just SERIOUSLY not paying attention to what was
going on this morning. I would
hope it was just the latter.
Chapter 2:
Accelerated Depreciation
The title to this chapter might be an accounting pun…which
I’m ok with. Hopefully you are
too. As the day went on, I went
from being tired to being something more along the lines of frustrated. I don’t feel like I have bad days very
often but every once in a while, it happens. And this one seemed to deteriorate at an alarming rate as the day went on. I’m not going to go into exactly why I was frustrated today
just because it involves interactions with and decisions made by people and I
don’t want to be talking about people on here like that. When you boil it all down to a soupy
mess though, the truth is just that I was tired and had apparently not chosen
JOY for my day and I was letting people get under my SKIIIIIIIN.
I don’t want it to sound like I was just pissed off all day
or anything though. It was more
just a feeling of being a little discouraged/disheartened. I did find some moments of joy
throughout the day though. The
first being when I took my sweet, newly-acquired Taco Bueno scarf (got this bad
boy from a client who owns some Taco Bueno franchises) and hung it up in my
cube next to my floppy OSU hand and my annoyingly-orange OSU pendant. I feel like it really completed the west
wall of my cubicle.
Also, as a side-note, that hand is the happiest thing
ever. I mean when you are feeling
down, you can just pop that bad boy on your hand and start flopping it
around. You can wave at people,
you can tickle the back of people’s knees, you can gently whack people in the
face with it, you can give people the most delightful thumbs up ever, etc. It’s just hard to stay very upset when
you have a giant, fluffy hand.
So yes, there were some happy parts of my day. Overall though, there were more rough
times where I was struggling not to get unnecessarily frustrated with people.
Chapter 3: News
of Sorts
It’s 4:45. I’m
planning on going home at roughly 5 pm tonight. I have a lot of work to do but I just can’t work much
longer. I’m worn out. I get a text message from the Lizard
(good friend of mine) which simply stated “Oooh I’m a happy camper…”
Ummm….excuse me? What in the world
does that mean? I’m guessing
that’s what you’re thinking.
It definitely wasn’t what I was thinking though. I knew exactly what it meant. You see, Lizard and I are both in the
process of trying to pass the hardest test of our lives which is the CPA Exam. We’re trying to become “Certified
Public Accountants”. How exciting
does that sound!?! Well, it really
is kind of exciting to me.
Anyways, on February 26th, I took one of the four parts of
this exam. For me, this was
definitely the hardest section of the test and it was one of those things where
I took it and just immediately knew that I had failed it. I had no question in my mind.
I know what you’re wanting to think right now and that is
that I actually passed it and that’s going to the the surprise ending to this
story. Don’t think that. We’re talking about the hardest/worst
test of my life and when it came down to it, I just hadn’t studied enough this
time. I have come to grips with
that and was ready to go back to the books, study some more, and try to do
better next time.
Anyways, though, when Lizard sent me that text message, I
knew that it meant she had received a score back for a section of the test that
she had also taken in February.
We never doubted that Lizard would pass the test. She’s a little smartsy-fartsy girl.
Thus, when the Lizard told me that she had passed the test
(that’s what the “ooooh I’m a happy camper…” meant), what it really meant to me
was “Hey dude, your score is up.”
Though I knew that I had failed, it was still important to
me to see how I had done on this test.
You need a 75 to pass and thus, if I had gotten a 60-65, I would at
least be more confident that I could pass it if I studied a little more. I just really didn’t want to get
a score of like 42. I wouldn’t
even know what to do with that.
I hopped online.
Got my google on (to get to the Oklahoma Accountancy Board
website). Typed in my
password. OH. MY. GOD. My eyes teared up a little bit. There it was; sitting on my
screen. I had received a score of
80. I passed the test.
Immediately I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit as
a feeling of Joy, gratitude, and an understanding of the Grace that I had been
afforded washed over me. I can say
with absolute confidence that I was not prepared for this test and, no matter
what anyone says to me, I feel that I have to attribute this score to the grace
and provision of God. It really is
amazing. I put my face in my hands
and was just talking to myself and talking to God for a solid 2 minutes until
one of my co-workers came up behind me and snapped me out of my moment.
This test is such an integral part of my preparation for
this world race trip. I NEED to
have this test passed before we leave and this particular portion of the test
has been a place of stress and worry for me. To have it passed takes a load off of my mind that I can
barely explain.
Additionally, passing the entire test by the middle of May
will mean a significant financial bonus from my company; a bonus that will go
straight to funding this adventure with the Lord.
God is good. So true.
OK I’m getting really long-winded. I’m going to close this out. Basically, I just want to communicate my utter thrill and
excitement at having this third of four sections of the exam finished! I take the last part next Monday and
then I might be completely over and done with!!!! Feel free to pray for favor over me as I take the test next
Monday eh?
Til next time.
Peace.
