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2 Years Smoke Free!

Today, May 16, 2008 marks 2 years since I quit smoking!

It has been 2 years but it feels more like 7. It seems so foreign to me now. I’m very happy that I never miss smoking. Coffee on the other hand I crave and miss terribly. This is my second week in which I don’t drink it everyday; I’m doing OK with it but miss the smell.

Twice the Fish, None the Coffee

I’m cautious about setting up a trend that I wouldn’t be able to maintain. 4th-of-July-madness started as body image driven initiative but it grew into a healthy living motto. Two years ago I quit smoking as part of the 2006 4th-of-July-madness. Last year I simply exercised more, became a bit more conscious of the protein intake and leaned up considerably.

Since fish is considered the healthiest out of the meat, fish, and poultry, and I’m certainly not a big fish fan (I’ve never cooked fish in my house), this year I’m adding fish, twice a week to my dinner menu. In addition, as part of the 2008 4th-of-July-madness I’m giving up coffee as a everyday-must-have-otherwise-cannot-function necessity!

Live From The Field

Pockets of sweets in the borough

I Had a Donut and My Eyes Rolled to the Back of My Head

Here is my Healthy Check; answer yes or no for yourself:

Do you eat a healthy oatmeal with flax and raw nuts in the morning?

Do you take multivitamin, omega-3 oil, glutamine, and soy lecithin?

Do you eat salad, egg-whites and tofu for lunch?

Do you drink green tea everyday?

Do you drink at least 2 litters of water everyday?

Do you have meat and veggies for later lunch?

Do you exercise at least 5 days a week?

Do you drink 3 times as much water at the gym?

Do you have salad and healthy prepared meat, fish or poultry for dinner?

Do you avoid all candy and sweets?

Do you substitute the latter with fruit, raw nuts and honey?

Do you take flax meal?

Do you prepare your salad with flax oil?

Do you avoid alcohol during the week?

Do you not smoke or have you quit yet?

Do you avoid artificial sweeteners?

Do you eat fruit everyday?

Do you make sure that you intake enough protein if you lift weights?

Do you avoid eating when not hungry? (well I’m always hungry, LOL)

Did you get dizzy yet?!?!?

I can answer “yes” to all of the above. This is my regular, Monday to Friday, diet; I do my best to not diverge too far from it on the weekend as well. I of course indulge in whatever my friends have on their weekend menu; meaning that I wouldn’t say no or be super prissy when my friends invite me to dinner.

I have noticed that there is definitely a fat man living in me and he always comes out when i get really stressed, especially at work. I can stuff my face with any horrific junk food at the office. As I’ve mentioned before, I work in a cubicled world and if you imagine an office like a meerkat borough there would be pockets of sweets, every few turns, in the tunnels. It’s really cute if you can ignore them but if you like sweets it could turn bad. I’ve been clean (not eating any of the mini Twix and snickers, etc.) for about a month but today a plate of donuts completely took me by surprise. I walked in the little kitchen to get my late afternoon lunch when I saw them. Just sitting there, looking all yummy and innocent. I never, ever buy donuts myself but they were just there… I ran away from the kitchen and ate my lunch hoping that “they” will be gone by the time I’m back to wash my plastic ware. I had to go back to grab a fork and then I knew it - if they were sill there when I was done with lunch I was going to have the Boston Cream one. i procrastinated and prolonged my lunch but when i went back to the kitchen they were there, waiting for me, looking all snugged and innocent.

4th of July Madness 2008

At the end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007 I went home to Bulgaria for almost a whole month. Prior to my departure I was exercising enthusiastically because I had a bit more spare time, I had switched gyms, and nonetheless I wanted to be in shape for my visit home. Funnily, despite my extra efforts in the gym I was 190 pounds but I wasn’t lean. The scary part was that I was lifting 3-4 times a week and I was doing cardio at least 2-3 times, that including a crazy, fun spin class (I miss spin class with Bunny; it was an intense 1-hour experience). As far as I recall, I did aerobic exercises, that being, running, outside, doing cardio at the gym or spin class from the opening of 2006 4th-of-July-Madness season all throughout the middle of 2007 when I started my new job and was so exhausted from it that I gave up cardio as a hole. The 2007 4th-of-July-Madness season coincided with my moving to NY and not working for about 3 months; time well spent job searching and exercising. I dropped down to 175lb. and looked GOOD.

Insipid of the lack of aerobic exercises, I kept the weight off for the longest time. Unfortunately, I’m back at 190, which happened in the span of 2 months – January and February. Consequently, I’ve opened the 2008 4th-of-July-Madness season with the first run on March 23, 2008. I’m now trying to maintain Monday, Wednesday, and Friday - lifting weights – and Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday running outside for 30 to 45 minutes. The goal is to get back to 180lbs by 4th of July, 2008. So far I have created 3 new running tracks and have been keeping up with doing them in full. It was difficult getting back on track after an 8-month break.

Yes, our life is a circle and we must do our best to always run as hard as possible so that its radius only gets bigger and the trajectory of our shadow thicker.

I’m a 1/4 CPA

I was trying to set a “at-least-once-a-week” entry rule for my blog but it is a physically unattainable goal. I’m continuing with a work/study/life balance overload.

The good news is that on Saturday Mar 22, ‘08 was my last class lecture. Becker suggests that you take the class lectures in pairs and that you sit for each within 2 weeks of completion of the lectures’ end. That translates in a chapter a week. Something that is possible only if you don’t work, you work a job that lets you study all day, you work PT, you are an absolute genius or a careless and relentless gambler. Of course you can pass all 4 parts from the seventh try but… I suppose I’m a slow learner but I gave myself 3 months for each part. It stretches it over the whole year and it sounds a lot but when you break down the fact that each chapter requires between 30 and 40 hours of studying to guarantee success - this is a FT job and I already have one!!!

On a different note, after my last class at the Pennsylvania hotel I met up with Paul, Jose and some other friends, we went to the movies… I think. The movie wasn’t anything special; I don’t even remember its name, it was one of those American versions of a Japanese horror films. The fun part is when I got back to my house. I parked my car across the street, it was around 1:30am, I spotted, from 20 feet away, that there was mail in the mailbox and something told me that it has been a month, to the day, and I must have received the results from the BEC part. Sure enough, there was an envelope from NASBA in there. I got in the house carrying the mail and a fierce debate with myself - should I open the envelope or should I keep it till morning. It took a lot of discipline but I finally placed the unopened envelope on my bed-stand and went to sleep. Of course first thing in the morning, after brushing my teeth, was to open it and find out that I’ve past!!!

The Day of My First CPA Exam

Joan’s sister, Debby, and her family live in Virginia, right outside DC, and when Joan drives to visit her sister she stops and spends the night with me. Joan had a vacation and was going to drive on February 22 and meet me at my place right after my exam. She ended up postponing her trip because the weather forecast didn’t look very optimistic. My exam was scheduled for 9:00am and I had set up my alarm clock for 7:30 am. Strangely, my phone rang at 7:10am; it was Joan calling from the Cape asking if I was going to my exam because of the weather. I thought it odd but nonetheless stuck my fingers in the shades, opened a slid to peek out, and was flabbergasted to find out the entire neighborhood laying under 3-5 inches of snow. According to the forecast it wasn’t supposed to start snowing till late afternoon.
Not expecting that the testing center will be opened and very upset because I was ready to this over with I called them. To my surprise, there was a person at 7:30am and said that testing will proceed in regular manner. Encouraged I got in my car and encountered the next obstacle on the way to this exam – the usual road that I take to White Plains, to go to work, was closed and I had to take an alternative way. Of course in the heavy snow I got lost and made it to the parking garage at the time that my exam was supposed to start. I’ll never forget, for the rest of my life, the story of driving in the snow storm, getting lost and running form the parking garage to the Promertic center, cheeks reddened by the cold and running, but full of excitement of making it on time. I’m not going to go into great details about the exam itself, the only 2 things I’ll mention are that they asked to take my fingerprints for authentication and that thanks to Becker CPA Review course I was able to timely answer all 90 question in 2,5 hours which makes for a little over 1,5 minutes per question. It was an intense experience and if it wasn’t for taking the preview course with Becker I would have never succeeded.

My CPA Saga

In a way I started the process of becoming licensed as a CPA backwards. The best way is to first make sure that your education qualifies, then to submit application to the state for the licensure and to NASBA for the exam, and only after that to sign up for a preview course.
I started a review course with Becker CPA Review in Oct ’07 and filed my paperwork with New York State and the CPA examination services, a division of the National Association of State Boards of accountancy (NASBA) in November ’07. I took about 3 weeks to get a Notice to Schedule (NTS) form CPA Examination Services with which I scheduled my first exam, Business Environment and Concepts (BEC), for February 22, 2008.
Now you can sit for all 4 parts separately and the exam is facilitated by Promertic which has test centers in pretty much every major city in the US. Unfortunately, 2 weeks before my BEC exam I got a letter from the NY State Department of Education stating that in order to qualify and be allowed to sit for the exam I needed 3 more college courses; a devastating news. I immediately called the department of education and emailed CPA Examination Services. It was really stressful because the last 2 weeks prior the exam are the most important part of the preparation period – the time for cementing everything you know - and I wasn’t sure whether I’d be allowed to sit or not. There was definitely a mistake; NASBA is not supposed to send a NTS unless the education is approved by the State Department of Education. After a few emails and the same answer – we are waiting for a response form the Department of Education - I decided to sit on my behind, study hard the last week, show up for the exam on my schedule date, and deal with the recognition of the results afterwards.

Live From The Field

A gloomy day at the Pan hotel.

Chestita Baba Marta

Happy Baba Marta everyone.

Shame on me! Baba Marta is such a big event for me and my family. Beccam didn’t forget to mentioned the Bulgarian holiday. I didn’t forget I just have so many things to blog about and I can’t seem to find 5 minutes to write a couple of lines.