Stick a Fork in Me...

I'M DONE!

It feels so so good to say that.  Exam day went fairly well.  I had some test day jitters, which is to be expected, but felt relatively calm.  Having a fun outfit to put on really helped!

I feel most confident when wearing dresses!  (disregard the dirty mirror - housekeeping was LOW on my priority list last week)

 The exam started at 9 am, after a very drawn out check-in and instruction reading process.  Thank goodness I don't struggle with test anxiety - the whole process is just a hot bed for anxiety!  The morning session felt very hard.  The CFA threw a lot of curve balls at us, and on one problem set, my calculations were not resulting in one of the possible answers.  That is an AWFUL feeling.  I kept track of the ones I was unsure of, though, and I think there is a chance I got around a 70 in the morning.  Maybe.

My lunch break didn't quite go as planned...  The restaurant took the nicoise salad off of their menu (how dare they!!).  So I went with the next best option (mussels and fries - yum!) and tried not to let it shake me.  Yes, I have my rituals, but I wasn't going to let a change in menus shake me.

Luckily the afternoon session went much better.  I felt pretty confident about most of my answers and think I may have scored close to an 80.  So hopefully when they average the 2, I will pass.  I talked to others who took the exam and they agreed that the morning was brutal and the afternoon went better...  So now I just hope I did a little better than they did in the am.

I felt really good when I walked out of the test center.  Not as good as last year when I was completely confident I had passed - but I left knowing I had done my best and work as hard as I could have (my study hours came to the total of 368.5!!).

I got to my aunt & uncle's and was greeted with chips, salsa, guac, and wine!  When my parents and brother arrived, we had a champagne toast.  I definitely felt VERY loved!  Then it was off the the restaurant for some yummy mexican food!  I had such a fun night - I got to sit by my nephews, who provided endless entertainment.  I watched in wonder as my 4 year old nephew consumed about 3 times as many chips as I did and then proclaimed, "It's a good day for chips!"  Yes, Matthew, I think that is the case everyday.  ;)

Here are a couple of iPhone photos that I snapped!

Andrew and Matthew practicing their balancing skills with the place mats!

It was Andrew's birthday on Friday so he got to wear a sombrero and we sang to him!

All in all, it was a really fun night.  I laughed a lot, had a ton of fun, and barely thought about the CFA.

I had a pretty fitful night of sleep on Saturday night as I kept thinking about exam questions and how I answered them, but hopefully I can put the over-analysis behind me.  It does no good for me to think about it - what's done is done.  I can't go back and change anything so I just have to accept that it was enough.

Pass or fail - I am ready for a break!!  And I intend to FULLY enjoy my summer!  I've got so much to look forward to between weekends at the cabin, workouts with my run club, my sister Abby's visit home, and Amber's wedding in July!

How was your weekend?