Great news! I passed!
I ended up doing very well on the case section (because I studied that part mostly).
I always had fairly strong tax skills so i did well on that part too.
The results came out about 11 days after I wrote the exam.
I was happy to see that I passed because the list of people who failed was a lot larger than usual.
The bad news is I wasn't able to sign up for the module 2 and challenge in time! They gave me only 2 days after the core 1 exam to sign up! And after the core 1 exam was over, I relaxed my butt off!
Nevertheless, I can still challenge the core 2 exam. I might just do that.
Ending thoughts: You have to work hard and smart for what you want. Just remember in the process, you might forgo a bunch of other things. It's called a trade-off!