I gotta admit, I feel awesome...I feel like I'm at the start of a journey. And you know what, I'm reclaiming Kenny Rodgers The Gambler.

Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away
And knowin' what to keep.
‘Cause every hand's a winner
And every hand's a loser.
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep.

I just received word that I've been green lighted for financial aid for my studies. Not having the student loans wasn't a showstopper, but it does ease concerns to have them in play. Even just the textbooks for accounting ain't cheap with titles that start at $150 a pop. CLEARLY, it's not for the glossy pages and color photos. But, that's the thing with knowledge: rightly applied, the price tag is worth it. Things are lining up nicely for a Spring 2019 kickoff. While I wait for my transcript to be evaluated, I'm already preparing for my first class even though class enrollment is in November. I was fortunate to run across an earlier edition of Spiceland's Financial Accounting, 3rd Ed. for the first class I'm going to take. I won't be able to use it to save a couple of bucks— that's not the point. At any rate, from the syllabi I've read thus far, there's a strong bent toward using outside e-sources along with the main text.

My preparation is important for this: as a past grad student, my take on college education is that professors are helpful to point students in an effective direction, but books remain largely the vehicle to get them there. When I was an undergrad, I just sat there to soak up what I could in the lectures—sure, I'd peruse, but, I wouldn't describe it as poring into the text; looking back, I recognize that this tepid method left a lot of juice in the fruit.

My focus back then within Management Information Systems was on graduating—it wasn't on immersing myself into the discipline, including consuming outside sources to further deepen my understanding of the field. It was this rush to get out there in the industry. It was about techniques to pass classes while preserving a 3.0 GPA with minimal effort. What good is that? And to some extent, that's the inherent flaw in the system. That said, it's a shame we first go to college at 18 instead of 25 to allow for the brain to finish forming.

...but all that commentary aside, the title of this post says it all, "When you sense a change, nothing feels the same." Everything in the past just adds to my backstory of the character I'm developing. I'm picking up the tools to build the future for "I found an ace that I could keep."