I gotta admit, I get juiced when I listen to The Karate Kid anthem montage. How do I become the best? It's in the preparation, isn't it? As I referenced earlier, I came across an accounting book of an earlier edition from a class I'm going to take in the Spring and have been studying it. I got to thinking: at the start of a discipline, a student's role in the classroom is reactionary. As the framework of understanding is built, the learner is playing catchup, trying to hurriedly integrate concepts that are the building blocks of the discipline—and nothing is going to be built well until its concrete within the mind of the student.

Our education is our own responsibility. It's no different from the time I spend out in the gym.

In that spirit and in context of my earlier book find (for free, no less), I've created a strategy that I haven't heard of anyone else ever doing: find the syllabi for the classes in my program to see the texts they use, buy the textbooks, and study thoroughly the specific book to its completion before I enroll into the respective class.

Accounting textbooks are expensive. There will come a time when I'll have to pony up $262 off of Chegg for Auditing & Assurance Services, 7th edition. Even my beloved Tiger Bookstore on Walker runs it new for $291. While there's a 180-day e-component (used as a competitive advantage against the secondary market), the depreciation of a text in 3 years is a wild plunge off a cliff. Like fire up a 1969 Dodge Charger, play some Freebird, and push the pedal to the floorboard in a fireball of American muscle off the Grand Canyon's rim kind of plunge.

For that same $291 text, but 5th edition, I bought it for $3.98. Again, I won't be able to use the text once I'm in the course, but by studying it beforehand, instead of wasting time to just get up to speed on the topic, I can instead take the lectures and advance my understanding. For less than $50, I've got everything I need in my major for training approach.

To bring my education into parallel with the success of my workouts, I've chosen to integrate it into The Wall. To make room, I've eliminated my FitBit data, i.e. sleep and steps. I'll be adding my daily activity with my studies. I've got 75 days of training in the meantime before First Day of Classes.

Sweep the leg, Johnny.