As of yesterday, November 1, I am officially a student at the University of Memphis through its UofM Global program.

I'm living an 80s montage! You've seen it—a series of cutscenes set to inspiring music, pushing toward the final challenge, the big boss, or whatever. One of initial challenges the protagonist has to face is his fear...

Ceteris paribus, meditating on change releases the billowing shadows of fear. It is not that we don't want change for our good, but, it is the potential for loss. And no doubt it correlates to whatever our personal ratio of cynicism is.

The thing with remaining in place is that our perspective is from there. If I may poorly misrepresent C.S. Lewis from his Weight of Glory:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We may not even realize we could have it much, much better. We may not even understand we're plopped up in an existential squalor of mud walls.

We could just sit there in the muck, clinching tightly onto the mud. Or, we could train to become strong, fast, and develop cardio to be fresh for the fight.

Through effective preparation and training, we approach and eliminate reasonable fear—wax on, wax off. As it has been said, "You've got to give to live...if you know what you want, just go on out and get it."

As far as Sulley's rampage in the closet:

Ron Swanson: Of course, this bowling alley has my favorite restaurant in Pawnee.

Ann Perkins: Really? You're not scared to eat here?

Ron Swanson: When I eat, it is the food that is scared.

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.

I'm reminded of Halloweens of nights past, specifically, the Reformation Day party I attended in 2002. It was the coolest event on Halloween that I had ever attended—at the time, I wasn't even Reformed! I was living with a couple buddies of mine in a rougher neighborhood outside of Midtown just north of Jackson Ave in Memphis. Across the street, there was a strange bubble of a place. Inside lived a 7-foot, online day trader who had attended Harvard, Yale, and Oxford and married a wife from Scotland. The house literally had a bookcase attached to each wall—and not just any books, but only theology. Very impressive. He invited us to his party and it was us and pastors from across the city. Toward the end of the night, he rolled out a wheelbarrow that was full of books and told everyone to take one. I took a C.S. Lewis text.

I remember trudging through snow at the airport on my last night in Anchorage on that Halloween night four years ago in 2014, moving back to my home state via backpack and a couple of checked bags. It was a night of frenzied activity, something akin to Home Alone, moving out of an apartment as the taxi company elected to just not pick us up without giving any heads up. Nevertheless, we successfully boarded the plane and the only Kevin left behind was my donated GMC Yukon. It was an overnight flight that eventually led me to be in Memphis the next day. It was a transition from the winter, back to autumn. As I stood looking out from high above in my room at The Hilton Memphis, I was taken back by how green everything was.

And now, I'm prompted by this Halloween, a transfiguration of potential as I further reap the results of continued weightloss and setup for Spring 2019 studies.