Having made the first step (deciding to take the PUA lifestyle seriously and open up to its potential) I feel like a refugee who's been dropped into mega supermarket.

I'm paralyzed by variety! A lot of you seem pretty experienced and you're still learning, so you have some idea of where you want to go with this. I read the newbie FAQ and I just got back from an outlet mall having tried the basic newbie intro test of saying "hi" to about two dozen young ladies I encountered. My armpits are now soaked and it was about as enjoyable as jogging along a cliff face but at least I did it.

There's a lot of great written material, but obviously it won't work without practice. And unfortunately my current friends are either uninterested or unavailable to sarge with me. This isn't a huge problem; I'm sure I can find sarging buddies pretty easily.

But my sole source of knowledge of the PUA community comes from Neil Strauss's book, which I read very casually a few years ago. Do I dive right in and take crashing and burning like a man? How much prep work should I do before hand? I read one commentator saying that the PUA lifestyle should be approached with the seriousness of a job. Do I try to build up my self confidence before hand, or is that developed "on the job" so to speak?

haha I know I'm totally overthinking this but I feel like a deer in the headlights!

I should mention my goals:

1) sleep with between a dozen to two dozen attractive women
2) afterwards get a quality girlfriend

I live in Orange County, CA. It's a target rich environment with a lot of attractive young ladies from different ethnicities. I am a grad student and trying to be frugal with my funds so I don't really have money to drop on a thousand dollar boot camp plus airfare. Most of the other students in my class are a lot older or honestly not that attractive, but there are plenty of other places to look!