Zero to USAMC in 7.0? (months) - John L's Training Journal

Goldfish · December 17, 2024, 11:11pm

Hello! It’s John. I’m extremely new to participating in memory sports and I’ve set myself a goal to qualify for the 2025 USA Memory Championship.

Here are my qualification targets for Memory League Disciplines (what I’d like to be 99% confident I can pull off on qualification day):

Cards: 52 in 2:30
Images: 30 in 0:45s
Names: 30 in 1:30
Numbers: 80 in 0:55
Words: 30 in 1:30

Current one-minute scores:

Cards: 10
Images: 20-22
Names: 12
Numbers: 24
Words: 12-16

Current perfect score times:

Cards: 12-14 minutes
Images: 2:15
Names: 10:00
Numbers: 5:00
Words: 8:50

System progress:

Numbers: 2-digit PAO is complete 00-99, but 10 to 15 of them are still tripping me up. Just need to sit down with some flashcards or something and blast through, might change a couple of the consistent troublemakers (Bunta Fujiwara, you’re on notice.) I plan to translate the more memorable ones to cards, but this is still a few weeks out for me, I think.
Cards: see above
Images: I’m using Simon’s Peg System with a couple tweaks, will continue to modify it as I practice and identify my slow spots
Names: I have started to assign a specific visual trait to common U.S. names from the last ~80 years that I expect to pop up even if they’re not currently in the ML pool; I expect this to get a little easier over time.
Words: Your guess is as good as mine, folks! This is by far my worst category. But once I make some progress and get the encoding/retrieval neurons used to doing their job maybe i’ll have a breakthrough.

FAQs and other points:

Q: Surely you’re not going to try to qualify for the USA MC with a one-image peg system, a 2-digit PAO, and “f it we ball” for words.

A: Not a question, but thanks for setting me up here! I’m not an extremely gifted memory athlete, but I am good at project management and setting specific an accurate goals. I feel confident that I can achieve my listed times above with my current strategies (uh, once words starts to make sense.) The goal times would have been 7th in cards, 5th in images, 2nd in names, 5th in numbers, and 4th in words during the 2024 qualifier, comfortably making the top 12. If everybody’s much better this year and I don’t Q, then I’ll still be satisfied with my progress.

Q: Why don’t you make your goal “improve your memory, have a good time, and don’t worry about what others are doing?”

A: To me, that sounds more like a ‘gaol’ than a ‘goal!’ The answer is simply: i love competition. I love it! I love to step into the arena with others, battle, improve, lose a lot at first, and get better that way. I love pressure. Part of the reason I drifted away from competitive trivia (my first love) is that it’s very difficult to get a fair, competitive match online. I’m very excited for all of the benefits that come along with a better memory and mnemonic techniques, but at the root of it is the desire to just… compete. So having a long-term goal focused on a competitive result is what i expect to work best for me. Who knows! I’d rather aim way too high and see what happens.

Q: When you decided to frame the rest of your first journal entry this way, did you think you’d have more than two questions?

A: I did, thanks. And now I’m right. Seeya when I update.

Goldfish · December 18, 2024, 9:32pm

good morning, December 18th! kicked it off today with a perfect ML images practice run (woohoo!)

Some thoughts on images/pegs:

when i stopped memorizing during this run, i was 80% confident that i’d pull a 30/30 here. Using the alphabet peg system, I stumbled on C, I, KLM (i knew each of the pegs immediately but was a little shaky on the order of the alphabet.) And then UV is tough to remember, but that’s mostly because I don’t remember what V is supposed to be and U is a little clunky in my brain. I’ve noticed that some of the pegs “click” and some don’t. I never forget #10 (Jump over), I never forget #5 (Eat), I seldom forget, weirdly enough, the difficult #17 (“Involve the Queen”, though for me it’s sometimes a chess piece and sometimes QE2, depending on the context. There’s a moment of deliberation there i’d like to eliminate going forward.) For 27-30 i’ve started to use the following:

27 - i think of this as “1”, the first post-alphabet. So I have “attacking with a Spear” because that’s what 1 looks like

28 - much less maturely, i see this as #2 so I imagine a flock of pigeons visiting the image (and, you know, evacuating their lunch)

29 - no idea what my logic here is, but i just think of it spinning around really fast

30 - i picture the image shooting into space attached to a rocket (maybe some tenuous connection to a 3-to-0 countdown?)

I’ll drill the specific pegs a bit but I think another day or two and I’ll be ready to move into figuring out another discipline. Alright! Day 1 of journaling in the books.

Goldfish · December 19, 2024, 8:41pm

good morning, December 19th!

Played my first rated ML games! Still a long way to go, but I was able to pull out an images 30/30 (in 60.00s) against a much, much more experienced opponent. Very happy with my progress so far. I started working on a list of names, planning to add 20 a day or so. If that’s too many or too few, I’ll adjust! I took lists of the most common US birth names by decade and plan to create a mnemonic for each, along with potential variations or related names:

James - Chains (it rhymes?)
Jamie - Jam. strawberry jam, coming from a can and all over. Ick.
Jim - lifting a dumbbell
Jimmy - crowbar, breaking open a door
Michael - Motorcycle
Mike - Microphone
Mikey - eating cereal (Life commercial)
Michelle - seashell
Robert - Robot
Rob - Mask, robbing a bank
Bob - bobbing up and down
Bobby - Police officer hat (the british kind)
John - wearing toilet paper
Johnny - at a port-a-potty (Johnny on the spot)
Jack - popping out of a jack-in-the-box
Jonathan - covered in honey (Jonathan from the Bible)
David - Star of David
Dave - in a Cave (rhyming. This one isn’t great. Maybe drawing on a cave wall?)
Davey - In a sailor outfit. (it rhymes with navy)
Davy - with bangs like Davy Jones in the Brady Bunch Movie (it also rhymes with navy. But they’re distinct in my head for now.)

I don’t know if it’s better to kind of depth-first it this way, but each of these names is common enough that they’re likely to come up, and I’d like to avoid going back 3 months from now and making “John” and “Johnny” the same on accident or something. Well, back to practicing! seeya tomorrow.

Goldfish · December 20, 2024, 7:41pm

good afternoon, December 20th!

First try of the day so far, slowly working my way down in time. I did have a brief moment of panic when i had 3, 22, 23, and 29 left and they all felt very similar, but i was able to slowly untangle it. A 60.00s images would have been 9th in 2024 qualifying, so I’m struggling with the duality of “still gotta get much faster” (this is extremely true) and “gotta build consistency so i can show up on match day” (possibly even more true.) I know the consistency will come later and that I’m going to have to make myself uncomfortable with the speed to improve, but if i lower it by a second every day or two i’m going to run into a barrier by the end of january at the latest (and probably this weekend, tbh) , so i think that’s where my focus will be for now. Time to move on to a list i’m calling “James and Faces” because that’s the first name on it. Here’s the next batch:

William - Apple on head (william tell)
Will - standing on a scale (breaking it, the little needle going in circles comically. After all, where there’s a will, there’s a weigh.) (you can press ctrl+w or cmd+w to close a browser tab.)
Bill - on a dollar bill
Billy - interacting with a pool ball/cue (billiards)
Willie - steering the boat like steamboat Willie
Richard - Monocle and top hat (a rich person)
Rich - surrounded by gold and money bags (more focus on the money than the ‘Richard’ image)
Rick - pulling a Rickshaw (he’s sweating. He hates his job.)
Ricky - rocking in a Rickety Rocking chair
Dick - Uhhhhh, solving a crime! You know, like Dick Tracy! (no. it’s not this.)
Thomas - you know this guy’s gonna be a train engine.
Tom - setting off extremely legal and safe fireworks (action i associate with one of my family members, and i expect to use “cat” stuff in the Catherine tree)
Tommy - firing a Tommy gun
Thom - exaggeratedly winking
Mark - giant painted red X over the face
Marky - walking around with underwear sticking out (Marky Mark)
Marc - big rabbit ears (MARCh hare, idk)
Marcus - meditating (loudly and annoyingly, if you can do that)
Mary - appearing with a Guadalupe-style backlight halo
Marie - Wearing an Antoinette-style Tiara
Maria - playing Mariachi music
Merry - popping out of a christmas tree
Linda - hiding behind blinds
Lynn - roaring like a “lion”
Lindsay - using a lint roller on clothes
Lindsey - using a lint roller on face
Patricia - wearing a toga (“patrician”) – we’ll see if this works
Pat - patting self on back
Patty - eating a greasy, rare hamburger patty (gross, juices everywhere)
Tricia - with triceratops horns
Trish - using a fishing spear (trident+fish = trish)
Susan - spinning around with outstretched hands
Sue - slamming the table in court
Susannah - playing an out-of-tune banjo
Susie - making a mess with peanut butter (there was this diner by my old apartment that had a desert called Susie’s Peanut Butter Sundae and the spoons were always too small)

Well, that’s all I’ve got for today. Planning to continue working on my PAO list (i’ve removed a few since yesterday and the new ones are much quicker but still plenty of work to do.) seeya tomorrow!

Goldfish · December 21, 2024, 9:27pm

good afternoon, December 21st! decided to take a couple shots at faster images times.

frustrating miss here, just hurried a little and didn’t double check that my pegs were in the right place, this should have been a 30.

this one i was nowhere near knowing for sure and frankly was probably lucky to end with 28 instead of 26.

Continuing to drill PAO numbers, just making sure I fix all the ones I stumble on before I start trying to get my times down. Here’s my new list of names:

Charles - big manager name tag (Charles in Charge)
Charlie - biting into a bar of gold (golden ticket)
Chaz - riding aboard a chess knight
Chuck - exaggerated front teeth like a woodchuck
Chad - outline of head stretches to look like the country of Chad
Gary - eyes on attenae like Gary the Snail
Garrett - with a slushie all over his face (i have a friend named Garrett who likes the tv show Glee a lot and this happens in that show)
Gareth - wearing a Garland
Deborah - holding a gavel (only female Judge named in the Bible book)
Debbie - floating around a shipwreck (“debris”)
Deb - in a spider web
Debra - striped like a Zebra (pretending i speak british for this one so it rhymes
Karen - that haircut (sorry)
Caren - pulling a carrot out of the ground
Kara - big bouquet of flowers
Cara - inside a big turtle shell
Carol - ringing bells
Carolyn - singing Christmas songs
Caroline - pouring sugar on her head
Nancy - knee brace (Nancy Kerrigan)

Seeya tomorrow!

Goldfish · December 23, 2024, 6:37pm

good morning, December 23rd! my names “performance” has certainly suffered a bit in the short term as i try to move from my current strategy of “ad hoc short term memory” for everything, but i’ll keep adding names to the list and the ones i recognize and can encode feel great! Aside from that, mostly took yesterday off training and my brain enjoyed the break, but back to the grind. this time next week I’d like to start trying to hit 80 digits in a minute, so i’m going to move my focus to numbers for the next week or so instead of images since my images goal is in reach-ish (to maybe achieve once! not with the kind of consistency i would need to be comfortable! It’s still a long, long way. but taking steps every day. or, i guess, resting some days so tomorrow’s steps can be bigger. alright! here’s some names.

Donna - Disco ball
Dawn - Sun rising
Donnie - wearing a big billowing cape
Don - wearing a fedora
Donny - with a little donkey
Cynthia - playing a synthesizer
Cindy - surrounded by falling ash
Cyndi - holding a piano keyboard
Cindi - holding a film reel
Steven - Stamping something
Stephen - standing in front of a steeple
Steve - holding a staff (‘stave’)
Stevie - reflecting the glow of a TV
Steph - wearing a Stethoscope
Stephanie - wearing a necklace with the name Stephanie on it
Joseph - multicolored coat
Joe - drinking coffee
Joey - in a kangaroo pouch
Jo - doing a yo-yo trick (this one’s thin)
Jose - spraying a hose (i know it doesn’t rhyme)
Josue - drinking a juice box

i’m also up to ML level 10 in 3 (2 and a half, images/names/int. names) events now following this practice run from a couple minutes ago:

still a long long way to go here if i want to legitimately compete in ML seasons but i don’t want to spend too much time on it and lose focus of the big goal (it’s in the thread title!) okay seeya tomorrow (maybe? it’s christmas eve. but if santa can visit a billion houses in a night, i can review a little PAO)

Goldfish · December 25, 2024, 12:12am

good afternoon, December 24th! Short update today – did some more name mnemonics. i won’t keep posting them here because they’re becoming more and more personally useful (meaning, useless to most other people, lol.) but I’ve also found 15-20 numbers in my 00-99 that are still just impossible for me to crack. I need to replace some and tune others, but mostly I just need to practice learning instead of full event runs. Anyway, my brag of the day–first < 60s images score where I actually pressed a button through instead of the timed autoprogress:

I think I can make big gains here because there are a lot of pegs I feel really good about and can encode in half a second instead of taking the full 2s from auto-advance. the additional mental load of encoding and making sure i know what’s coming next peg-wise before i advance is a little extra but it’s been enjoyable. Anyway, seeya tomorrow; merry Christmas and happy start of Hanukkah! (same day, wow! only happens every twenty years or so)

TheHumanTim · December 25, 2024, 2:31am

Can I ask what system you’re using to create your PAO number list?

Goldfish · December 25, 2024, 3:44am

It’s kind of a hodgepodge of:

major system
number associations that make sense
filling in the blanks from there with “memorable” things.

it’s not working great so far but i think a good amount of that is just my inexperience. But some of it can definitely be improved. Open to suggestions!

TheHumanTim · December 25, 2024, 2:15pm

Sooo…

(Disclaimer: Everyone is different and some people have no problem mixing systems. Just about any type of system construction can be eventually trained to fluency, even a mixed one. But…)

Since your goal is competition level speed, I recommend you pick a single approach and push through the work of building a consistent system.

When you’re trying to go fast, (especially very fast), you want as little hesitation as possible and you want to be able to “automate” as many factors as you can in order to free up your focus and brainpower to actually construct your memorable scenes. You want the least extra active processes to have to run in your brain as possible.

If you are mixing systems to create your number list you have to actively engage your attention to recognize which numbers belong to which system. This can slow things down a lot.

When I first attempted to fill in a 3-digit system, I took this mixed approach. Most entries used Major, but some I tried for instinctive association like 007 as James Bond and 666 as Satan. The problem was once I started trying to train for recognition, I’d be going fine sounding things out
004 - Scissor
005 - Sicily
006 - Sausage
007… Um… Suh suh kuh.. suh zuh guh… Errrr…

And I’d blank out, then I’d realize oh right this is one of my exceptions.

It would totally derail my pacing and be a distraction that prevented me from moving my recognition speed into fluent territory.

In my opinion, the best way to avoid this is to base your number system on a single system. I love Major and always recommend people try it out first. Its like learning a language but once you’re fluent, you can basically just “read” numbers (and cards) as if reading words on a page.

If you’re interested, I’ve posted my complete 2-digit Major list here. It includes people, actions, objects, all based fully on the major phonetics. (It also has locations and adjectives derived from major as well, but don’t worry about those.)

As I said up front, it may turn out to be no problem for you to mix systems, but I think its worth taking a little bit of extra time at the beginning of your training to work on consistency.

You’re off to an awesome start with everything, keep it up!!

Goldfish · December 25, 2024, 8:12pm

Thank you, that totally makes sense! I think I’ve been hesitant to move to a consistent system because i don’t want to “lose” my “progress” but i’m certainly still in the stages where I shouldn’t commit to something suboptimal. I’ll check out your major system list (and will probably have some questions!) but i really appreciate the advice.

One of the things i’ve struggled with is encoding memorably–as in, i say “okay it’s neo from the matrix eating a cadillac” or whatever and i “place” it at a locus and then i get back there in recall and it just didn’t stick. I think part of that is that the number-to-person process is slow for exactly the reasons you mentioned. This is definitely an opportunity to get more familiar with Major (which has a lot of potential utility outside of my silly little specific goal this year so it would be nice to focus some energy there.)

anyhow, since i don’t plan to update this topic again today, better post my christmas present to myself from a few minutes ago! vroom vroom.

seeya tomorrow, everybody!

TheHumanTim · December 25, 2024, 8:52pm

Think about how the recall process works.

The locus is the thing that you know that you’ll know. It’s the effortless piece that should anchor not just your sequence order but it should also provide you a trigger to kickstart the recall of your scene.

If you just “place” the scene at the locus, there may not be enough interaction or relatability with the locus to enable clear recall.

If you can find a way to include the locus as an active or interactive part of the scene, you may find that the other elements are easier to recall because when you recall the location you’ll have a link to everything else.

So if you have Neo Eating a Cadillac at your front door, instead of just like opening the door and there he is, imagine the door transforming somehow to link to Neo. Maybe the door starts waterfalling that green binary matrix code and Neo morphs out of it. Then on recall when you get to the door, you’ll be more likely to link it to Neo than if you just try to remember what was happening behind the door.

The more familiar and fluent you are with your memory palace, the easier these “entrance animations” will be to create and include.

Remember the scene can start WITH the location, not just AT it!

Goldfish · December 26, 2024, 7:52pm

good morning, December 26th! Starting to push images consistently down past 50s this week, here’s my best so far:

Thanks again to @TheHumanTim for the advice on PAO number assignments (and the list!); I’ve decided to build 00-99 using Major across the board. I’ll likely adjust these down the line as i practice but I’ve started with the following 20:

XX	Person	Action	Object	notes on object
00	CeCe	SeiZing	SauCe
01	SiD	SiTTing	ZiTi
02	SoNya	SigNing	SigN
03	SuMo	SwiMming	SuMo	mawashi
04	SoRa	SoaRing	SoRRy
05	SoLo	SaiLing	SeaL
06	SaSHa	SaSHay	SuSHi
07	ZaC	SuCKing	SoCK
08	SoPHie	SaVing	SoFa
09	SaPP	SiPPing	SouP
10	DaiSy	ToSSing	DiCe
11	TeD	TooTing	ToaD
12	ToNy	DeNying	ToNNe	comically large weight
13	TiM	TiMing	ToMb
14	DaRa	TeaRing	DeeR
15	DoLLy	DeaLing	DoLL
16	DeeJay	DodGing	DiSH
17	TaCKo	DeCKing	DeCK	deck of cards
18	TiFa	DiVing	DuFF
19	DoBBy	DaBBing	TaPe

I’m also continuing to expand my names and faces list and hopefully will improve in the near future there. I worry that I’m wasting time not practicing numbers/cards, but I want to be as efficient as possible when I really dive in there and I feel like i’m still managing to use my practice time well on images and names. The words discipline continues to baffle me, but I’ve got time. I think I need to really hammer out palaces as part of my daily routine as well, don’t want to be weak there when I start working on the events that rely on loci. Alright. seeya tomorrow!

Goldfish · December 28, 2024, 1:02am

good evening, December 27th! (evening? yikes! long day at work, but the last one of the year!)

Keeping on keeping on today, managed a few more images 30/30s in 45-46s, with this near miss:

oops, but also, come on. how am i supposed to differentiate sunsets? i don’t go outside. (just kidding. clear opportunity for improvement here.) Aside from that, added some numbers to the new PAO major system list:

XX	Person	Action	Object	notes
20	NeSS	uNZipping	NoSe
21	kNighT	kNighTing	NighTie
22	NuN	NeoN	NaNo	ipod
23	gNoMe	NaMing	NaMe	nametag
24	NeRo	uNeaRthing	NaiR
25	NeLLy	kNeeLing	NaiL
26	NaSH	huNCHing	NaCHo
27	NiCK	kNoCKing	NuKe
28	NoVa	uNiFying	kNiFe
29	NaPPa	NaPPing	NiP
30	MooSe	aMaSSing	MouSe	computer mouse
31	MiTT	MeeTing	MeaT
32	MuNN	MooNing	MooN
33	MuMMy	MiMing	MeMo
34	MaRy	MaRRying	eMeRy
35	MaLLow	MuLing	MoLe
36	MisCHa	MaSHing	MatCH
37	MiCKey	MuCKing	MiC
38	MuFFy	MoVing	MoVie
39	MoBy	MoPPing	MaP

put a few more names on the list as well, but tomorrow’s going to be focused on building some palaces. Excited to see where that ends up. Alright, that’s it for the day. Seeya tomorrow!

Goldfish · December 30, 2024, 6:36pm

good morning, December 30th! I finished my 00-99 major system PAO and i know i’ll be spending some long nights with anki, but the benefit of having something that’s logically consistent from top to bottom is absolutely huge.

Continuing to work on images and names, but i’m excited to start attacking numbers and cards. Here’s today’s best run (so far):

I’ve also stopped ~~cheating~~ skipping the wait before recall because the temptation to just jam the last 4-5 in short-term memory is a lot, but i can tell it isn’t going to be long-term helpful.

I also started building some virtual memory palaces. After an extremely productive argument that wasn’t a waste of time at all, i learned that the minecraft account i created upon purchasing the game in 2009 was obliterated in late 2023 because i didn’t migrate it to microsoft or something. that’s okay, i’m not bitter! I tinkered with building in Escape Simulator a bit instead. some things are a bit inflexible (most aren’t), but overall it’s been incredible and i highly recommend it if you’re in a similar situation. and I haven’t even tried it in VR yet!

Anyway, the grind continues. Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I started this. I’m satisfied but not complacent with my progress so far and I know that most of the bumps are still ahead. Seeya tomorrow!

TheHumanTim · December 30, 2024, 7:00pm

Here’s a quick tip on locking those in, since you’re using direct number to element association like I did. (And forgive me if you already thought of this)

You should try to learn each number’s three associations independently of each other. When practicing and drilling for fluency, each number should be viewed as representing “a Person” OR “an Action” OR “an Object”, not as “a Person doing an Action with an Object.”

So like “27” is “Nick” when learning it in the Person slot. Only Nick. Not Nick Knocking on a Nuke, just Nick. 27 is “knocking” when it is an action. Just the action of knocking. 27 is a Nuke when you are learning it as an object. Nothing is being done to that Nuke and no specific person is there with it.

In this way, you’ll be strengthening those DIRECT associations between the number and the appropriate contextual element.

There’s an analogous thing in language where for example you have a word that sounds like “Mail.” Mail can be an action when you ship something. It can be a object like a pile of envelopes. And it can be a person, “male.” You know which one to picture based on the context its used in. So when you see 27 in certain contexts you’ll be able to picture the proper association without having to reference anything else.

For practice with Anki, its tempting to just make 100 cards with like the front saying 27 and the back saying “Nick - Knock - Nuke” but this will make it harder to achieve that independent direct association with each element. You should try to make a single card for each element. 100 people, 100 actions, 100 objects. The front should indicate “27 - person” or “27 - Object” etc so that you know which context you’re reading the number in. This can be tough at first, but the big advantage you have is that you’ve built everything off of Major, so you don’t have to deal with any extra conversion steps. Just read the sounds in their contexts.

Excited to see how you do with this approach! Keep it up!

Goldfish · January 3, 2025, 4:44am

well, i wish this part were faster! lol. PAO practice PAO practice PAO practice. Once i get everything locked in i’m excited to start doing digits and cards for a bit, but for now i’m just grinding. seeya soonish!

edit 1/3 (don’t want to make a whole new post):

my excuse for this one is that image #14 messed up my recall for that section because i glanced at the top and thought it was an incorrect border lol

mostly just need to practice more! but pushing down into the mid-30s feels good. This is the speed right now where it feels like the connections are just forming fast enough that i can recall them with some luck, and we’ll keep on moving down from here! have a great weekend everybody!

Goldfish · January 15, 2025, 4:47pm

Good morning, January 15th!

Been a minute, certainly. I’ve been struggling a lot with committing 00-99 PAO to memory. I’ve created an Anki deck that I’m working through, but cementing these connections is super difficult. Open to suggestions, but I know I’ve got a lot more work to do (when I see 78, it still takes me a couple seconds to remember if it’s K-V or V-K, etc.) But if I’ve practiced 2 hours a day for the last 15 days, that’s only 30 hours. Six minutes per each of 300 images on average, not counting the time doing formatting/card creation/etc, which is probably at least a third of the time. So…four minutes an image, and i’m frustrated that i haven’t made more progress? Not really worth complaining about.

The good news is that I’ve always known this is the type of thing I struggle with. Once i’ve got a system in place and I can just grind out practice sessions, the results will come. But creating the system in a way that’s memorable to me personally is rough. But I’m making progress! This Friday marks 1 month of practice, so I think I’ll run some practice events then and get a benchmark for where I am on my journey. I’m still very enthusiastic about this pursuit and hopefully by this time next month i’ll be more in the practice stage where i’m more comfortable instead of having to be creative and imaginative (ick, lol!) Seeya soon!

Goldfish · January 22, 2025, 2:01am

Continuing to work on cards (and 00-99) PAO, getting from card->person or card->action/object is quite fast, just need to work on creating memorable scenes and recalling (and building more palaces). I think i’m probably around 8 minutes to memorize a deck currently, though i haven’t sat down and done it (which means i haven’t done it!)

But i can feel the changes happening in my brain to some degree, and i’m getting more consistent/fast with images and starting to make names and words progress (a little. words are super tough)

here’s an images sub-40 hooray! seeya soon

next day nothing new to post edit:

bloop!

Goldfish · January 25, 2025, 8:57pm

good morning, january 25th! Very little to report, i’m just practicing PAO cards most of the time. I’m usually able to memorize 12 in a minute, with 15 and even 18 on the table if i get cards i know really well. but spending most of my training time in Anki nowadays. Need to focus more on building memorable palaces and placing the images in a stickier way, but that will all come with time. Continuing to push images! (why do houses gotta look like houses)

edit jk got this one a couple tries later