Journal of a GMS User, How GMS affects my everyday life Options

[Zachary Seeley]

Introducing Fainaent

I think an introduction is in order. My name is Zachary. I am a 21 year-old college student, living in Utah, USA. Last August, a few weeks before I started college I decided to purchase the GMS course and see what it could do for me. I was definitely skeptical at first, and I cleaned out my savings account after paying for tuition and housing to buy the course. I actually had to borrow some money from my parents to buy my books, but I still hold to the stance that it was the best investment I have ever/could ever make. One semester later and I have finished the course, but I still feel like a student of GMS. Everywhere I go there is information I want to memorize.

I love people. I love just getting to know and understand individuals better. There are people I meet whose names, phone numbers, and birthdays I want to remember. I want to be able to remember every important thing I learn about my wife(when I meet her ), her favorite music, food, colors, numbers, friends, relatives, goals, wishes, etc...

I love history. I want to know it all. I want to be able to tell you when George Washington was born, when he died, when he crossed the Delaware. I want to know who all the prime ministers were. I want to know the history of Egypt, India, China, Japan.

I love science. I want to be able to tell you what a quasar is, what the palisade mesophyll is. I want to be able to explain biological and chemical processes in depth. I want to be able to explain physics concepts.

I love religion. I want to memorize the bible. I want to be able to say 'The account of Jesus feeding the 5000 is given in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6.'

I love dancing. I want to be able to easily memorize intricate dance routines.

I love languages. I want to learn Arabic, Hebrew, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, to name a few.

The list goes on and on, and I am no longer daunted by the task of learning everything I've always wanted to. Now let me share a few experience that I have had in the past that I never want to replicate.

I actually had an experience where my cell-phone battery died on the weekend, and I had left my battery charger at my apartment while I was visiting my parents. I couldn't remember my girlfriend's number! I had just always used the speed dial, so I had forgotten her number and couldn't call/txt her all weekend... She thought I was mad at her. If I had GMS when I met her, I know I wouldn't have had that problem.

I have a good friend, Jessica, that I met about 5 months ago. We helped each other through some hard times, and had a lot of fun together for the first few weeks, but then we didn't see each other for a couple of months... I bumped into her one day, and we sat and talked for a while. I couldn't remember her name for the life of me. I knew it started with a 'J', but that was as far as I had gotten. If I had GMS when I met her, I know I wouldn't have had that problem.

My friend and I tried to write down every state and it's capital about a year ago. We got about 45 of the states, and maybe 30 capitals, as a combined effort. Now it's nothing major, but I would like to know. Just as an example in one of the lessons I memorized the 50 states, and I can now recall them alphabetically from A-Z, and Z-A. As a side note I was watching TV and saw a commercial for a game show. The host asked the question 'How many states begin with the letter 'N''. I was able to come up with 8 in a matter of seconds, while the contestants all had a blank look on their face.

A friend asked me how my previous week had been. I said 'Great! I finished my finals, and took Kim out on a great date.' He asked when I took her out and I said 'Uhh... Thursday or Friday, I think' . Starting today I am keeping a daily log in my mind, so I will always be able to remember when something happened.

I am heading back to college on Monday. I will be using GMS to learn Arabic, memorize my American History textbook, and memorize the concepts and formulas in my Physics class. I also know that my increased visualization abilities will help me to grasp concepts in all my classes, including Calculus. I was able to 'see' why something was happening in my Trigonometry class last semester simply by visualizing it.

So, Happy New-Year to everyone, may this be the best year of your life! I know it will be for me.

-Zachary

[BARTPIT]

Zachary,

thanks for all of your posts. I try to keep up with the message boards just to get an inside track and learn more. I come across your posts all the time. Thanks for the motivation!! I have been trying to get done with the first set of lessons and hope you are still on the message boards when I really get stuck.
Thanks for all of your help and motivation!

have a great 08!

BP

[Zachary Seeley]

A relaxing week, back at the ranch

Sorry BP, I'm a little OCD so I just got rid of that huge quote.

I'm not going to post anything in this journal unless it comes straight from my memory by way of GMS. If you don't believe me, drive on up to my house and I'll prove it to you

Yesterday my family went snow-shoeing up on the mountain. I was going to go with them, but decided I had better work on some things here instead. I quickly memorized the number of a girl I was going to take out this week, after the fiasco with my last girlfriend I decided I'd better put all the important people into memory . A good friend of mine brought by a poster-sized calendar for me. The idea is to have one goal to work on all year. If you succeed in your goal, you check off that day. This is the second year I've used this calendar, I keep it on my bedroom door so I can't go to sleep without checking to see if I've done that. Hopefully, by the end of the year, you've become perfect in some small aspect of your life. I like it, and it's helped me previously.

Today I drove up to my friend's house. She has been visiting her parents for the Christmas break, as have I. We were going to double-date with my best friend and his wife, but they were delayed in arriving. While we were waiting my date was putting strips of tape on her cat's tail. The cat would crow-hop around the room, seemingly in an effort to 'buck off' the tape. Her mom actually asked her what her new cell phone number was, and I immediately saw the images for her number in my mind, but decided to let her tell her mom instead. We decided my friends weren't coming after all and headed to Salt Lake. We ate at 'Su Casa'. It was her first time drinking Horchata, and about my thousandth time Afterward we were sitting in my car waiting for it to warm up(I think it was about 10 degrees Farenheit). We had a nice long conversation, mostly having to do with a train and an intersection... I drove her back home and we played Carcassonne, one of my favorite games, while we were watching Sense and Sensibility. This was also the first time I had seen her since she dyed her hair back to brown.

Now I'm not going to always give a full account of every date I go on, or everything I do each day, I'll mostly be focusing on the application of GMS to my academic studies, but I want to illustrate how simple and effective GMS is for this. I didn't memorize any of this while it was happening, I was having much too much fun just living it. But each evening I sat down and in about 5 minutes memorized what had happened that day. Using this system I will be able to look back on any day and recall exactly what happened that day, and in what order.

I'm going to begin memorizing chess openings, so that should help keep me occupied for the next few days/weeks/months

One other thing that GMS has helped me with. You know all those great ideas you get during the day, but forget because you don't write them down? I found a great solution. I use GMS and never forget them!

-Zachary

[Zachary Seeley]

Wonder-idity

I was flipping through channels this afternoon when I came across a History Channel program on the wonders of the ancient world. I decided to learn some more about them, so I did some research and came up with the material I wanted to memorize. There is some difficulty in trying to learn the dates these monuments were constructed and destroyed, as well as their dimensions, but I did my best to use the most accurate, verifiable data.

1 - Great Pyramid of Giza. Constructed approximately 2500 BC, this pyramid still stands today. Stands about 455ft tall.

2 - Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Constructed approximately 600 BC, these gardens lasted until the first century B.C.

3 - Statue of Zeus. Constructed approximately 435 BC, this statue lasted until about 400 A.D. Stood 40 ft. tall.

4 - Temple of Artemis. Constructed approximately 550 BC, this temple lasted until 400 BC. The columns stood 60 ft. tall.

5 - Mausoleum*. Constructed approximately 350 BC, lasted until 1300 AD. Stood 135 ft tall.

6 - Colossus of Rhodes. Constructed approximately 304 BC, lasted until 226 BC. Stood 110 ft tall.

7 - Lighthouse of Alexandria. Constructed approximately 285 BC, lasted until 1303 AD. Estimated to have stood 400ft tall.

*I didn't memorize any of the names specifically, so I didn't remember the name where this was situated...(Halicarnassus)

Now that's all the information that I specifically memorized. The research took me some time to gather, but the actual memorization process I completed in about 10 minutes. An interesting thing to note is that while I memorized them in this order, I decided to switch the Statue of Zeus and the Temple of Artemis to keep the list in proper chronological order. With GMS you don't have to re-memorize anything, it's as easy as doing a cut/paste on your computer to move information to a new location . One of the great things about GMS is that it helps you to remember information that you didn't specifically memorize as well. Once your brain gets started remembering something, it keeps going. Some of the things that I remember indirectly are that the Pyramid was built by order of Khufu. It had a gold capstone on the top which obviously hasn't remained to this day. The Hanging Gardens, noone knows how large they were, or exactly how they were watered, or necessarily how they were destroyed. A roman emperor attempted to remove the statue of Zeus, but the workers were frightened by a cackling noise they heard when they started preparing it. Shortly thereafter the emperor was murdered. The statue was made to fill the space of the temple it was in, to make it appear more imposing. The temple of Artemis was actually built, destroyed, and rebuilt a number of times over the course of a century, and was built larger each time. The dimensions here are from the second-to-last reincarnation. The colossus of Rhodes was damaged in an earthquake, it broke at the knee. There was funding available to repair it but an oracle declared that it was not to be rebuilt. The designer of the lighthouse actually carved his name into the base of the building after he was ordered not to, and then he covered it up with plaster and inscribed the name of the ruler he was building it for.

There are a few other details that stick out at me when I go through the anamnesis process. I plan on adding some more information about these, maybe later tonight. I want to make sure I can recall the names of the leaders who ordered these built, the designers, and how they were destroyed. That reminds me, Both the lighthouse of Alexandria and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus were damaged severely by earthquakes around the 14th century. Since they were situated on opposite sides of the Mediterranean I wonder if they were damaged by the same earthquakes or if that was simply a tumultuous year...

I'm just trying to keep my brain in shape, I'm starting to feel like a couch potato. Aside from the 2 hours I practice on my guitar each day I don't do nearly enough to keep in shape... stupid vacations

-Zachary

Edit: The Temple of Artemis actually lasted until 356BC, I used the information from the wrong website on that one.

[pmp]

Amazing stuff, thanks for sharing Zachary!

[Zachary Seeley]

Wonder-idity, part 2

You're welcome PMP

I was quite busy today, trying to finish up some projects by Monday. I made a goal to memorize something every day though, so I just decided to add onto my Wonders of the World Database.

1 - Pyramid at Giza. I added the dimensions of the base, approximately 756 feet on each side. I also added that it's part of the Necropolis, which I plan on studying tomorrow. I already knew it was built by Khufu, but I added the data just to make sure I never forgot.

2 - Hanging Gardens. Constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II in Babylon for his wife Amytis of Media. Not quite sure on these estimates but for now I'm going with the gardens being approximately 400ft. x 400ft. x 82 ft

3 - Temple of Artemis. Constructed at Ephesus by Chersiphron. Destroyed July 21, 356 BC. by Herostratus. He burned it to gain immortality through fame. He was executed and a mandate was made not to record his name, but he did become known for that anyway. Alexander the Great was actually born that very day, and it was said that Artemis was too busy making sure he was delivered safely to save her burning temple.

4 - Statue of Zeus. Made by Phidias, located in Olympia.

5 - Mausoleum of Mausolus at Halicarnassus.

6 - Colossus of Rhodes. A statue of the god Helios, created by Charles of Lindos

7 - Lighthouse at Alexandria. Ordered created by Ptolemy Soter, finished under the rule of his son Ptolemy Philadelphos.

It's not much, but GMS allows you to take just a short amount of time(even at 1AM when you get home ) and learn something that you will easily be able to remember for as long as you wish.

Cheers everyone, have a great day!

-Zachary

[pmp]

Zachary,
Just wondering: did you write down all these stuff and store them somewhere just so in case you may no longer able to remember them anymore in the future (and so all the efforts wasted in a sense) - if say, you do not have a chance to practice recalling them on a regular basis and therefore get 'erased' from the memory? (sorry about the sentence structure...)
Thanks,
PMP

[Zachary Seeley]

Zachary,
Just wondering: did you write down all these stuff and store them somewhere just so in case you may no longer able to remember them anymore in the future (and so all the efforts wasted in a sense) - if say, you do not have a chance to practice recalling them on a regular basis and therefore get 'erased' from the memory? (sorry about the sentence structure...)
Thanks,
PMP

Yes, I have. While I was reading about the wonders I would write down the facts I wanted to memorize and once I had everything gathered I actually encoded it. I do this to have consistency in my images. For instance, viewing any of the wonders, I first see the year it was built, where it was built, by who, it's dimensions, and destruction, all in that order. I decided I might as well just hole-punch the papers I've used and keep them in a binder, not only for myself, but also for my kids and grandkids to be able to look at. My experience so far has been that when I'm idle these images will sometimes just come to mind, so I don't even have to actively practice recalling. A lot of this is probably just because my brain isn't getting such a workout during vactation and is trying to entertain itself .

Another thing is that if you don't access information for a long enough period and let it be erased, it's kinda still there. I noticed this when I was reading through some of the first lessons. I would see an exercise, see the first image, and be able to recall some of the chain, even after 5 or so months of inactivity with those images. It's pretty easy to get back something that you used to know, so I'm not worried about that if I ever forget anything... If...

-Zachary

[Zachary Seeley]

Blunder-idity

I came across something today I had never heard about before. Ghandi gave his grandson a list of the seven 'blunders of the world'. Here they are.

1 - Wealth without Work
2 - Pleasure without Conscience
3 - Knowledge without Character
4 - Commerce without Morality
5 - Science without Humanity
6 - Worship without Sacrifice
7 - Politics without Principle

Wise man!

Gandhi was born October 2, 1869. He died on January 30, 1948. He was shot by Nathuram Godse while he was out for a nightly walk on the grounds of the Birma House in New Delhi.

-Zachary

[Zachary Seeley]

1000 Pages!?!? OK

Yesterday was spent in moving back to my apartment. I met my three new roommates, Derek, Nick, and Steve... While I was making dinner my roommate turned on 'American Gladiators', but I decided to pass and instead play Madden '08.

Yeah, not much happened, but at least I am able to remember the names of my roommates. Before it has taken me about a week to get all of their names down, but no more do I have to worry about that.

I got my books for college. My American History textbook is almost 1000 pages. While I won't be memorizing it word for word, I'm very excited to have so much material to learn. I'll be going through approximately 60 pages of information a week, which means I'll probably spend about an hour a day actively memorizing from this book. Without GMS though, I'd probably be spending at least an hour a day studying and promptly forget everything after each exam, so I like this approach much more.

One last experience I had. We were missing a lot of essential supplies for our apartment, especially the fridge . I went to Wal-Mart this morning, and I barely even realized that I had used GMS to make a list of about 15 things I needed to buy. I just thought 'Ok, what else?', and saw what I needed in my mind.

-Zachary

[gmeier1729]

1000 Pages!?!? OK

---I got my books for college. ---

Maybe you'all South of the border don't speak the Queen's English
but just out of interest - what is a "college" ??

When I finished school, some 35 years ago, I understood a college as a Graduate School , i.e. post degree
- now a college, here at least, seems to start second half of High School for learning a trade

PS - my "American" history was just about those times you Yanks attacked us peaceful Canadians
plus a bit on that "War of Northern Aggression" in the 1860's that lead to the founding
of Canada as we banded together here ( just in case )

Things depend on one's perspective it seems

[Zachary Seeley]

Maybe you'all South of the border don't speak the Queen's English
but just out of interest - what is a "college" ??

When I finished school, some 35 years ago, I understood a college as a Graduate School , i.e. post degree
- now a college, here at least, seems to start second half of High School for learning a trade

Well, it depends, it's used in a few different contexts. A university has a college of sciences, a college of arts, and those are futhur broken up. But in my context it's just a Junior College. A small school of about 3000 - 4000 students, with 2-year programs to help students before transferring to a larger university. Its actually a great experience. We have amazing professors, and classes as small as 10 students, so you get a lot of hands-on time with the professor instead of being in a class of 200 and only getting to talk to a Teaching Assistant.

PS - my "American" history was just about those times you Yanks attacked us peaceful Canadians
plus a bit on that "War of Northern Aggression" in the 1860's that lead to the founding
of Canada as we banded together here ( just in case )

Things depend on one's perspective it seems

Haha, I haven't gotten to that chapter yet, but we'll compare notes when I get there .

you'all

South of the border, as you put it, we prefer y'all. You really gotta slur it, hitch up your belt, and rattle your spurs

-Zachary

[gmeier1729]

Well, it depends, it's used in a few different contexts. A university has a college of sciences, a college of arts, and those are futhur broken up. But in my context it's just a Junior College. A small school of about 3000 - 4000 students, with 2-year programs to help students before transferring to a larger university. Its actually a great experience. We have amazing professors, and classes as small as 10 students, so you get a lot of hands-on time with the professor instead of being in a class of 200 and only getting to talk to a Teaching Assistant.
---
-Zachary

OK on that - sounds like it will be really good - as said, there was no such thing when I was in school and we still were speaking Latin

And it will be interesting to us all how you structure and order your memory archives to keep alive the many subject areas you will be dealing with over the years using GMS methods !

G

[Zachary Seeley]

Prince Henry the Who?

Alright, I had a fantastic, albeit busy, day yesterday. It was the first day of classes, and there was a pretty decent dance at night. I took some time to start working on my history textbook. Here's the precise information I memorized from it yesterday.

Chapter 1: Europeans in America

Prince Henry the Navigator, the third son of John I, King of Portugal, gained some privileges after capturing the city of Ceuta. He built an observatory to record navigational data.

Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506). In 1488 Christopher met Bartholemeu Dias in Lisbon. Bartholemeu had successfully sailed around the point of Africa, proving that way was clear to Asia. Christopher, however, was still set on sailing westward to Asia. He was unable to get funding from John II, so instead he began to petition Queen Isabella. Finally he was given funding, and in August of 1492 he set sail from Palos with his small fleet of the Santa Maria, Pinta, and the Nina. On 12th of October, 1492, Rodrigo de Triana spotted land.

Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the isthmus of Panama and discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513.

Hernando Cortes landed in mexico and overran the Aztecs in 1519.

Ferdinand Magellan set sail in 1519 on his 3-year voyage around the world.

There's a lot of filler in these books, but that's all the precise information in the first 6 pages. There are of course many more stories and dates about these people that I want to learn at some point, I might decide to add research of my own on the weekends. I thought it interesting that Columbus wasn't the first to suggest that Asia might be reached by sailing westward... I guess the schools just like to simplify things a little too much for children... Now I know better

I also started on the alphabet for my Arabic class. The teacher is taking that part pretty slowly, giving us about 4 letters a day, so I decided to do 6 a day . Alif, Baa, Taa, Thaa, Uu, and Ii. I'll be starting on my vocabulary soon, but I want to get the alphabet down first. I'm going to start with 25 words a day and see how that goes for me.

[Zachary Seeley]

System Glitch

After I finished classes, work, and travelling yesterday I found myself getting back home at midnight, without a chance to even study. Before I went to bed though, I did put into my memory the important things I had done that day. I had an interesting conversation with a friend involving a few different subjects, politics, history, math, and fashion. I've been trying to do something nice for a friend every day, so yesterday I went to pick up an assignment from a professor across campus for a stressed-out friend who had lost the syllabus.

I started some part-time work at H&R Block doing taxes last night, but there was a problem with the system(There always is the first week), and I was unable to access any services, so I had to sit there getting paid without being able to do any actual work

I reviewed my history information as I was falling asleep, but I was disappointed that I didn't have any time to study it yesterday. Today I'll try to catch up, I'll have to go through about 12 pages, but that's not much of a problem

-Zachary

[Zachary Seeley]

21,500 years of history

So my first day of class my history teacher said we wouldn't actually be getting to the book for at least the first two weeks, he wanted to talk about the pre-colombian history in a bit more detail first. I just took my first test in that class(can you believe that I aced it in 10 minutes? ) We covered everything from the migrations across the land bridge to the mysterious Kennecott Man, dated to about 9000BC, with European, not Asian, features, throwing a bunch of questions about how the americas have been populated. We learned about Erik the Red being kicked out of Iceland and moving to Greenland, and his son Leif Erikson settling in Vinland, America. We learned that the Vikings apparently never expanded in the american continent, but stayed for 300 years before leaving. We learned that there was a hemisphere-wide abandonment of city-centers around 1300 AD, probably due to famine. We learned of the Anasazi, the Pueblo, Inca, Mayan, and Aztec empires. We learned about Cahokia, maybe the first large city-center on the north-american continent, where corn was first used in abundance to allow people to live more densely-populated, and allow children to be better nourished. We learned about Thor Hyerdahl crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a boat made of lashed reeds, following the currents and winds, proving that ancient peoples could have easily navigated the ocean.

We learned about Columbus never actually seeing the mainland(news to me). We learned about Cortez. We learned about France's difficulties in settling along the Mississippi. We learned about Sir Walter Raleigh settling the doomed fort on Roanoke Island, and his second attempt, the lost colony. We then proceeded to breeze through the founding of the colonies, the intolerance of the Massachusetts Puritans, the refugees that fled to Maryland for more freedom. We learned of the prosperity that tobacco and rice brought. The house of Burgesses. Pocahontas. John Rolfe. Bartholemeu de las Casas. The Puritans, Pilgrims, and Quakers. Squanto. The Great Awakening and the Enlightenment. Anne Hutchinson(amazing woman). That's basically it... I've been slacking on my journal entries, but I'll do more to show you in detail what GMS is doing for my school work, especially in my history and arabic classes.

I used to use the same password for everything. Well, thanks to GMS, that's no longer a problem. The school computers requiring me to periodically change my password no longer bothers me. I have different passwords for email accounts, websites, computers, as well as PIN numbers... all easily recorded in my memory.

-Zachary

[Zachary Seeley]

Simon Says...

A friend of mine is doing a report on memory in his psychology class. He brought a Simon game(with the four colors, it blinks in a pattern and you have to repeat the pattern by pressing the colors). He handed it to me and said 'can you beat my high-score? I got 9'. I thought it would be fun, and I actually encoded the pattern in sets of three for the first 15 colors, but I didn't tell him. I got to 18, was thoroughly enjoying watching him sitting there with his jaw dropped, and forgot to look at the new color There's a chance I'll be demonstrating in his presentation tomorrow, so I plan on just encoding the first 50 colors and ending there, that should be impressive enough A friend of his clapped for me when I was done, so I went to talk to him a little about memory. He told me his name was Keith, and when his birthday was. I went to class, and 5 hours later I saw him again. I recited his birthday and name. Then as a demonstration I memorized the names of the girls sitting next to me at the theater(Jillan, Jessica, and Katrina)...

My history class is still going, but honestly, it's beginning to bore me. I find that my mental clarity is such that I can remember everything he talks about without applying GMS, since he doesn't require dates on tests. But when there is something that I want to remember, it's become almost second nature to just encode it and retain it. For instance, Thomas Jefferson created the first political party, the Democratic Republicans(Ironic, isn't it?). I thought that was funny, and the image of an elephant and donkey together came to me, so I put it into it's place to remember it...

-Zachary

[Vincent]

Love this journal Zach You say that you find that your mental clarity is such that you can remember everything your history teacher talks about without applying GMS, since he doesn't require dates on tests. Could u do this before, or is this also a result of gms?

Vince

[Syntax]

please please... keep this thread going..
It's very motivating as it keeps me thinking what is possible.
You have such a thirst for knowlege and I'm interested and how you have gone the past couple of months..

regards
Brad

[Zachary Seeley]

One Mad Night

My friend is directing a play and asked me to play a part. I started working on my lines tonight, I've basically divided them up into 5 parts. Tonight I did the first part. I spent about 10 minutes to memorize the lines, and went through them three times without needing to look at the script. It's a gratifying experience to be able to practice my lines from memory, rather than reading them over, and over, and over... I should have all of my lines down by Friday night, so during practice I'll be able to work more on my acting(i'm rather horrible at it) than on my lines.

-Zachary