What Was That Again?

i like to think that i'm one of those people who can read a shitload of information and retain it but i'm coming to the realization that no matter how much i try, my short term memory leaves much to be desired. i chalk it up to the holes i probably have in my brain from those years of drug use (no joke, i've seen those real life episodes on mtv) but what i've learned is that i can only learn new information in small doses. except of course when it comes to celebrity gossip because then i have no trouble remembering that so and so used to date so and so but now they're dating so and so but cheated with so and so. get the picture? but this short term memory thing relates to just about everything else outside of that. for instance, i feel like i'm constantly reading, whether it's on my google reader, the magazines jon subscribed me to or just on the internet, but i'll read all these different articles about a wide variety of topics but none of it is retained for long periods of time. it is literally in one ear and out the other. this also applies to movies and music. there's been several times when i'll netflix a movie thinking that i've never seen it before only to realize a little bit of the way in that i HAVE seen it before but i've just completely forgotten about it. or if i watch a movie now and you were to ask me a couple of weeks later how the movie ended i probably wouldn't be able to tell you. sad isn't it?

but all is not lost because i have found a way to circumvent this when it comes to music. and i found this out quite accidentally sometime last year and i really have holysocks to thank. it all started when i was convinced to go to the phoenix concert and as i was unfamiliar with any of their music, a homework set was made for me where each week, i would get assigned a playlist consisting of five songs and for that week, that's all i would listen to until i knew the songs well enough to be able to bop my head along and distinguish one song from the other. then the following week i would get another set of 5 songs and by the end of this exercise, i had listened to a good chunk of their music and when i finally attended their concert, i was astonished at how many songs i recognized and knew and was feeling quite proud of myself! because you see, i'm known for not being able to identify one song from another or usually what happens is that i'll get a shitload of new music at once but none of it stays with me because they kind of just all jumble into one big song and then i have no idea who is singing what or what band it is and i just end up feeling overwhelmed with the amount of new music that i have and automatically default to my britney days.

but all that has changed since that phoenix concert. since then, i've been given homework before each concert that i attend and i am loving it! because of this i've learned to love the songs of tegan & sara, two door cinema, LCD soundsystem, miike snow, a special set for the treasure island music festival and la roux among others. and while it may not be the most efficient way in learning since i can only cover a couple of songs at a time, it really works and makes me enjoy the concerts so much more and i feel like i've been introduced to so many more new artists the past year than i have in a long long time.

i mean i'll never get to the level of some of my friends with their vast knowledge of different artists, songs, their backgrounds but i'm slowly and steadily learning one song and artist at a time and that's all that my cheese brain can intake at the moment. i did read this pretty interesting article recently about improving memory and on why we seem to be able to retain useless information all the time. now i just need to figure out how to incorporate this into my everyday life and i should be all set.