Um... Line?

I'm a person who's usually unhappy with himself. Chronically so. But that self-loathing is very unfocused, and I'm sorry to say that it usually leads to no self-improvement, just a general sense of festering anguish.

So I'm going to try something focused, for once, to improve something I hate about myself, even if it seems sort of insignificant on the surface.

I'm going to try to memorize things.

I have a terrible rote memory ability. I simply can't remember strings of information as they are. I remember concepts and vague notions, but never data. As a child, I was somehow able to remember the shapes of words, and I quickly became a good reader and relatively good speller. Somewhere along the way that talent faded away. I don't know if it's because of television or just a general lack of focus, but I think I need to try to re-develop it, in hopes that it has not completely died a gruesome death somewhere in the depths of my brain.

It's a very tough challenge for me and very personal. I've never been able to learn German very well because of it, but I think anything that's really detail-oriented is difficult for me to learn unless I hear or read it passively 200 times, or because something has an emotional impact.

I will try to memorize something new each day, or at least once I've memorized the first thing. I'm starting with a speech from the public speaking course I took 7 years ago, because quite frankly I haven't been good at that since high school, either. But, if I can remember a poem or a speech or the order of pi, in a verbatim manner, perhaps I can utilize that part of my brain without so much pain and suffering in other situations.

So if you see me chattering to myself, it's me trying to learn something. Please do not point at me or throw things.

I should point out that I'll probably give this up in a week - and be right back to hating myself for it and many, many other reasons. Like, why do I do I always have to go to bed so late at night? How come I can't type more without my fingers hurting? And how come I'm such a sheep???