[sweetmisty]

Thanks for all of your responses! I appreciate them! I live near San Francisco, so my mom has decided to sign me up for Chester Santos' workshop. She figures that it would be smart to take a workshop from the national champion in memory, and that in person instruction would be preferable to downloading the class. He's pretty famous around here, and I think it will be fun to meet and learn from the best in the country at something. I really disagree with the people who said that memory isn't as important to doing well in school as "understanding" the material. The problem is that I DO understand the material, but just can't seem to remember it sometimes when I need to. It's not that I don't understand it. I feel that remembering and understanding are separate things and that understanding the material is actually a lot easier than being able to remember it for tests. Anybody who says that memory is not important to school, has probably not been to school in a while. Maybe it's different for college, but a lot of friends that I've talked to say that you still have to "remember" lots and lots of information for exams in college. School of Phenomal Memory doesn't seem reputable enough for me. Well, it might have been fine, but I agree with my mom in that Chester Santos is very likely to know what he is talking about from his credentials. The videos from his website are from official media appearances, so I know that they are not faked or setup. To become the champion, he must be very knowledgable in how to remember. It was interesting to read about Harry Lorayne. Thanks for the link! He seems like a dinosaur though! Haha. I'm wondering if what he did were "tricks". It sounds like he is a magician. Maybe he somehow fooled people like Chris Angel does. I don't know, but Chester Santos definitely seems legit and the best nowadays. I would actually really like to see Harry Lorayne go up against Chester Santos in a memory competition. I have a feeling that the dinosaur would be destroyed if it were an official competition, but it would be fun to watch! I wish that they had more things like that on TV instead of so much sports, but oh well. Anyway, I feel pretty happy with my mom's idea to take Chester's workshop in San Francisco. I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thanks again for all of your input!

p.s.
in my case, i dont feel too anxious or stressed at all when i go into exams, because i know that i've put in so much hard work. i feel prepared and ready, so no reason to be stressed, but sometimes i just can't recall some of the terms. a lot of times i basically know the concept, but just cant give the exact term, so they take off points. also, sometimes i do remember the right answers, but it takes me too long to remember it, and i cant finish the exam. that is actually a big problem. i often dont finish a test because i went too slow. if i could remember things faster, that would be great.