I have given myself a personal challenge. It started simply when I needed a mental break at work. I tried to memorize the countries along the coastline of the Americas. Once I had that down pat, I started the same thing with the other hemisphere. I can now, reasonably, name every country along the coastline of the world.
There wasn’t any point to it. Just to make myself a more knowledgeable person. Or maybe it was so that if there is ever another internet quiz asking for placement of countries, I will rock it.
An incidental benefit came to me today. I was reading a news article, and it started mentioning countries in Africa. For the first time, I had a good idea as to where those countries were. Previously I was just aware that they were somewhere in that big continent, but the actual placement wasn’t important to me. Now I feel more comfortable with that, and it is a good feeling.
So, I guess my personal challenge is to learn geography better. The coastline quiz was a good start, but there are other countries that have no coastline. And other countries that are nothing but coastline. I have to figure out some pattern that will let me solidly place them in my head.
I’m thinking of working on the caribbean next. The Lesser Antilles is a nice conga line of islands that I should be able to memorize.
Homework: Quiz me at any time to name the countries along the coastline starting from any point. If it is unexpected, the better it is to test me.