[muchabi]

The other answers sound like they're from people who aren't new to the idea of pointers...

Try simple data structures first. Having linked list nodes that actually uses minimal memory (pointer to next node, a data field) is actually pretty exciting. Implement all the operations (get index i, remove index i, etc) because that's where a lot of the insight will come from. Then you can move onto binary search trees and other more complex stuff.

One of the most useful insights I've read was from "Effective C++", which said (paraphrasing) "C++ is a federation / family of languages which work together". Learn the C subset of it first so you're not overwhelmed with available features, and then you can get back to using templates / STL / the other languages later.