Good morning, folks. I had a dream last night that I was playing a card game on my computer and made a mistake. In order to undo the last move, I had to sneeze. I felt one coming and then woke up to sneeze in real life. I think this is my subconscious's way of telling me that I like playing card games and I have a tiny cold. The mind is an amazing thing.
There's no way to say this modestly, so I'm just going to launch right into it. Growing up, I excelled in pretty much every school subject in elementary school. I was good at memorizing things put before me, so spelling and history were pretty easy. I understood the basic concepts of mathematics and had no problem applying them to my assignments. I enjoyed reading, writing, Spanish, P.E., and science, so those all came pretty naturally as well. Even though I couldn't sing well, I even did fine in music class because I participated enough. I'd say that throughout my elementary school career, there was only one subject that consistently gave me trouble: penmanship.
My handwriting was simply awful. Let me rephrase that: My handwriting is and always has been simply awful. I know that studies show that men have messier handwriting than women and that lefties have messier handwriting than righties, so I was already starting in the lowest 25%. Teachers never found that excuse acceptable though. I remember once in sixth grade I was writing something in class. For some reason, one word was perfectly written. I don't know how I did it, but it stood out amongst the others as proof that I really could write neatly if I put my mind to it. Being proud of myself, I drew an arrow to in from the margin and wrote "Look how neat!" When I got the piece of paper back, my teacher hadn't written anything next to my commentary. At recess, I stopped by her desk and pointed the next word out, ya know, in case she missed it. "Yes, I saw that," she said. "It's only one word though. Write like that for the whole thing and then we'll talk." In other words, my moment of penmanship supremacy was wasted on her.
As I've mentioned before in this space, Dusty and I used to write notes to each other in 5th period of 9th grade then pass them to each other on the way to 6th. He'd always have the hardest time reading mine. He told me that he and his then-girlfriend spent ten minutes trying to read one of my words before realizing that it actually said "handwriting." Interesting. On several occasions since I've known him, he's said to me, "Seriously Pete, learn how to fucking write." Isn't it sweet to see how much he cares and wants me to grow as a person?
Re-reading my notes through college proved to be a difficult task as well. Part of the problem was that I'd make little jokes along the way, so sometimes I'd spend a lot of time deciphering my words only to end up with a horrible pun about "a cup and Chaucer." If someone missed a day of lecture and asked me if they could copy my notes, my most common response was, "You should probably ask somebody else first. You wouldn't get too much out of mine."
Deciphering my own writing is somewhat fun, I must say. It's almost like detective work. "Well, if that's definitely an R over there, then this one is probably an R too. Either that or a C." Sometimes I'd spend a bunch of time on a word only to finally realize that I had an extra loop in there or accidentally crossed an L. Yes, it's that bad.
As luck would have it, my lovely wife doesn't have neat handwriting either. Her experience was similar to mine on some levels but very different on others. For example, I distinctly remember a teacher once saying to me that since I had such messy writing, maybe I'd be a doctor someday (because that's apparently more important than the silly stuff they teach in medical school). My wife, on the other hand, had a teacher tell her that she needed to fix her handwriting because "it wasn't ladylike." Ah, societal-imposed gender roles and norms start so early nowadays. (By the way, she now has her PhD and I'm quite ladylike, so they obviously didn't know what they were talking about.)
In any case, I've been thrilled ever since computers became all the rage. I swear that I had lower grades on things because I wrote messily. "Well, the essay is technically sound, but now I have a headache and it took me three times as long to read as everyone else's. B+." They never told me that, but I know it happened. With typing, no one can tell how shittily I write and think less of me for it. It's marvelous. Still, I do write a fair amount on a day to day basis and need a special decoder ring to read it later. Since the computer revolution though, it's a much less frequent occurrence. Thank you, Bill Gates and Al Gore.
With that, I need to get to my real work. As soon as I decide whether the phone number in front of me ends with a 6 or 0, I'll be in business. Have a great day, friends, and we'll meet back here again tomorrow. Deal? Sweet.
There's no way to say this modestly, so I'm just going to launch right into it. Growing up, I excelled in pretty much every school subject in elementary school. I was good at memorizing things put before me, so spelling and history were pretty easy. I understood the basic concepts of mathematics and had no problem applying them to my assignments. I enjoyed reading, writing, Spanish, P.E., and science, so those all came pretty naturally as well. Even though I couldn't sing well, I even did fine in music class because I participated enough. I'd say that throughout my elementary school career, there was only one subject that consistently gave me trouble: penmanship.
My handwriting was simply awful. Let me rephrase that: My handwriting is and always has been simply awful. I know that studies show that men have messier handwriting than women and that lefties have messier handwriting than righties, so I was already starting in the lowest 25%. Teachers never found that excuse acceptable though. I remember once in sixth grade I was writing something in class. For some reason, one word was perfectly written. I don't know how I did it, but it stood out amongst the others as proof that I really could write neatly if I put my mind to it. Being proud of myself, I drew an arrow to in from the margin and wrote "Look how neat!" When I got the piece of paper back, my teacher hadn't written anything next to my commentary. At recess, I stopped by her desk and pointed the next word out, ya know, in case she missed it. "Yes, I saw that," she said. "It's only one word though. Write like that for the whole thing and then we'll talk." In other words, my moment of penmanship supremacy was wasted on her.
As I've mentioned before in this space, Dusty and I used to write notes to each other in 5th period of 9th grade then pass them to each other on the way to 6th. He'd always have the hardest time reading mine. He told me that he and his then-girlfriend spent ten minutes trying to read one of my words before realizing that it actually said "handwriting." Interesting. On several occasions since I've known him, he's said to me, "Seriously Pete, learn how to fucking write." Isn't it sweet to see how much he cares and wants me to grow as a person?
Re-reading my notes through college proved to be a difficult task as well. Part of the problem was that I'd make little jokes along the way, so sometimes I'd spend a lot of time deciphering my words only to end up with a horrible pun about "a cup and Chaucer." If someone missed a day of lecture and asked me if they could copy my notes, my most common response was, "You should probably ask somebody else first. You wouldn't get too much out of mine."
Deciphering my own writing is somewhat fun, I must say. It's almost like detective work. "Well, if that's definitely an R over there, then this one is probably an R too. Either that or a C." Sometimes I'd spend a bunch of time on a word only to finally realize that I had an extra loop in there or accidentally crossed an L. Yes, it's that bad.
As luck would have it, my lovely wife doesn't have neat handwriting either. Her experience was similar to mine on some levels but very different on others. For example, I distinctly remember a teacher once saying to me that since I had such messy writing, maybe I'd be a doctor someday (because that's apparently more important than the silly stuff they teach in medical school). My wife, on the other hand, had a teacher tell her that she needed to fix her handwriting because "it wasn't ladylike." Ah, societal-imposed gender roles and norms start so early nowadays. (By the way, she now has her PhD and I'm quite ladylike, so they obviously didn't know what they were talking about.)
In any case, I've been thrilled ever since computers became all the rage. I swear that I had lower grades on things because I wrote messily. "Well, the essay is technically sound, but now I have a headache and it took me three times as long to read as everyone else's. B+." They never told me that, but I know it happened. With typing, no one can tell how shittily I write and think less of me for it. It's marvelous. Still, I do write a fair amount on a day to day basis and need a special decoder ring to read it later. Since the computer revolution though, it's a much less frequent occurrence. Thank you, Bill Gates and Al Gore.
With that, I need to get to my real work. As soon as I decide whether the phone number in front of me ends with a 6 or 0, I'll be in business. Have a great day, friends, and we'll meet back here again tomorrow. Deal? Sweet.
Remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything to keep the blog alive.
1 comment:
I actually did get marked down on a few assignments in high school because of my messy handwriting. And that was completely unacceptable to me. Now, I spend my day in front of a computer, and the only person who has to read my writing is me. :)
By the way, they say that sometimes when a couple has been together for a while, they start to look alike... well, at some point we were looking at something handwritten and I was fairly certain I had written it, but it turns out it was Peter. I guess we were made for each other.
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