Think Kit 15: How's your cursive?

The answer to the blog post title is: terrible!!!! I was in elementary school when we still learned to write in cursive. We even received grades for "penmanship"! We had books where we had to trace the letters with our fingers, then with pencils, and then practice over and over again on the beige paper with the blue lined grids. I would try over and over and never really could make my letters right, loops in the wrong places, uneven heights of my letters, tails too long. And what is with a capital cursive Q? Can anyone actually make one of those correctly? Handwriting has NEVER been my strong point.

Even though I'm a teacher I never seemed to achieve the "perfect teacher writing." You know that perfect writing with all the correct loops and such. I write in a dutchy mix of cursive and printing, interspersing capitals and lowercase at weird spots.  Also, my students always hated it when I would have to put notes on the board because i would write big and small, and usually uphill. Thank goodness for the advent of PowerPoint, projectors and Smart-boards!

And now that I spend most of my days in front of a computer, my handwriting has gotten even worse. To stay in practice, I hand-write a daily journal and of course my writing is loopy and big, or small and cramped, an ugly mix of cursive and printing, capitals and lowercase, all in the wrong places-- yes, still sprinkled with my writing idiosyncrasies. I also hand write letters. Lots of letters. I try really hard to print and write neatly. But my mind starts whirling and I write (scribble?) faster and faster, trying to get my thoughts on paper as quickly as I can, my writing unable to keep up with my mind and my writing looks a jumble.

Do I dare even mention that I have arthritis in certain fingers and parts of my hands so add those aches to the writing process and... well, I could end up teaching "How to write like a Doctor 101"...

So, without further ado... handwriting from me to you: