I'm a little obsessed with my handwriting. When I was in second grade, my teacher used to make me stay in a recess and rewrite my work. I finally learned to do it neatly the first time.

Hubs is away on business. Which means I get all the cat-care duties. Which includes giving pills to three cats.

I'm convinced that, if there's a Hell, it includes having to give a pill all by yourself to a squirming, unwilling 16-pound cat with all his original teeth and claws, plus the willingness to use them.

I have terrible handwriting and doing it hurts my hands. Plus it's a mess with most writing instruments because I'm left handed and I'm forever smearing ink across the page. Handwriting has caused me nothing but HEARTACHE!

I suspect I was not taught properly.

I'm left handed, so cursive penmanship was kind of torture for me. The flow of it always felt forced and akward (and looked like crap, as does my printing, and gets ink/graphite all over my hand).

My handwriting - awful. worse now that I don't write much anymore. and I have lost my ability to read bad handwriting

My handwriting - awful. worse now that I don't write much anymore. and I have lost my ability to read bad handwriting

I am beth. Often, I can't even read my own bad handwriting.

And my printing is pretty bad too....

I'm left handed, too! And was just talking about how I always smear the ink. Although I will always be grateful to my 3rd grade teacher (Mrs. Callahan) for figuring out how to write lefty herself, so she could teach me cursive.

My mother is left handed and has beautiful handwriting. I don't know why she just didn't teach me. I seriously have a bump on the top joint of my ring finger that developed from handwriting in school.

I'm calling bullshit on the whole handwriting thing. Why we spend an entire 3rd grade year focusing on cursive seems to be a waste of time.

Handwriting is important because research shows that when children are taught how to do it, they are also being taught how to learn and how to express themselves.

Seriously? Keyboarding wouldn't have the same effect? Quite frankly in a world where, outside of on-demanding writing, most completed compositions are typed, cursive handwriting is not as useful.

A new study to be released this month by Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham finds that a majority of primary-school teachers believe that students with fluent handwriting produced written assignments that were superior in quantity and quality and resulted in higher grades—aside from being easier to read.

Just because teachers believe it doesn't mean it's true. Sure, teachers grade work higher when it looks neat. But I can attest that in middle school, typed work is given much higher grades than handwritten, no matter how neat the handwriting is.

The College Board recognized this in 2005 when it added a handwritten essay to the SAT—an effort to reverse the de-emphasis on handwriting and composition that may be adversely affecting children's learning all the way through high school and beyond.

ARGH! That is NOT why the College Board added a written essay. It wasn't to test the fucking handwriting. How backwards and uneducated must one be to believe that. The CB instituted an essay because the task of on-demand writing (in the SAT, the CAHSEE, and college level writing placement exams) gives an idea of how one handles composition, rhetoric, and writing. Not if someone can write neatly.

Moreover, most test prep places ask people to PRINT on essays because printing, not cursive, is significantly more legible.

I think this stupid software build is going to give me a RSI.

And possibly make my head explode.

I used to have nice printing. Now it is chicken scratches.