So I just got home from taking one of my finals. As I start to take it one thought keeps running through my mind "oh Wow this is HARD!" The final? no, the physical process of writing. It was awful I could barely scrawl out what I wanted to say. I guess I should explain.

When I first learned to write as a kid, I sucked at it. I mean I was always known for having the worst handwritting in the class. In grade school we'd always pass our papers to the person behind us to grade. Well it was always a huge accomplishment when the kid behind me would finally be able to exclaim: "I've learned to read Kevin's handwriting!" And indeed this was quite an accomplishment as I could only do it myself half the time.

Well when I finally learned to type I took to it like a fish to water. For many of our assignments in high school they said we could either type them or handwrite them. Well of course I typed mine. But the thing is in high school I COULD still write by hand. I could write at a normal pace it would just come out messy. If I sped up it would get even messier, if I slowed down alot I could even make it look half decent. But now forget writting quickly at all, that just isn't possible. Everything I write takes forever and still comes out looking awful. Writing has become an extremely unnatural action for me. It doesn't occur automatically at all. I actually have to think about each movement involved. So for the test just now, which was very unusual in the realm of college tests; a written short answer/essay exam, it was pure torture. When I got to the essay, which I had quite a bit to say about, I became extremly frustrated. I'd have like the next 5 sentences in my head and a rough idea of what I was going to cover in the next paragraph, and I was stuck laboriously scribbling T. H. E. I really did get to the point where I left out things that would have made the essay better simply because I didn't think they were worth the trouble to write. I know I could have typed the stupid thing at LEAST 5 or 6 times faster than it took to write it out, and I would have included everything I wanted. As much as I was trying to do a good job with it, I still got impatient and started leaving out articles and some prepositions as well as abbreviating like mad and just using a + sign to indicate "and". Plus I still had to be really careful since my thoughts were so much further along than what I had down I kept skipping relevant words. And to make matters worse I know I'll be lucky if she can understand half of what I put down.

A mouse or keyboard feel like natural extensions of my body, but put a pencil in my hand and my gut reaction is more along the lines of staring at it stupidly and saying "huh, what's this for??" Still I just can't believe how "unnatural" it's gotten. I mean it seems like the kind of thing you'd never forget, like walking, riding a bike, or skating. But this I really do seem to have effectively forgotten. I guess I shouldn't be surprised writing (by hand) is something I do very rarely. Often I don't phsycially write a word all day, with the exception of maybe my signature. And when I do actually write words it'll be like one or two at a time "bread, milk, soap" on a list or something.

Oh well everything's going computerized anyway right? And at least on this stupid final I never had to sit there and try to think of something to say, lol more like sit there and think "ok wait! one word at a time"

Anyway take care everyone and have a really REALLY awesome day!

Kevin