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         I know I have a most notorious penmanship but see what you got me doing - enjoying letting my pen glide through nonetheless! Since I have not done cursive writing in a long time as you can see, - my pen goes aimlessly.  I need to do this more often.

        But you are right.  The onslaught of the internet has diminished the art of letter  writing.  Together with this will be the demise of the postal service.  I just saw in the news that several post offices may close because of the losses that continue to rise.  And it is all because of the internet.

        In high school, I dreaded writing down notes in a spring note book which would later be inspected by my teachers.  Actually it started in the grade school where our notebooks were graded for neatness and legibility.  So obviously I never fared well.  Sometimes I had a hard time reading my own notes.  With that said, I hope you don't think that I am doing this to torture you....  how are those eyes doing?

        You know who's got one of the best penmanship? Bernie!  His notes were always neat and legible  I remember though when we were in our sophomore year in high school, he dislocated, maybe even broke, his right wrist on a roller skating accident.  He had a cast on for about six weeks.  Since he could not write down his notes, he borrowed our notes and had his mom decipher our scribbles and transcribe them for him.  Yup, those were the most beautiful notes I've ever seen... even better than Bernie's.  They looked like calligraphy.  Since then,  I set it as my goal to write as aesthetically as that.  I almost reached that goal through several decades.  And when I thought I had, that was when this internet thing started to come in.  Needless to say, I am back to square one!

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          You speak of notoriety in your camp but you should delight at how my own writing competes with yours!  If you must know, my hand trembles as I do this. The feeling of not having done this in ages rubs in too even as you surely see through my ploy of using ruled paper to control my lines from going up or down.   I, too, need to do more of this!

        But for one in the medical world who normally is accused of scribbling his prescriptions like chicken scratches,  believe me, you certainly do a good job passing high where I fail.  Truth is, I even dread having to go back to blackboard writing again. Which reminds me of how we in the  Engineering faculty room, way back at the University,  used to watch how the penmanship of our students go from a 'nice!' to a 'wow!' in the five years' span of time they spent there. It was phenomenal how they developed in this particular area from their freshmen to their graduating years. Must have been the discipline they acquired from their Drawing classes, don't you think?

        Then you mention Bernie and his mom's handwriting.  It's interesting because I'd say the same of Rey!  Imagine him to be the ideal in my aspiration for a better penmanship myself.... but his was the best in the family!  North and South now here trading places. To compound it, - the onslaught of the internet!  Ah well, the internet is here to stay - that's for sure.  Let's just hope that the Post Office problem somehow comes to some minimizing, if not a total insignificance.  Still,  I guess we do have to do more of the old  traditional letter-writing.   Might not be exactly easy but we could  smile it off.  Would make people wonder what we're up to!

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        You totally amuse me !  Should you really be serious asking me to analyze your handwriting, that would necessarily bring out an attractive profile of the person behind the pen.  And it would make your "fear for your life" simply unfounded.   My own fear is that should it trigger a turnabout - that you would  claim your turn to analyze my handwriting..... I am the one who dies!!!  But wait - I remember having come across a blog intimating that some people think doctors have bad handwriting... and that according to TIME, their handwriting actually kills 7,000 people annually!  Please take note that I'm not the one saying that, okay?   But then, the article adds this bit of comment - that handwriting with such significantly lower legibility is usually associated with being executive or being male!  What do you think of that!  Nice, huh?

        Really seriously,  though,  let me pick up on a strain we earlier shared,  namely;  'the demise of cursive writing'.  This is actually a commonplace topic at the moment, right?  Created polls ask if
there is value in possessing handwriting skills in a world of digital communication.

        A fact is that cursive writing is no longer mandatory in most public schools, did you know that?  No longer a part of the national education agenda.  But there are concerns and arguments forwarded both for and against it.  On one hand, it is said that cursive writing is outdated,  is time consuming and not as useful as keyboard skills which are the future.  It is not even on tests that rate schools.  On the other hand,  it is viewed that cursive is essential to education as it helps children develop fine motor skills.  It is maintained by neurological science that handwriting plays a large role in the visual recognition and learning of letters....that those who learn to write by hand learn  better.

       To strengthen the latter argument,  an experiment was further pointed out involving 2 groups that were taught a new foreign alphabet.  One group learned by  hand, the other to recognize them on a screen with a keyboard.  Apparently, as it turned out,  the former scored better on recognition tests.  Brain scans on the hands on group showed greater activity in the part of the brain that controls language comprehension, motor related processes and speech associated gestures.  That I find interesting! What do you think?

        Of course, I would also go with the comment of some that  'depth of thought is improved when pen is taken to paper as opposed to keyboarding'.  Now I wonder what might be on your mind too regarding all these......

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