Paranoid and Dextrosinistral A. Jollyette Rogers Never had I any trouble with reading.

As far as memory serves, my abilities in that area always exceeded what was expected by the school and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Whether it be required by a class or on my own time, reading was one of my favorite activities. Most of my teachers realized this quickly. They also came to realize this love did not transfer to writing. I loathed it. Words themselves were something I found joy in, but when I had to generate them myself, they became simply detestable. I would drag myself through writing assignments, meeting the bare requirements, and until high school, sometimes I would not do them altogether. Subsequently, I did not have the best grades. In those years I was generally a C student. My teachers often recognized my intelligence; I just never did any work, because writing was almost always involved. This utter distaste, which followed me from elementary to middle school, began in kindergarten. By then I already had a general understanding of how to write from reading regularly. When we began learning to write, I thought there was little I needed to learn compared to other children, but my writing was far from flawless. My greatest issue was the direction in which I wrote. The whole concept that writing goes from left to right was not something that had sunk in by that point. When I drew people with speech bubbles, their words went in whichever direction they were facing, showing I had some idea as to which direction was which, but not why one should be used over the other. Writing on a piece of paper, without speech bubbles or anything of the sort, often I would go from right to left. I am naturally left handed, so I found writing in this direction to be considerably more comfortable. Even when told that was incorrect, since I could read what I had written perfectly, I saw no reason to alter the directionality of my writing. My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Miller, was notably less pleased. Her method of fixing my writing was to compel me to write with my right hand, which I did. At age five I had yet to question the authority of a teacher. Trying to create the same letters with my right as I had with my left was frustrating to say the least. Im hardly fond of Ms. Miller now. The only gratitude I have toward her is she gave me the ability to accurately say Im dextrosinistral, simply meaning naturally left handed, but taught to use the right. Its such a lovely word I cant help but find a little glee in the situation now, but at the time, having no knowledge of such a word, I detested Ms. Millers instruction. In as close a resemblance a five year old who already had little motor control can create, I rather crudely drew her and wrote Make the evil witch go away! across the top of the paper. Only half of the letters were backwards. Besides simply the difficulty I had with reversing my letters, my handwriting was not a steady flow. I had to think about each letter, each part of that letter, as a separate entity, because otherwise I could not control the movements of my hand. Since my teacher had not forced me to use my right hand when the class had started to learn to write, but now required it of me, I was behind the other students in that part of the curriculum, which was really all there was besides recess. From that experience I developed my hatred of writing. Every time I picked up a pencil I was reminded of the dissimilarities in my ability to write as apposed to that of my classmates. Long after all my peers had developed fairly legible handwriting, even when

rapidly jotting something down, all I could manage was an incomprehensible scrawl that required great effort to produce. Since no one could read what I had written, no one could comment on the thoughts behind my writing. It was as though they werent even there. I became self conscious of anything I had written, because all anyone else could see were scribbles. When I was eight, I visited my grandmother by myself in California, and my mother recounts that I called home one day in tears. My grandmother, who I might mention is not the epitome of mental stability or gentle encouragement, had berated me for my sloppy and illegible handwriting. I have no recollection of this event, which is odd for me. I have a very exact memory, nearly photographic, and I do remember the rest of that day quite clearly. I recall getting lunch with my grandmother and my aunt, the restaurant we went to, the booth we sat in, what we ate, going to my grandmothers house with a takeout box filled with nothing but maraschino cherries, and then nothing. Apparently I blocked it out. Though I remember other instances of my grandmother screaming at me, I guess I was just too sensitive about my own handwriting to recall such an event. Even now I know it happened, its still lost to my memory. Though my abhorrence was for, and the result of, my handwriting, seeing as I couldnt type, this hatred was extended to the concept of writing in general. As a result of the inadequate control I had over my hands, I became infatuated with those who had great dexterity with a pencil: artists. Drawing became my means of conveying what I could not through writing. Surprisingly, I mostly drew with my right hand, for the training of my kindergarten teacher extended beyond simply writing. Though in this skill, handedness hardly seemed to matter. I had greater discipline of my movements when creating the short, sketchy lines of drawing rather than the continuous ones of writing. Because of this drawing was the one task that required competence with a pencil at which I excelled. It has far more to do with an understanding of spatial relations and visual memory than with ones hands, and by fourth grade I recognized that I did better in those aspects when compared to most other students. This realization took away all desire to improve my writing. I didnt think it possible, but my handwriting worsened. It deteriorated from the lack of effort I put into it. The only time Id ever try to make my handwriting legible was on tests, and even then my teachers could hardly read it. However, the problem was no longer just my handwriting. My ability to form words to effectively and eloquently convey my thoughts fell into disuse, and my writing conventions such as spelling and organization fell apart, but I was unconcerned by this. Why should I have cared about how elegant my writing was if no one could read what I had written anyway? This mindset did not last for long. By eighth grade, everything had to be typed. No longer could my downfalls in writing be concealed by illegibility, instead they were clearly displayed in easily read Times New Roman. Since I was never formally instructed in typing, it was similarly difficult as writing by hand, but no matter how hard typing was for me, others could still read it. My situation called for rapid improvement, which I needed help to instigate, help I found in Ms. Packer. Though more advanced organization had been alluded to over the years, my eighth grade English teacher, Ms. Packer, was the first person to forthrightly tell me what to do beyond a five paragraph essay that used words like first, second, and finally. I was quick to follow her instruction. Though I still never received formal typing

instruction, by high school I could touch-type and wrote quite well for someone who had only put about a years worth of effort into the subject. The one issue I had yet to fix was that of my handwriting. With my new reliance on typing, my handwriting was still neglected. I came to realize that this was something in need of correction when my freshman English teacher, Mr. Bourassa, took twenty five percent off an in-class writing assignment because he could hardly read it. While this deduction of points seemed awful at the time, I now believe he was being quite generous. I didnt immediately see the issue in its legibility I had distanced myself from the problems in my handwriting since I had learned to type so I asked my mother to read the assignment. She thought the word we was the Greek letter omega, and my whole family agreed. As a result of this consensus, I took it upon myself to better my handwriting. I found improvement in using others as examples. When I copied notes down from my teachers, I used their handwriting. My notebook from freshman year has the alphabet written down dozens of times, each in a different style. This process made me an excellent forger, a talent I hardly use though love to say I possess. After test driving various handwritings, I settled with one I modeled after a style of scripture more commonly found in the mid nineteenth century, slightly modernized but retaining an older quality. Now the only miscommunication in my writing is found on the hooks of my ones, which are occasionally mistaken to be sevens. Currently, I write with my right hand. Though I am now ambidextrous, I still possess a tendency to write backwards with my left. As far as everything other than writing and sometimes drawing goes, my left is dominant, but that doesnt matter as much as the reversal of my attitude towards writing itself. Now I write perhaps twice the length requirement for most assignments, and writing has become an activity I do on my own time as well. Last year I participated in National Novel Writing Month, also known as Nanowrimo. In twenty seven days, I wrote over fifty thousand words, words the few who read it actually enjoyed. Their appreciation eradicated the most of the remaining sensitivity I had about my writing, and I finally feel comfortable letting others read what I write. There is still a remaining fear, for lack of a better word, of judgment, but not one that compels me to hide my writing. Besides persuading me to text with correct punctuation, that fear lacks much in influence over me, but I do not mean to say it's silent. This paranoia towards my ability to communicate helps me edit, and thus it's far from crippling to my writing process itself. Though the experiences I went through to gain my current view of writing were occasionally crushing in spirit and often rather disheartening, I feel I came to benefit from them eventually. I can't really say I wanted these experiences and all the trauma that came with them, but I also find myself unable to say I wish no such events had ever happened. Since there isn't any way to change the choices of a kindergarten teacher I'll never see again, I'll simply be content with the two perks of her instruction: the ability to say I'm dextrosinistral and that paranoia, which is now so deeply rooted in my writing process. Without that, I wouldnt search for the best suited word or try to amend any grammatical faults, as if I were making up for all that all time during which I despised writing.