Typing whiz!

I am a typing whiz!

I mean I have enough practice. I'm writing lengthy journals, blogs, and emails all the time. I've always enjoyed writing (specifically on the computer I might add).

The interesting thing is my progression. I do remember taking a few elementary typing courses in 7th grade. I struggled with them a lot. I could never move fast enough for them and I often had to keep looking at the keyboard. It was incredibly stressful, and considering how little I used those programs (and how they weren't tested at all), it's not surprising that I never learned to type properly. Our computer class was only once a week and I would be very surprised if it was taught by anyone credentialed. He basically was just someone decently proficient in computer use who gave us a few programs and let us fly. He knew html and gave us a run through of the basic commands. That's about all there was to my early computer class. It culminated in us making a webpage. So many animated gifs. I was so impressed by how fancy they looked. To this day, I have a well hidden impression that the key to good web page design is more animated gifs. The more sensible part of me realizes that that's not really the most pleasant thing to look at, but the little kid in me kind of gets a kick out of it. And if left to my own devices creating a webpage, I would probably sneak what animated gifs I could into it (assuming no one else was going to view my shamefully animated webpage).

But I digress. That was the sum of my early typing experience. I typed so clumsily and with so many errors, that the correct way of typing was not appealing. I still had to type things for class, but I was the worst of the hunt-and-peckers. I remember once getting stuck for a significant length of time on "q." It just hadn't come up before. I remember thinking, "Wait this can't be this hard... it must be here somewhere..." Kids don't often have the sense to search methodically, so I didn't think to start at the top left for a while. Ah, the trials of hunt and peck.

So I never properly learned where all the keys were, and I never properly learned the find the little bumps on the f and the j. I just looked intently. It worked well enough. It certainly wasn't any slower for me than the proper way, and it was quite a bit more accurate.

Over time, I came to spend a lot more time typing. During high school, I wrote lengthy journals which I only trusted that no one would find if I wrote them on my computer. I had them in my email account (one of the most massive saved drafts ever), which I felt was a more secure password than any flimsy key on some cheap diary lock. Honestly, no one was looking, but teenagers can be incredibly secretive, and I was one of the worst.

So began my history of writing lengthy journals by typing them. Over time, I found how much writing helped to organize my thoughts and grew pretty dependent on journals. I spent so much time writing aside from classwork, that a one or two page paper was quite trivial when it was assigned. I did have a lot of trouble refining those papers. My rough drafts were always some of the better ones, but I was very reluctant to edit or incorporate suggested changes. I may have had an advantage writing due to my extra experience with my journals, but I definitely did not have any additional experience editing. The most I do with these sorts of journals is correct grammar and spelling of the previous paragraph. I rarely do a thorough reread. That's not really the purpose the journals serve. They give me a point of reference, a solid record of where I was, before a ramble takes me so far afield I can't remember my original intent. Edits just aren't useful as long as what I wrote gave me the gist of where I was.

Regardless of my lack of experience editing, I gained quite a bit of experience typing. Discovering instant messages in college helped with that also, but my IMing career was quite sort lived in comparison. Over time, my hunt and peck style began to get quite sophisticated. What began as two fingers (a very literal hunt and peck), evolved into five: both middle and index fingers and my left thumb. Occasionally my pinky on my left hand would also come into play for the sake of capitalization. Looking at the keyboard served to stabilize my hands and tell them where to move around so that they wouldn't overshoot their destination keys, but my eyes played less and less of a role. My hands got to the point where the knew where all the keys were. Often, my hands would be blocking my view of the keys, yet I still knew about how far my hands had to move to be correctly positioned. I also got to know familiar letter combinations and the patterns formed by certain words. I never explicitly learned this, but after enough typing, you just get to know this sort of stuff. Now, every so often, I'll notice a few other fingers (ring fingers) jumping into the fray. It seems that my typing evolution is actually coming interestingly close to the correct style. I tested myself a little earlier today to see how well I could type without looking at the keyboard. It wasn't as smooth as when I do look, but it was much smoother than I might have expected. Occasionally I'd be off by a space and type "[;" instead of "pl" before I noticed my error and readjusted my hands, but in general, when I'd guess where the letters should be, I was right. Once my hands were positioned correctly, my fingers knew how to take it from there. It was really pretty fascinating.

So could I learn the correct method? Yes, I would have a reduced accuracy and speed initially, but would it pay off in the end? Right now, my typing speed is about 50 words a minute with very high accuracy. Do I really need to try something new? Is it worth it for me to improve? I seem to be unconsciously optimizing my hunt and peck all the time.

The truth of the matter is that I certainly don't need it. I've clearly gotten by fine without and will continue to get along just fine. I also think it's pretty interesting how my unorthodox style has had such excellent results. That said, I always like to improve. I revel in learning new things. As much as I like my strange style of typing, it might be worthwhile to go about things more efficiently, if only to show that I could. I don't know. I never really thought of myself as an excellent typist (though I've always known I get by). I guess I've just been thinking of this a lot ever since I tried my dad's typing software. I'm feeling a little puffed up at the discovery of a new talent I've been developing for years and yet somehow didn't know I had. I kind of just want to type for a while, just to actually confirm that I'm good at it. It's pretty interesting, like a new game. I've never really had any way to measure my typing before, so this typing software my dad has been using to learn is pretty fun.

Even though I've got typing on the brain, I think I'm going to end this blog entry. I realize it's probably one of my more dull entries. I mean, typing isn't exactly riveting. But I can't help it! I can't think of anything else right at the moment. I'm going to go use the typing software some more!