FINISHING SCHOOL; Penmanship

The art of self-study can be mastered by anyone

I have my final lecture in college coming up, until the new academic year begins in September.  As I reach the end of my course thus far, I have been thinking about how I can prepare for next term.  One aspect of my Psychotherapy training is that of Personal Development - students are asked to become more analytically aware of their strengths, limits and shortfalls.  With this in mind I have decided that my handwriting and note-taking could use some improvement, particularly as we must keep a scholar's journal as part of the course.  I am a naturally tidy person and my handwriting has never been messy but it could benefit from being a touch neater. It hasn't changed much at all since my school days, so I need to put a greater level of maturity into my script. 

I am intrigued by the practice of Graphology where experts can analyse someones handwriting and divine their personality traits. It makes me wonder what my handwriting is saying about me. Does it portray a flattering image? I would hate to think that anyone is disappointed by my penmanship, or that they struggle to make it out. I want my writing to be in keeping with who I am, not a jarring contradiction. My main problem is that I think much faster than I write, which can lead to the lazy formation of letters. When I am in a rush to take something down, I do tend to scribble and I cannot for the life of me, write in a straight line on an unlined page.  The overall effect is that of immature presentation - Scribbling School Girl is not the image I want to put across!

When I think of elegance in handwriting, I think of thick sheets of notepaper covered in a flowing, cursive script. I think of Jane Austen heroines writing love notes and diaries at a writing slope.  I think of the great poet Robert Browning falling in love with Elizabeth Barrett's penmanship, long before he had actually met her in person.  Alas, as it stands, I am doubtful that anyone would fall in love with me due to my penmanship alone!

So, in true finishing school style, I have decided to work on developing a more sophisticated penmanship.  I like the idea of Calligraphy and italic lettering and I have gone through all my pens and notebooks to find suitable tools to use in the practice of refining my handwriting, so that I can incorporate a few elegant touches and flourishes where appropriate.  It will take some time to get out of bad writing habits, but practice makes perfect and Calligraphy is such a beautiful art form in its own right, that it will be a pleasure to learn more about it.  Of course I don't plan on writing class notes in italics, but a refined formation of lettering and a flowing script should make note-taking much faster and still legible. That's the plan anyway.

By the time the next academic years starts I am hoping to have developed an elegant, sophisticated cursive hand instead of a neat, but rather naive print.  There is always room for improvement.