Chikin Scratching

The scanner at work today is under repair.

I have a document which needs to be scanned and attached to my email to our Vietnamese lawyers. After staggering around (I am in 3-inch heels today) the office looking for an alternative scanner, I gave up and decided to use the old fashion FACSIMILE machine instead.

Before I can do so, I am required to fill out a "Facsimile Transmittal Sheet" which forms the cover page for my document. I also need to reproduce therein the content of my email to the lawyers - by hand!

A pen poised in my hand, I suddenly find myself creepily nervous about writing a long "formal" message by hand. Which is very silly for I had written everything by hand for the past 10 years in school. Heck, the amount of lecture notes and essays I wrote back then can fill out an entire volume of a law journal! Also, I have kept personal diaries, fill out lengthly application forms, written long snail mails.... all before the advent of laptop and emails.

And therein lies my problem. "Before the advent of laptop and emails" is what, 6-7 years ago? That is how long I have not picked up a pen to write more than 3 sentences! Do I even remember what my handwriting looks like?

I started with "Dear Sirs". (Not bad, looks decent.)

Next, I wrote the introduction. "I write with reference to the above subject matter wherein... " and I can see the letters going uphill. Scratch, scratch, scratch. How do I curl the tails of my "g"s and "y"s?

After sweating out 3 paragraphs, I look up at the words I have written and cried. My handwriting suck! My letter "v" looks like "r", the head of every "s" were chopped off and the rest simply look as if a chicken has escaped from Food Junction downstairs, found its way to my office, ran across an ink pad and is now stomping all my "Facsimile Transmittal Sheet" with a vengeance. Stomp, stomp, stomp.

Thinking back, I have always hated my handwriting. I am one of those people who does not have one consistent style. My lecture notes looks like it had been written by 10 different persons - I am a writing schizophrenic! I am also a handwriting pirate as in if I see a style I like, I will copy it. I have tried the cursive 'doctor' style (fail), the round oblong style with circular balls for dots (way too much work), the spaced-out lettering (*Zzz*) etc. I can be persistent in my imitation for a maximum of one page before inadvertently reverting back to my chicken-gone-wild handwriting.

The other odd thing is, I find that my handwriting is only intelligible with certain pens. Yes, it's true! The pen I use plays a huge role in determining what my handwriting looks like - I mean, would Serena Williams play a good game without using her own swanky pink-flowered Wilson ncode7 hur, hur? For example, I can't do any 'broad' tip pens because my words will look stomps of a clumsy fat rooster. Nor can I do those fancy uniball ink stufs because I'll end up with blots on the paper and ink stains on my palms and all the way up my arm to the elbow. My weapon of choice is still an old-fashion alibaba Papermate ballpoint pen - with blue ink. I rarely screw up too badly with those.

Thank God we are no longer in the handwriting era. Nowadays, we all have our trusty laptop, palm pilot, berries and whatever thingamajid digital devices to type on. What I like best is, I can even choose the font style. I can NEVER have bad "handwriting" digitally. Tap, tap, tap.

All I need to do now is to learn how to type with BOTH hands and I am sorted.

But right now, I still need to complete this stupid "Facsimile Transmittal Sheet" by hand.

Urgh.