Entry 4: 22/10/24 - Subject Matter is an Unknown Quantity
Ah, hello, fancy seeing you here today. Probably gonna be a short one since this entry will be the result of a desire to log a journal update without any particularly clear idea what it will be about. Oh well, let’s live dangerously.
I just came off my touch-typing course.
Correction: I just came off one smegging task/mission/worksheet of my touch-typing course after having spent, no joke, three smegging days trying to five star it. I thought I was getting pretty wizzo at the thing, but then the plying smeggers (throwing in some sci-fi swears for the fun of it btw) that devised the thing threw in all these random symbols and bits of punctuation I don’t think I’ve ever used before in my life.
“Great job at getting a measly three stars” it mocks; “Aim for 45 wpm” it cries; “You failure” calls the mocking little voice in the back, front, centre and little cubby hole of my brain.
I’m trying, Mother!
Look I’m not gonna pretend to be a touch-typing prodigy, but I was batting that on average (more or less) before you started chucking in all that % and ^ mumbo jumbo, most of which you can only input with the application of the smegging shift key. I mean, way to break my flow. There’s one assignment that’s basically all numbers and weirdo characters that I’ve just relented I’ll only ever have three stars on.
I know the entire point is to put things in efficiently, but how commonly exactly do they expect the ^ key to be? I’ve done God knows how many essays over the years, written dozens of short stories, several longform stories (not to brag; none but three of them turned into something of any significance – point is I’ve written heaps) and I’ve never once had the need to use ^ before being taught how to use it. I don’t even know what ^ is called - it’s just the arrow above six (God help me if I’m ever forced to read this out loud). The beautiful irony is that by having complained about ^ here, I’ll have effectively used it more times in one short period than I expect I’ll ever have to in the rest of my life.
And the numbers, oy gevalt, do the numbers ever get on my tits. They’re bloody far away for a start, and for a follow up, relative to the wholesome home row, they’ve all been shunted to the plying left, so every time my fingers detach and go space walking in search of number 7, I have to keep this in mind and estimate where in the fecking of all reality they might be lest I press 8 instead, or, worse, two numbers, which can be really bad if you’re filling out a form of some description:
“Ah, Mr Bolton, I see we’ve got you down for 87 colonoscopies today. Someone Is certainly an eager beaver!” Doctor reaches over and buzzes in an assistant. “Candace, kindly cancel my 3 O’clock; we have a pervert in room 2.”
I understand the hypothetical above works under (ha, above and under; love it when shit like that happens) the flawed logic that that the way in which somebody gets a colonoscopy is by inputting how many they would like on some kind of online form, and ignore how the implication is that I wanted 8 colonoscopies in the first place, but still it gets across my worry.
I just, just don’t think the picking and pressing way of typing is all that inefficient when it comes to all these freak characters they’re expecting me to be rattling off in quick succession. I mean, for the love of God, I can just write seven, and who even uses %? Just write percent like a normal person.
And what doesn’t help is that the course was made by Americans, and I - if it hasn’t already been made clear by my choice in vernacular and barely lidded rage over mundane shit - am British, hence I have to forgo their instructions vis-a-vis where shit is on the keyboard on account that it couldn’t be more flaming wrong. What plying use do I have for the $ anyway? And even if I did, at the end of the day, if I did have to talk about American money, as established before I wouldn’t use the smegging $ symbol, I’d write the fucking word: dollar.
Clear!?
Ah, why bother. In a couple years, I’ll probably be better off learning how to write yuan.
Ruairi
P.S:
(I do want to emphasise that my Mother is in fact a lovely woman… on occasion).
