late night steno

Steno homework is like no other homework I have ever encountered. I have to write more than 300 sentences, with no more than 5 errors on the whole assignment. An error could be something as minute as having a finger slip off a key and ruin a punctuation mark. I am on my third go round of this homework today. The part I am working on is not even all of it.

I am putzing around here on my blog because I have developed a method for not having to start all over each time I go over five errors--I save my work frequently--which sounds logical and not like much of a problem---but the program we do our writing in is extremely quirky, and will not let me back in to write in it right away, on the same file I was working in. So I have to close it out and give it a few minutes, then go back. With thirty groups of ten sentences x saving more and more frequently as I get nearer (ever so slowly) to the end--you may see why I am growing crosseyed and battier as the night progresses.

Yes, this is what I do all the time now. Thrilling, no? Currently I am writing this sentence:

Many bugs smell bad.

Together with the slow progress and late hour, it is all a bit surreal. I am on sentence number 18 of 30.  I am on my third attempt to get the bug sentence right. the letter "B" when written at the beginning of a sentence requires the depression of two keys at once. I keep getting the pressure a little off.

Now it is four times. Sorry bugs. I can't seem to get past you smelling bad. Not all of you, but many.

Many Court Reporting students are in need of therapy.

I finally made it past the bugs. If I could only get to the lard. (Those are the last ones. I can't wait to fill that big, red mug with lard. Oh happy day, or night as it may be).

I miss being involved with all of you--pray that I might emerge from this with a marketable skill and some shred of sanity left over.