(This post was inspired by Sulz, who was inspired by Ish.)
So you see, since young I have been told that I hold my pen the wrong way, just as I hold my chopsticks the wrong way as well. I admit that my lack of chopsticks handling skills has made me lose my food to the tabletop too many times that I sometimes give up and ask for a fork instead. So there’s real pragmatic purposes for trying to correct my style of holding chopsticks (but it’s too ingrained in me to change). But my pen-holding style? It’s not like because I hold my pen this way, my handwriting is illegible. So I don’t see what’s so “wrong” about it.
Anyway, here’s a picture of how I hold my pen, and you can try to figure out how I do it.
The pen is balanced on my ring finger, and my thumb sticks out. I have a particularly unwieldy thumb (quite characteristic of stubborn people) that refuses to bend and press on the pen. And technically, my index finger doesn’t really quite press on the pen either. I can do this:
And still write equally well. So sometimes I can handle 2 pens (or 1 pen + 1 highlighter marker) at one go, one held in my normal manner, and one held with my “extra” thumb and index finger. Alternatively I’d write and point at random people as I write and bitch about them. :P
And the pen. Looks nifty, no? It’s from Muji and I love it. They produce such great no-frills pen that never seem to “die” on me. I haven’t had one pen from them where the ink gets stuck midway (i.e. I can always use their pens till all the ink runs out). Here’s a picture of my current inventory of Muji pens:
Both their ballpoint and gel ink ones rock. I particularly like the ballpoint because it’s so smooth and nice. Although Muji is a no-frills brand, these pen aren’t exactly dirt cheap either; it’s SGD$1.90 (approx. USD1.30) for the full pen, and SGD$1.30 (USD 0.90) for the refills. But they are so good I’d rather use them than to buy Uni or Pilot (which cost equally or more expensive).
My style if you’ve seen it is kind of similar to yours. At least my thumb also sticks out and well the similarity ends there. I put too much pressure on my index finger which in turn means that when I write on one page, the next 2-3 pages get the outlines too. Basically I press very hard when writing and that’s why I get tired easily. But it doesn’t matter till the time the handwriting is legible which is what’s important to me.
For some reason, I can’t load the pictures on your post! :(
Anyway, yes, I think as long as handwriting is legible, that’s enough.
About outlines on the other pages, this reminds me of some sleuth shows where the detectives will use a pencil to shade on those pages and find out what the suspect/victim wrote prior to the crime. Hoho.
OMFG PPL ALWAYS COMPLAIN ABOUT MY CHOPSTICK-HOLDING STYLE TOO. they always cross no matter how hard i try to hold them nicely. sometimes i have difficulty picking up food but i’m not bothered cos i know i’ll eventually get it. when i was a kid i always ask for a fork and spoon and i get teased mercilessly for not being ‘chinese’. :evil:
i don’t believe you can write the way you pose in the second picture! impossible!
haven’t heard of muji pens here but well, i’m the kind if i like a certain brand i won’t even consider others to try for a long time. will look out for it in stationery shops next time.
Haha, mine not only crosses, my index finger sticks out and points around the table which is taken to be quite direspectful. And I can never handle small pieces of food, and especially noodles. Maybe I shall do a post on my chopstick holding stance next!
Oh and Muji is a standalone brand itself; it’s from Japan and they sell everything from pen to food to clothes and even bicycles. LOL
yer, i so jealous of your hand. fingers so long and wrist looks so slim.
hahaha.
No leh, I think it’s the angle of how I take my photographs. Fingers are fat; my rings are often too big for some other girls’ thumbs. Haha.
but muji pens aren’t waterproof so i cannot use them lol.
Ballpoint loh. :P Or stop drinking coffee/tea/beverage while you write. :P
Good think we don’t have chopsticks in here or I’m sure I would have had to hear many things about my style of holding them too. Spoon for the win! :P
Ha, Indian cuisine cannot be eaten with chopsticks. Well, unless you cut up the chapati (do they eat chapati and thosai and stuff in Northern India?) in to bite-size pieces, and use chopsticks to eat them. Which is rather redundant.
Yeah, we do have chapati’s and stuff in North India. We’re foodies here in the state I live..it’s almost full of people who live to eat.
But then again, we eat a lot of chinese stuff..noodles etc so we can always use a chopstick. Of course it’d look rather silly doing that but who cares.
People who live to eat. I think that happens to a lot of Singaporeans too. :P I hate eating slippery noodles using chopsticks. Prefer to twirl my noodles with a fork, heh.
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