In The Now

le It’s coming up on the first anniversary of the date when I started using Dvorak for my typing needs. I’ve never pretended to be anything other than a little weird and hard on myself. (That’s not true, but it’s close enough for this blog post)

In the spirit of being weird and just to prove to myself that I can do it, this post is being written in its entirety with a QWERTY keyboard.

I remember when I started learning Dvorak. It was frustrating. It felt like writing with the wrong hand, only using my foot instead. It mostly feels natural now. I do muck up every once in awhile but for the most part, pretty comfortable.

This layout feels wrong. More wrong than Dvorak felt when I was learning it. Yes, some of the muscle memory is still there. It’s way easier than Dvorak was when I started, but now that I’ve learned Dvorak, QWERTY feels like a serious step back.

If I had it to do over again, I’m not sure that I would go through this process again. I don’t regret it, but I still don’t type as fast as I did when I was comfortable with QWERTY and certainly not when I was transcribing interviews for the University of Alberta.

Still, if I don’t use my time as a chance to learn, what am I doing here?