We'll let ayah be the judge of handwriting around here, k?

Something about those uniballs drives me crazy. Bad lines, uneven ink, and terrible feel.

Remember these?

No, what are they?

i opened this up expecting a thread about the very fine Pittsburgh Penguins. Disappointed. I never thought i thread on writing pens could create 6 pages of interest

the senator does not display good handwriting. in his case it's (mighty) fine penmanship. tied for best male penmanship only by an ex-beau of our lovely spontaneous poet.

though dave does gets extra points for his awesome personal stationary.

Oh. They're pencil/pen grips. They were super popular in the 80's because they supposedly have the perfect pencil-hand-positioning. My elementary school gave them out all the time. The positioning is good, but the plastic is hard, and the branding/indented lettering leave imprints on your fingers.

Well, I wouldn't call it 'interest' really. It took 3 years for this thread to reach 6 pages. It's just that all the same people are still here to comment on it.

(ayah has pen pals?)

ok, so favorite fountain pen... Pelikan M400

you can also swap out nibs..



For grading, I will also use Pilot precise V5 (extra fine) in black...


But I am also a pencil geek......

i'm quite the romantic, cotton.

Man, he really did have fantastic handwriting.

And Cotton, handwriting has become much more of a turn on for me since I met ayah. That's how much she's influenced me, apparently.

Every date with Stacey is now carefully planned out to involve him writing a check, somehow.

Um, no RED ink? When being edited/graded, I never felt ashamed enough by my mistakes unless corrected in RED ink.

Hot, steamy Luddite love.

no I dont use red ink because it makes students cry (I write a lot of comments), I use brown usually....also red has been shown to elicit (negative) emotional reactions..

or a related note, shame is a good thing, we, as a society, have lost the benefits of using shame as a powerful social influence...

Aren't you, as a teacher supposed to elicit negative emotional reactions? That's what 95% of my educational experience has been.

Yes, shame should be felt more often.

Education is now more than ever a service industry - edutainment not education... like burger king, we are expected to do it your way

consequently, there is great pressure not to cause negative emotions- (even if in the process we dumb down and minimize education)

I better end the rant before before I can't stop

The next generation is going to be even bigger pussies than mine.

I saw this in grad school. When you're competing for applicants, you don't want to ever hurt their feelings. Even the stupid ones, with bad habits, who need to be told "no" once in awhile. It's sales.

You'd think one would learn something from the Spitzer scandal.

I'm not a big fan of fountain pens (my handwriting isn't good enough [so I might try those positioning things]), but two that I'd own if ever I own any will be:

Namiki Vanishing Point
Visconti Divine Proportion

I had a Vanishing point, traded it away for something I cant remember.
The viscontis are nice- but always felt they were more jewelry than pen.

And on the handwriting point, I find that since you have more control over the nib and position (oblique nibs for instance), your handwriting is better. Also, why should that stop you? there are no rules dude...

Yeah, I don't think I could bring myself to ever use a $1K pen.It's like, if you can't hear a difference, why would you spend good money on good speakers? If you can't hear the difference, just get cheap shit. I feel the same way about nice pens. I don't see the point in getting nice pens, as they are wasted on me.

Also, the vicious cycle thing -- the worse I perceive my handwriting to be, the less I write, etc. So it's not like I even do a lot of writing to begin with.

Hey even ugly women go to the spa every now and again. You are worth it.. say it with me.. you are worth it.

oh, I can totally see why. I just like the whole idea of it.

as a lefty, I pretty much should stay out of this conversation, though.