It dawned on me that going through the Transcription Simplified book has become something of a chore that I do because it's part of the chain of things I set up for myself in order to learn Gregg Simplified. I can read those letters pretty quickly now, and I barely glance at the words before I copy them. It doesn't feel like improvement, it just feels like treading water.
So, I have temporarily put the book down and I'm taking a different track. I'm writing several journal type entries a day. Once I do a necessary rewrite (for clarity out of its original context), I will copy a series of stories I began writing a few years ago, into shorthand. I realize that it's more important for me, at this time, to focus on the words and phrases that *I* use. Otherwise, I'm just keeping up a skill for recording the thoughts of others, which is not what I originally learned shorthand for. While I've done the occasional journal entry and jotted down the occasional meeting note and todo list before, I've never fully embraced that practice. I've always had this "I'm still really just a beginner" voice in my head all this time that I no longer believe is fully warranted.
It's time for me to stop being the student, and to shake off my uncertainties so that I can put it to the full use I had originally intended.
At some point down the line, I'll probably go back to doing the lessons, as I'm sure I will have forgotten some of the abbreviating principles here and there and will benefit from the fresh exposure. At that time, I can brush up. For now, it's time to take off the training wheels.
One of my goals with this is to stop feeling uncertain over words or phrases I use that don't come up very often in the texts. It may take some guesswork, and some dictionary lookups (after I try my best guess, of course), but ultimately, that will be the Gregg I set out to learn.Labels: general, simplified