Writing

They always say swimming is like cycling. You learn it once; you can’t forget it for the rest of your life. So I always assumed something as simple as writing should also follow the rule right? Well, after today’s “psychology and HRM” paper, I am not so sure.
You are probably thinking, how someone can forget how to do something that he does daily. Well therein lies my story. When I was registering the subjects for my final semester in college, I decided to do as little work as possible and chose only those subjects where the professors were not too bothered about little things like attendance. But what resulted from that was by the time my first sessionals started I had barely even a week’s worth of classes (At this point I can’t even imagine how I used attend 6 theory subjects with 5 practicals just 2 semesters back!!)
And I will admit I had never been the type to actively take notes in class. But this was extreme. I don’t think I have written one full word this entire semester. So taking all these facts into consideration I decide on the day before my first exam (psycho n HRM), I will have to check up on my writing skills. But that is when this popular quote about cycling and swimming pops into my head. And I think if you can’t forget stuff as complicated as swimming (never managed to learn despite many spirited attempts – the last one was at a lake near my house and trust me, it wasn’t pleasant) I was confident would do fine in the exam.
So I walk into the exam hall, my head brimming with brilliant ideas on how to make my answer paper look like it was written by a genius( ah...that wouldn’t have been so hard, I guess :D ). I look at the question paper and laugh the evil laugh in my head thinking, “This should be fun”. I take up my pen, put it to the paper and.....
I am stuck!!
Totally and utterly stuck. I am not lying. I mean could make alphabet shapes on the paper, but getting a complete word in a flow of running alphabets suddenly seemed so Herculean. Finally I give up, scratch of what I have written, turn the page and start over. This time I was smarter (yeah!!) and started of writing in uppercase. I write the first word (“PSYCHOLOGY”) look up and thank God. Then slowly I try my hand at running alphabets again. I was slow. Almost painfully slow. But I had started off.
I won’t bore you with further details. I managed to finish the paper somehow, writing only what was really necessary and my hand was screaming in pain by the time it was over.
But this exam has taught me something. I guess one really might forget how to write. So that’s why they never say “Swimming is like Writing. You just have to learn it once.”
adios.