Also...in High School typing class, I was a two-finger typer. Every morning we had to take a two sentence typing test to see if we had improved. Rather than learn to type like I was supposed to, I just memorized all of the two sentence phrases that made up the tests. Within a couple weeks of the class, it didn't matter which phrases popped up, I was two-finger typing over 80 words per minute.
Typing was required in my high school. As I'd been touch typing QWERTY since I was 11 or so, this made me a bit grumpy. On my first day of class I opened the textbook to the last assignment and completed it in a few seconds.
My teacher was a good sport about it and demanded that the department transfer me into computer science. I spent the rest of the year ignoring some over-engineered OO fishtank.
I had already learned to type qwerty a few years before taking my high school typing class. The first time that our teacher tested us, I was already typing over 60 WPM. By the end of the class, I was typing at 95 WPM, a good thirty WPM or so above the next student. Unfortunately, at the end of the class, my grade was 69.45 (70 was passing). The reason? Every week, the teacher required us to turn in a five page hand-written essay that we would type on Friday. I had originally learned to type because I hated hand-writing and I would turn the paper in typed and printed from my home computer (An Apple IIe). The teacher would give me a zero every week for not following the rules and I would argue with her that I was taking a typing class, not a penmanship class.
On the last day of class, before she turned in the grades, she offered to let me write an essay in exchange for 1 point. I decided practicality in this case was better than stubbornness and wrote the essay. I believe I chose a theme of practicality, stubbornness, compassion, and compromise.
Oh no...I finally learned to type around 1998. I moved to L.A. My roommate bailed on me and left me here. I discovered Yahoo! Chat to pass the time and somehow that's what finally forced me to become a better typist. Just tested myself for shits and giggles - adjusted speed of 71 wpm. ;)
