Don't take your theory for granted

Wednesday night's class was a bit of an eye opener. I was writing with ease and had planned to transcribe the 80 words per minute test given at the end of every class. Knowing that I had given myself tests at home at 75 words per minute and transcribed them with 72% accuracy, 80 words per minute seemed doable. True, I wasn't going to get anywhere near the 97% accuracy needed to pass the test, but I think I could have achieved a decent showing.

So all was well until the instructor started dictating the test. Numbers! She's dictating numbers?!? Crap! When was the last time I worked on numbers? Then I started to confuse the endings -LESS and -NESS. And when was the last time I worked on -OLOGIST? Once again, my brain locked up and I was missing great chunks of dictation. Breathe, girl, breathe ~ you can do this ~ get your rhythm back! Nope, that ain't going to happen tonight. Neither is transcribing this test.

What went wrong? I was doing so well. Obviously, I don't know my theory as well as I should. I grabbed my theory book when I got home and started to mark all of the chapters that I need to review. I've marked eight chapters so far. But this is a good thing. I needed a wake-up call. I'm going to get back to basics, slow down and take some time to review my theory. I need to nip these problems in the bud now. Theory is the foundation that everything else is built upon, right? I'll never have the confidence I need, if I don't have a strong foundation in theory.