Thursday 31 January 2008

Left? Right?

The above picture was taken by my good friend Appu while he was 'checking out' my phone...despite the fact that I've had it for nearly 3 years now.
But this has left me wondering; how does one know what their preferred hand is? Many say that the hand you write with is your stronger one, but I'll (hopefully rather controversially :P) disagree.

You see, I'm not sure whether I'm left or right-handed. I do write with my right, although in a rather unorthodox way. The way I grip my pen, the odd angle at which I position my wrist and the unusual way that I keep the book while I write has always been a source of annoyance to my teachers. During my little years at primary school, teachers would adjust my book or tell me to grip my pencil "properly". The Quran teacher at my grade 4 class actually yelled at me one day and roughly changed the position of my book. The Assistant Principle during my 6th year gave me a 2-minute lecture on how to write the "right way". On the first day during grade 8, I had the Maths teacher breathing down my neck & asking, "How you write, eh?" And it's not great having him breathing down your neck by the way. He was a great teacher, but his breath was simply awful.

Anyway, I use my left hand for a number of tasks, especially those that require twisting. But many household items like can openers always drive me nuts, as they're designed for right-handed usage. Even the burettes at the chemistry labs have taps on their right side..

I often hear people say that your hand preference is genetic. Years ago, during the days when I taught my little sister to write, I noticed that she used the pencil with her left hand if i gave it to her left, and so on with her right. She didn't appear to be bothered about this at all, but I trained her to use her right anyway.

But I saw the most curious thing recently during an extra class. There was a girl sitting next to me & she was using the very same writing techniques as I do! The way she gripped her pen and positioned her wrist & book were exactly the same way as mine, except with just one difference; she was using her left hand..now I'm all confused.



6 comments:

Unknown said...

maybe ur right hand wished that it were ur left? perhaps thats why its behaving that way? :D

Muawwaz said...

very true...... i believe ur words

Anonymous said...

im sure its not genetic cuz my whole family is righthanded while im lefthanded. and weird enough i use my left hand only to write.. all other stuff i prefer doing from my right hand >.< confusing!!!!

shweetikle said...

maybe u were born as a left hander..bt ur mum changed it and made u write with ur right..ask ur mum abt this ;)

.mini said...

god imma! you think too much :P
although my dad also uses his right hand to write, but uses his left hand to do household work,
so its pretty normal!

btw, who's hands are in the photo?

Imma said...

bulhaa - i guess i have 2 left hands then..
muawwaz - u always do :P
radvixen - u cant possibly be my mirror image? :D
shweet - shes indignant tat im a righty
mini - the big one belongs to the big fella..mines the girly one