5 ways to increase shorthand speed

About a year ago, I wrote an introduction to teeline shorthand post. It’s by far my most popular post, and brings a steady flow of visitors to the blog. As there must be at least a handful of people who have found it useful, I thought I’d revisit the subject with five tips on increasing your shorthand speed. My own experience is in Teeline shorthand, but these general principles can be applied to other methods, such as Pitman’s.

1. Practice

Practice, practice and more practice. Shorthand tutors usually recommend around an hour a day spent perfecting outlines and dictation. The more time you give shorthand, the more success you’ll have with it. From personal experience, if you can’t manage an hour a day, it’s better to practice little and often than for hours on end. I sometimes found after an extended time period you tend to question why a word has a certain outline, and get bogged down in unnecessary details. Try practicing for 30 minutes a day to keep the theory fresh in your mind.

2. Special Outlines

Commonly used words have special outlines to save even more time than writing with just the teeline alphabet. In some cases, they’ll be the same outline as a singular teeline letter but the context of the text will help when transcribing. I’ve noted some examples below:

Some basic special outlines.

3. Special Phrases

If you think your speed will increase by using special outlines for words, just think how much time you’ll save when using special outlines for entire phrases. Below are two sets of special phrases containing the words ‘be’ and ‘that’. This should be useful if you’re just starting out with Teeline as they’re very commonly used word groupings.

Basic special phrases.

4. Control your nerves

The worst part of taking shorthand notes from dictation is not knowing what words you’ll need to write in advance. Inevitably you’ll come across words you’ve not used before but don’t panic. Putting a technically incorrect outline which will hopefully remind you of the correct word later is fine. If you’re totally stuck don’t waste time dwelling on it. Move on to words you’re more familiar with so you can keep up with dictation. Obviously this links back to point one, practice. Drill those unknown words until you can write from ‘muscle memory’ but don’t sweat it when you don’t know the answer.

5. Set realistic targets and achieve them.

Be realistic – you can only achieve speeds of 100 words per minute or more if you have the time to dedicate to shorthand.  Set goals which are achievable (but challenging) within the time and effort you’re willing to put in. Set a target of 40wpm and master this before moving on to 50wpm, and so on.

I must practice my shorthand to get a high speed.

 

It can be difficult to find comprehensive shorthand resources online, particularly free ones, so I hope these tips are useful for you – whether you’re a beginner or just want to improve your skills. If it’s still a bit baffling then refer back to my previous post for a reminder of the basics of Teeline shorthand. As I’ve said before, signing up for a course where you can ask questions and get one to one teaching will be the most effective way to learn shorthand. Please do leave a comment as I’d love to get your feedback, I’ll also do my best to answer any questions you might have.

Back to back in time

This weekend I was transported back to yesteryear (my favourite of all the years) when I visited the Birmingham Back to Backs.

If you’re not already aware, back to backs are terraced houses which were literally built back to back around a communal courtyard. Working class families flocked to the cities during the Industrial Revolution and this was a cheap way of sheltering large numbers of people in a relatively small area.

The houses have been restored to demonstrate different time periods and tell the stories of the people who once lived there. I’d wanted to go for a while, so when my friend Ellie announced she’d be coming to visit, the perfect opportunity arose to book a tour.

We met Harry, our lovely tour guide, outside the traditional Victorian sweet shop. We were a little early so there was time to buy some Turkish delight and liquorice wheels – but we had to leave behind the pear drops, rhubarb and custards, cola cubes, banana and custards, giant gobstoppers…

At each house, we learnt about the residents and their day to day life. In one house, there was 11 children, and at another six boys shared a bedroom with two lodgers! As you can imagine, the houses were dark, dingy and residents could expect a much lower quality of life than we’re accustomed to now – no electricity or running water. That said, I got the impression there was sense of community which most of us probably don’t experience in our modern lives.

Rather than a pristine museum with artifacts behind class, ‘do not touch’ signs and velvet rope ensuring you stay out of reach at all times, the houses are restored with of the era furniture and some props which you can inspect close up. I especially enjoyed the dinner table laid out with real food including bread, flour and freshly patted butter. (I doubt it was actually that fresh, but brownie points to the National Trust anyway!)

The atmosphere is cranked up again with real candles burning and clothes soaking in the wash house. It’s almost as though you’re sneaking around whilst the residents have all nipped out.

After housing provisions improved and people left the poor conditions of back to backs, some of the buildings began to be used by traders. Part of the museum is a time capsule of George Saunders’ tailor shop with original fixtures and fittings from the workshop which opened in 1977.

Amazing wallpaper! Seems kind of familiar though, doesn’t it? This 70s wallpaper is the inspiration behind the Cath Kidston Cowboy range. You can even pick up a mug in the gift shop as you leave.

From memory, I always felt a little unsatisfied from history lessons at school. It was a kind of abstract concept, where kings and queens whose lives bore no resemblance to my own fought wars for reasons I couldn’t understand. The stories of everyday individuals help me to put history into context, and if you can experience something as close to first hand as possible then all the better I think.

First Timer

For this post I’ve tried a little something new. Well, a couple of new things actually.

I read a lot of blogs in my spare time, and a sizeable proportion of those are, in some form or another, fashion blogs. I enjoy reading about the inspiration behind people’s style and seeing how they put together an outfit. My own particular interest lies in vintage clothing, so unfortunately I can’t exactly replicate every piece I see, but nor would I want to. It’s about embracing your own sense of style, rather than wearing a peplum skirt because the glossies said you ‘must have’ one. You don’t.

So, this post is a small and tentative introduction to my personal style. I recently scored an amazing vintage dress via eBay and wanted to show it off to the world. This happily coincided with some plans I’d made to go roller skating – the other new thing I mentioned!

Introduction over, here goes…

Candy pink, with white collar and cuffs, and sweetshop buttons. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this dress. Shopping on eBay is always a slight gamble, especially with vintage clothing sizes, but I think this one really paid off. Okay, the sleeves are a bit more billowing than I’d like, but hey, I’ve had worse clothing disasters.

Next time I probably won’t wear it with white roller skates, in the style of an all-American diner waitress-on-wheels – it’s somewhat out of place in my local park. But I can see this dress slotting into my wardrobe nicely. Just imagine it with white knee high socks a la Suzy from Moonrise Kingdom.

Roller skating then. Slightly random I know, but with the onset of Valentines Day I wanted to find something which Rich and I could do together rather than buy pointless gifts. If anyone ever buys you a teddy bear with the words “I luv u” written on it or an engraved “Derek & Dave 4eva” keyring then you know it’s the beginning of the end. Instead, Rich and I rolled off into the sunset together. Well, that was the idea, in reality I need to thank him for taking these photos in the freezing cold with minimal moaning!

Paint it white

What’s that? You haven’t seen enough pictures of snow this week? Well, allow me…

I worked from home on Friday, which allowed me to take an impromptu walk around my neighbourhood to capture the snow as it fell. I love the way everything seems cleaner. A brighter and fresher viewpoint. Of course, it’ll inevitably be followed by days and days of grey slush which takes so long to melt that things seem grimier than ever. For now though, I can still look out my window and see bright white.

One of the things I really want to do more of this year is to take photos. That generally means there aren’t many shots of me to post here, but that might not be a bad thing depending on your point of view. Anyway, Britain’s big (and by big, I mean little) freeze was a good opportunity to get the camera out.

Honestly, I’m such a novice. I don’t have an eye for composition or know what most of the camera buttons are for, but I have found I like the details. Capturing objects close up is satisfying as you’re forced to examine things in detail and give it a little time and attention. It also reminds me of those old ‘what is it?’ games where you had to guess the object from a magnified section of it.

On a related note, after months of not getting it, Instagram has won me over! I had though it was purely slapping a grainy filter on your photos, and whilst it kind of is, I’m enjoying the social networking side of it. I’m an inherently nosey person who is more than happy to know what you ate for lunch and what cute thing your dog just did. If you’re as nosey as me, feel free to follow me; my username is @_emmalaw or click on my face below to view my page.

Enjoy the rest of the snow, wrap up warm! :)

 

2012 Retrospective – Lomo Style

Waaaay back in April last year, I bought Rich a fisheye camera for his birthday. Since then a couple of rolls of film have been sitting on the shelf waiting to give up their secrets. This weekend, we finally got them developed and I’m pleasantly surprised with how they turned out.

It’s been so long since I used real film, I’m now totally accustomed to the instant gratification of being able to see and reshoot digital photographs. Using an analog camera took me back to my childhood when one Christmas I was given a cheap disposable camera and was quite content to snap away around my home. Nowadays, the pictures wouldn’t be much to look at, but to me they’re a nice reminder my little world back then – an awful brown sofa which was very much lived in,  some dated 70′s wallpaper and our beloved cat, Gizmo. I’ll have to dig them out sometime…

I really like this batch of fisheye photos for the same reason; the look is really retro with a kind of lo-fi finish. They make me feel nostalgic and I’m a sucker for anything slightly vintage. Looking through our holiday pics in particular, feels like looking through my parents photos of their old holidays.

I particularly like this shot of a street in Athens; it has plenty of hustle and bustle without giving away that it’s a modern photo. It could easily be from another decade.

I feel inspired to try out some more photography fun in 2013, I have a couple of disposable camera lying around which I’m sure I could put to good use. Any ideas for an interesting project?

[These pictures were taken on Lomography Fisheye 2 camera on 35mm film.]

Toxic Threads

This week, Greenpeace have released a report detailing the toxic trail of the textile industry in China. I haven’t had chance to read it yet, but the accompanying pictures really put specific faces and stories to sometimes uninspiring facts and figures.  Go take a look.

A quick browse through my wardrobe and I discover that my favourite dress is made in China (and I’m sure countless other garments) so it’s easy to see that we should all be taking an interest in where our clothing comes from. It’s particularly timely as I’ve just written an article for the Bloomtrigger Project about the ecological impacts of cotton production which you can read here.

If you’re interested in finding out more about ethical fashion I’d suggest stopping by this blog, ran by a friend of mine, Katie Ledger. Her enthusiasm for all things green is catching and I must have picked up lots of interesting facts purely by osmosis over the years. She really knows her stuff, why not take a look and be inspired.

Make Mondays Better!

It’s been a somewhat predictable Monday hasn’t it? My Twitter newsfeed is full of the same moans every week. I think it’s safe to say we all struggled to get out of bed this morning and we all wish we were somewhere else, rather than sitting at our desk, watching with bleary eyes as the emails roll in.

In truth, Mondays are probably the same as every other work day: Sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes you want to throw your stapler at the next person who annoys you.

I think it’s time to reassess and get rid of the Monday Blues! In my own small way, I’ve swerved the slump by remembering that tonight I get to do nothing. The weekend was very productive which means that right now, I haven’t got to be anywhere or see anyone, bliss.

The perfect opportunity to catch up on TV I’ve missed (can you believe I’ve only watched one episode of Brazil with Michael Palin so far?!) and enjoy yesterday’s leftover crumble.

I can only assume that a plum and ginger crumble in front of the TV is everyone’s idea of a relaxing night in, so I thought I’d share my recipe with you. After breaking my old laptop so long ago I’ve finally got a shiny new MacBook and thought a recipe card would be a nice way to try out some new features.

Click here for a more detailed recipe to save and keep, and let me know what you think.

Like any crumble, it’s a simple recipe which can be adapted depending on what’s in your cupboards.

Halve and stone a punnet of plums and roughly chop some jarred stem ginger. Place both in a saucepan with a couple of spoons of sugar and heat for 5-10 minutes. To save on washing up you can roast the plums in the baking dish you’ll use to cook the crumble instead. I also added some of the syrup from the jar of ginger – what will you do with it otherwise?

One of the individual crumbles I made as there was slightly too much fruit to fit in one baking dish.

To make the crumble topping, rub together cold cubed butter and flour until you get rough breadcrumbs then stir in the sugar. Using cold butter stops the topping becoming too doughy, so you end up with a contrast between soft sweet fruit and crunchy crumble.

To this basic topping I added oats, but you can also add nuts or seeds.

Bake at Gas Mark 6/ 200C for 20-30 minutes.

Enjoy x

Travel Journal: Play it again, Sam.

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The nitty gritty of booking a holiday, quite frankly, bores me. I hate comparing hotels, finding cheap flights and working out how to get from one to the other when your plane lands at 3am. Once all that’s done, however, I love researching things to do, places to eat and sights to see.

Apparently, open air cinemas are quintessentially Greek. I’m no film buff, but I do love a trip to the cinema so a visit to an open air theatre was a must. Before the trip I’d seen that Casablanca was listed as ‘Coming Soon’, so I was pleased to find out it was showing a couple of days before we were due to leave.

I’ve only recently (within the last six months) watched Casablanca for the first time. Despite it being a classic film, I’d never got round to seeing it but I wish I’d watched it sooner! I know the blog title is a misquote but it’s still iconic.

Watching for the second time in an open air theatre with a couple of hundred Athenian locals was an unusual experience. It was in English with Greek subtitles so everyone could follow along together, but interestingly, the locals reacted differently to parts of the film than I did. They laughed at different parts and there were a lot more gasps and boos than an English girl could politely make in the company of others.

I knew I’d be watching with a Greek audience but I was more looking forward to an outside viewing on a warm night than considering how another culture watched the same film. It was a pleasant surprise, and by the end there were plenty of people holding back the tears, me included. (Oh Rick, we knew you were a good guy all along!)

After mixing with the locals at the pictures we had one full day in Athens left (doesn’t time fly?!) In a week, we’d ticked off most of the main sights and tourist attractions, leaving only the Ancient Agora to visit.

An agora is basically a meeting place, used as somewhere to buy, sell, or trade, or as a place for public speaking and meetings – think of a Roman forum. It’s also where we get the word agoraphobia; a fear of open spaces.

With so many different things happening in an agora, there was lots of different types of building and styles of architecture. A good place to start is the Stoa of Attalos; the Oxford Street of it’s day, it was once full of shops only affordable to the wealthy Athenian.

Now, it’s home to a museum which showcases these lovely models of the Acropolis and surrounding area throughout different time periods.

Just hanging out at the Parthenon, I love the little fella leaning on a collumn!

There’s something about minatures which is so likeable. It must be the quaintness of an imaginary mini world, either that or the sense of power I get from feeling so tall!

Back to normal scale, we carried on exploring the rest of the Agora.

And that’s it for the Travel Journal series! We’ve reached the end of the holiday, ate all the Greek salad we can, and put the sunglasses away.

Travel Journal: Little Miracles

Look how beautiful this Greek antique/vintage/junk shop is! I spotted the shop front down a side street whilst we were strolling along eating frozen yoghurt. The  little wooden sign informed me it was called ‘Little Miracles’, and knowing  it wasn’t to be missed I went for a poke around.

Spilling out onto the street were; pots and pans; candlesticks; vases; an umbrella stand; a tricycle, bed warmers; and numerous brass instruments.

Inside was just as chaotic, with items pinned from wall to wall and trinkets crammed into every nook and cranny.

Perfume bottles are always so pretty, and make such a pleasing dressing table. I love vintage bottles, particularly those with atomisers, instant glamour.

I’d never heard of ‘Crepe De Chine’ before but I’ve found a lovely review online:

“Crepe de Chine is a stunning, world class perfume. The scent has a clean, fresh entry with a gorgeous full bodied greenfloral accord at its heart, all over creamy, dreamy exotic woods. Crepe de Chine envelopes you with beauty beyond compare.” [1] 

One look at that Art Deco bottle and I’m picturing flapper dresses, classic cars, and cigarettes in long thin holders being smoked by ladies with red lipstick.

I was brought crashing back to reality when the shop owner told me these china teacups were €27! Maybe she knows something I don’t about the floral motif, but you could thrift something similar much closer to home. Our charity shops are always full of tiny treasures at bargain prices.

Little Miracles antiques was a detour on the way to the Acropolis museum which was our main plan for the day. However, no photographs are allowed in the museum. This doesn’t make for a very fun blog post so instead I’ll show you our quick visit to the Panathenaic stadium later that day.

We’d spotted the stadium from our open top bus tour on the first day and thought it looked quite impressive. Although marble is everywhere in Athens, the stadium really stands out from its’ surroundings due to the solid shape forming a huge block of colour. 

That tiny figure on the steps is me, I’ve gone trundling down the steps because I’ve spotted something worth investigating.

These are the throne’s where the Greek King and Queen sat during the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. These days the stadium is used for Olympic events and other concerts and festivals.Close up: lion paws hold up either end of the throne’s.Ready, set, go! It wouldn’t be right to leave without a quick once around the track. Enough fun and games for one post, I’ll leave you with a selection of my favourite details from Olympic posters around the stadium.

L-R: St Louis 1904; London 1908; Paris 1924; Paris 1924; Berlin 1936; London 1948; Rome 1960; Mexico 1968; Athens 1896.

Travel Journal: dusty trails and cocktails

After spending the previous day hiking up the Acropolis, it felt like we needed to recharge our batteries a little. Isn’t that what holidays are for?

Our hotel was slightly outside of the normal tourist areas, but the extra 10 minutes on the metro paid off as it had a rooftop pool with 360° views of Athens! It was super quiet with no traffic noise and (on this particular day) no children splashing around! Perfect for getting engrossed in a good book.

I picked up Telling Stories months ago, flicked through the photos (not too embarrassing) and left it on the ‘to read’ pile. Sometimes,  it just doesn’t seem like the right time to start a certain book, and it gets left gathering dust just waiting for your attention again.

Telling Stories is the memoir of Tim Burgess, the lead singer of The Charlatans. I wouldn’t say I’m a die hard fan of The Charlatans, but I do think they’ve had more great songs than some people realise. I went into the book without much background knowledge or expectation, but afterwards my overwhelming impression is that Tim Burgess seems a likeable person, although slightly bonkers.

I like the fact that it’s slim on facts and figures; I’ve never found it useful to know dates of birth or inside leg measurements. Instead, I prefer to slowly get an understanding of the author, like you’re getting to know a friend, which is the case with this memoir.

Anyway, back to Athens!

The sun had mellowed by the time we left the hotel and we went off in search of food. We ended up at Thanasis for one of many kebabs of the trip. I had what I think was called the Thanasis special, which turned out to be an extra large portion of souvlaki.

After being faced with four kebab skewers I didn’t want to stretch myself too much so we took a stroll towards the Roman Agora. What we didn’t know is that it closes early on Sundays, so we were left peering through the gates from the outside.

A snapshot of Hadrian’s Library next door to the Agora as we carried on our stroll.

Sometimes Rich and I walk hand in hand, sometimes I get distracted by interesting buildings or a sleeping cat on a windowsill. Whilst I was reading about some rocks which women would slide down to promote fertility (erm, no I didn’t) Rich had found a cocktail bar.

I’m thankful it had such a lovely view of the Acropolis as Greek service is the slowest I’ve ever encountered. They couldn’t be any more laid back if they tried. It’s acceptable for a holiday, but can you imagine living there? I think my patience would be severely tested.

Rich had a Mojito and fancying myself as a bit of a Bond girl I plumped for a Vespa Martini.

It looks the business, but was quite possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted. I’m partial to a gin and tonic so had high hopes, but it didn’t seem to be made from anything edible (drinkable?) whatsoever. More like a cocktail made from liquids you’d find under the kitchen sink, 0/10.

While I debated how to ditch the Martini, Rich was snapping away to make a panorama of the skyline (he’s stitched a few together now so I might post them later on.) In the distance he noticed a thick green forested hill with a little white building on top. We plotted a course and ended up at Lykavittos Hill (‘hill of the wolves’.)

We’d spent almost the entire day gazing into the distance so it was apt that the views are the main reason people visit Lykavittos Hill.

At the top is the Chapel of Agios Giorgios, where that evening a wedding was taking place. I felt a bit of a gatecrasher as they had their wedding photos taken, but everything was still open to the public. It was nice to visit Lykavittos and witness something special even from a distance. It’s often the unexpected things which makes each holiday memorable.