http://www.typophile.com/node/47217
http://www.typophile.com/node/47218
http://www.typophile.com/node/47259

I still have a bad hand.

Some more discussion:
http://typophile.com/node/87741

I was "demeaned" by my second grade teacher for adding swashes to my handwriting exercises.

Interesting theory.

In fact when we moved from Lebanon to the US
when I was 6 and then moved back when I was 9
I had to flip-flop between detached and cursive
handwriting, and the last thing I remember was
having to figure out what an "a" is "supposed" to
look like on my own (because I was too old to be
formally re-taught). After a period of writing the
"a" in binocular form (too slow) I went (back?)
to the monocular form.

hhp

I still have bad handwriting.
And I still write the binocular 'a' (most of the time).
Being a lefty doesn't help.

Actually I had quite good handwriting early on. The teachers said my cursive was truly beautiful. But then my fifth grade teacher (teacher of 10 year-olds if you are not used to the american system) kept making us write all theses sentences, like hundreds and hundreds of paragraph long sentences, as a form of punishment. Myself, I was fairly well behaved, so out of my resentment I wrote out those sentences just as fast as I could. The fall was imminent after that.

Terrible, but I never did any typeface.

Mine is still pitiful. I don't write enough anymore to make it better either. Most things are just quick notes these days; no more school papers or long written letters.

Still have excellent hand writing. Only thing of note is that it started to 'float' inbetween the lines on lined paper. I use them as guides to get my writing in the middle of the line rather than on it.

Actually a centerline is much smarter than a baseline (as if letters need to sit so they don't get tired). Hopefully one day our writing (and I don't mean by hand) will be reformed in that way.

hhp