Day Twenty-Eight

Conclusion! 

It gives me much relief to write this post.

I am finally finished! It's been a long month of doing this project, and I couldn't be happier to be done. No more embarrassing myself by accidentally throwing food across the table while I eat (though I'm sure I'll find other ways to embarrass myself), no more taking forever to straighten my hair in the morning, or even get ready in the morning. You'd be surprised how hard it is. 

I am finally finished.

Though, I am happy that I decided to do this project. I'm happy because I can say, to some extent, that I am somewhat ambidextrous. If I were to break my right hand, I'd still be able to do schoolwork. It would definitely take me longer, and I would definitely need help with tests, but I could still do it. I also know that I wouldn't starve, either. I've pretty much mastered using my left hand for those things.

Obviously, I don't know how driving would work for that, but... hopefully we'll never have to find out.

I think some of the hardest things, like many of my surveys suggested, was learning how to write with my left hand and learning how to do it well. I look back at the many times I sat in my Bible class trying to write notes and just laughing at myself. And other times when I would try to write nice notes to people and decided that I just couldn't do it because they looked so ridiculous. Haha.

I think one of the biggest things that I've learned through doing this project, is that obviously, it is hard to use your non-dominant hand. But not only that, but for people who are right handed, it is much harder to use their non dominant hand than for those who are left handed; that is simply because they have to use their right hand more often than we have to use our left hands. I just find that so interesting. I had never thought about it that much before. 

I also learned that this world isn't really made for left handed people, that there are lots of difficult things for them to do because we are dominantly a right handed world. Oh yeah, that's also another thing that I learned: there are a lot less left handed people in this world than I ever realized. I thought that we were more evenly split, but it turns out only 10% of the world is left handed. 

I also thought that it was interesting to find that being ambidextrous (or trying to be) effects the way the brain works and functions. I had many people say that it was good for the brain, because it worked hard to use your non dominant hand, and use it correctly. I guess it helped the neurons in your brain and strengthened the strength of it. But I also learned that it's bad for your brain because your brain has a much harder time remembering things and focusing on them. For me, that was interesting as well.

I had a lot of fun with this project. I got a bunch of good laughs out of it, and I also got some frustration out of it. But I'm glad I did it, because I learned a lot of interesting things through this project. I've always be curious as to why people favor a certain hand, and why some people are more artistic than others. And now I know why. 

Day Twenty-Seven

(Really day 26--another interview!)

Today I interviewed my manager from back home (I work at Gap, Inc. in the mall). I've noticed that when he writes at work he always uses his left hand, but our system on our computers/register is made for right handed people (all of the buttons to press are on the right side of the computer rather than the left), so I was curious as to how he deals with things like this, and what other obstacles he faces throughout the day. So here's my interview:

Q. You are left handed, correct?
A. Yes, I'm left handed.  

Q. How many of your family members are left handed? What is their relation to you?
A. My Brother is left handed and my Father was left handed before going through Catholic school. They made him right handed.  

Q. Do you know if your son is a righty or a lefty (I don't know if he's too young to tell yet)?
A. My son, who is three years old is right handed. I could tell fairly early. He just seemed to favor it. Throwing, reaching for things, etc.   

Q. What is your wife's dominant hand?
A. My wife is right handed.  

Q. In a world made mostly for right handed people, what are some every day tasks that are hard to accomplish?
A. Actually writing in a spiral notebook has always been difficult. I have to turn the notebook sideways and I write away from myself instead of right to left. I've tried left handed notebooks has well. Must be how I hold the pen, I guess. Using power tools is an adventure at times as well, especially circular saws. Hard to see where your measurements are because there on the other side of blade.  

Q. Is there something that used to be hard to do, but you've learned to use your right hand so it's not as hard anymore?
A. Not really. I use my right hand for many things.  

Q. Do you use your right hand often?
A. Everyday. I use it for everything but writing and drawing! But I taught myself to draw with my right hand while I was in college. I was afraid I would lose my left arm in a car accident for some reason. *Don't ask me. Ha But my right hand is my dominant hand to use tools, throw, cut with a knife etc. 

I think this is interesting because I never would use my left hand if I didn't have to--but left handed people are forced to use their right hand on a daily basis. He's learned to do most everyday things with his right hand (non dominant hand) because he has to. I never would have tried using my non dominant hand if not for this project. I just find it interesting. I suppose this does give them an advantage though--if they were to break there arm/hand (like, in a car accident for instance haha! Don't ask, he's a crazy guy), then they wouldn't have a huge problem switching to their non dominant hand. I suppose that in some ways, most left people are probably considered ambidextrous.

Day Twenty-Six

(really day 25--free day)

Today I was planning on getting up early so I could try to do my makeup and everything with my left hand... but unfortunately, I'm a sleep deprived college student who slept till the very last moment that I could.

I decided instead to spend awhile practicing my handwriting. I spent a good 30 minutes writing the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" multiple times on a sheet of paper. I wrote in a previous post about this, but I chose this sentence because it has every letter of the alphabet in it. A lot of websites that I've read suggest writing this sentence a lot to get used to writing each letter.

So that's what I decided to do.

I will say that since the beginning of the month and till now, my writing has improved a lot. I think writing my Bible notes in class has helped a lot.

But I did notice that my writing improved as I practiced writing the sentence over and over again. Not only was it less sloppy, my writing got smaller and more controlled. It was actually interesting to see. I remember doing handwriting when I was little and absolutely HATING it, but now watching how practicing it helped me in a matter of 30 minutes... it was actually really cool. And since I'm studying elementary education, that interested me as well. Practice does make perfect, even if it is super boring. But things like writing are so important for the rest of life.

Anyways, that was just my experiment for today. I did eat lunch and dinner, and I'm still getting better using my left hand for that. Nothing super embarrassing happened, so that's exciting.

Day Twenty-Five

(Really day 24)

Today I had my classmates take a survey having to do with people who are left handed/ambidextrous. In total I had 46 people take these surveys. Here's the survey I had them take:

1. Which hand is your dominant hand? Left or right

2. How many people do you know that are left handed? None  1-2  3-4  5-6  6+

3. Do you have any family members that are left handed? Yes or no

4. If so, what is their relation to you? _____________________________________________________

5. How many people do you know that are ambidextrous? None  1-2  3-4  5-6  6+

6. Have you ever tried using your non-dominant hand for something? Yes or no

7. If so, what did you attempt? Was it easy? _________________________________________________

8. What do you think would be the hardest thing to do if you broke your dominant hand and could only use your non-dominant hand? ______________________________________

Here are some of the results I found: 

For question #1, 45 people were right handed, and only 1 person was ambidextrous. I had absolutely no left handed people take my surveys. I guess they really are a minority. 

What I find funny, is that most of these people had relatives that were left handed, and being left handed is usually a genetic thing. 26 of the 46 said they had relatives that were left handed (mostly parents and siblings). 

As to how many people they knew that were left handed (#3), most people (22) said 3-4. The second most popular answer was 6+ (which consisted of 11 people). 5-6 followed and 1-2 came shortly after. Only 2 people said they knew no one who was left handed.

41 people answered yes for #6. Most of the 41 people said they tried writing or eating with their left hands, and it was not easy. I can attest to that. A couple said shooting and archery for theirs... and they said it was not hard, surprisingly to me. 

And again, for #8, almost everyone (about 37 people) wrote that writing would probably be the hardest thing to do if they were to break their dominant hand. I a couple people say sports would be hard, and my favorite answer, "everything". 

Day Twenty-Four

(Really day 27)

Here's another article about a test done to see the difference in the non-dominant hand and dominant hands.

They asked medical students to fill out a questionnaire to figure out if the students were right handed or left handed. Then they did a couple of tests to test the ability of their dominant hand vs. their non dominant hand.

The first test was having each student tap their index fingers (at separate times) on a key to see how many times they could tap it in 10 seconds.

The second test, they used a hand-held dynamometer to determine the strength of each hand by having the students squeeze the meter.

The results showed that people's whose dominant hands are their left hands show that they have a higher speed when using their right hand, and have a stronger right hand, than right handed people using their left hand. But what's interesting is that right handed people generally have a stronger/faster dominant hand than those who are left handed.

I think maybe this is because left handed people are so used to using both their hands for tasks that we only have to use our right hand for, so they have strength in both hands, just not as much as right handed people have in just one hand. Very interesting study.

Day Twenty-Three

(really day 24 on our sheet-looking for an article in our library database)

Day 23! Can't believe it's been over three weeks. Only five more days until we're finally done with this project. Crazy, really.

Here's an article I found relating to my project.

In this article, they did an experiment, as most of my articles are about, to see the effects of the dominant vs. non dominant hand. They used handicapped children for their "test" subjects. The students were aged from 4-13 years of age. They chose 20 to use their dominant hand, and 20 to use their non dominant hand, and asked the kids to draw a picture of a man. Then they turned the paper around and asked them to draw another picture of a man using their other hand.

They noticed that most of the pictures drawn with the non-dominant hand were much less detailed and had much less coordination. They said that this also seemed to "reduce" the mental age, meaning their drawings seemed to be drawn by a child younger than the child's actual age. They estimated about 1 year in "mental age loss".

I find it interesting. Again, it's just so hard to use your non dominant hand. It takes so much practice to get used to and to be able to actually function with it. That's basically the message I keep getting from all of these articles.

Day Twenty-Two

(Day 14! Interview came through!)

This is an interview from one of my classmates. She plays volleyball and hurt her hand, so she's been using her left hand for everything. Here's the questions:

Q: Which hand is your dominant hand (which one do you write/eat with)?
A: right

Q: How did you hurt your right hand?
A: I hurt my right hand blocking at volleyball practice.

Q: What problems have you noticed since you've injured your hand? Any specific every day tasks that have been a challenge for you?
A: I have a hard time doing the basics. Getting ready in the mornings, tying my shoes, writing, driving, putting my hair up. I've had to take my exams with academic help because i can't write. 

Q: What are some things that you've realized that are difficult to do with just one hand?
A: I realized how hard it is to take care of yourself with one hand, especially when its not your dominant hand. like drying/straightening hair, doing my makeup, brushing my teeth. Thats probably been the hardest adjustment.

I thought this was interesting. A lot of the struggles I've been having. Obviously, not as extreme because I still have my right hand as well. But I thought it was interesting to see that driving is hard. I think for my next free day I'm going to try to get ready start to finish with my left hand; doing makeup and all. THAT should be interesting.