Special Thanks!

I just completed a 2-day run through of my Zyzzyva cardbox to which I've added all the three-letter words. It's my three-pronged approach to Scrabble study...anagram recognition, word list recall, and flash card study of bigger words.

So I have to send out a special thanks to Brad, our club director, for his help. Last week I was stuck on the three-letter K words which was more of a mental block than an inability to learn them by rote. Brad supplied me with mnemonics for my three-letters Ks and also those flash cards I mentioned earlier (my very first set!). It was a huge help.

But these mental blocks aren't new. When I was in high school and played softball, I went through a time when I was terrified to swing at the ball, because I had developed some kind of fear that any given pitch wasn't in the strike zone and, if I swung, it'd be a bad hit. Finally, after many weeks, I told the coach...who had the perfect solution. He threw pitch after pitch, instructing me to swing at each and every one, no matter if it looked like it was coming through the strike zone or not. Turned out I could get a pretty good hit off of almost every one and starting swinging again during games. (What a good coach. He died in an accident a few years later and they renamed the baseball/softball complex after him.)

So thank you, Brad! I feel a lot better now that I've gotten back into studying. In the end, I think this particular mental block is gone. Now, I'd say the only thing standing between me and memorizing a great, big, giant word list, if anything...is procrasti