Learning a new skill is as easy as A, B, Tee

"Today we will learn the alphabet", she said. At the age of 18, it was a sentence I hadn't expected to hear. My colleagues, many of whom were 10 years older, looked askance. They thought of better things: the pub, nightclubs, dipping Black Country scratchings into pots of apple sauce – anything but learning the alphabet.

We were on day one at journalism school in leafy Tettenhall. It was September 1988 and we were embarking on our shiny, new careers. We realised there would be an element of back-to-basics tuition, but re-learning the alphabet seemed a bit much.

"That's your first mistake," said Wendy. "You'll never make a journalist."

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't say 're-learning', I said 'learning'."

"Aaah, I see. Yes, Mrs Bird. Thank you." And she was right, though it took me 15 years to accept. If I have a forte, it's for writing, rather than journalism.

Wendy planned to teach us a different type of alphabet. She would be instructing us in the dark art of shorthand: Teeline, to be precise. We would learn how to downsize our As, Bs and Cs so that they became a shadow of their former selves. The letter P would be stripped of its vertical curve, the letter A of its left-hand flank and horizontal bar, the letter W of its inner peak. Letters would look like sheep the day after shearing or like cars stripped of their seats, engines and interiors at a breaker's yard. Instead of presenting themselves in all their pumped-out, muscled-up glory, letters would look like pumpkins at Halloween, all hollowed-out and empty.

Our Teeline skills would enable us to listen to fast-talking, sharp-shooting interviewees and write down what they were saying without missing a single word.

"Your brain might go a little funny," laughed Wendy, as she talked us through our K, Y, Z. "But don't let that worry you. It's part of the process." She was right about that, too. As well as learning how to write differently, we learned how to think differently. Our brains built processing filters which transformed words into tiny shapes.

Words like 'Wolverhampton' became a short, concise succession of waves and lines. Fish 'n' chips became a circle and squiggle. 'Yes, your honour, I promise not to do it again if you don't send me to jail', became a mash of funky digits and dots. We saw things differently, too. We'd drive past road signs and instead of seeing the word 'Birmingham', our brains would decode it into something shorter and simpler to write.

Teeline became our passion and we'd stay behind for extra sessions. At the end of our course, Wendy tested us. We'd taken to Teeline like ducks to water, like alcoholics to gin, like occultists to an innocent goat. Though don't ask me to write 'occultists to an innocent goat' in Teeline, that's something Wendy didn't teach us. And in the world of Teeline, writing a C after an O still does cause problems.

Most of us passed our 100 words per minute exam. Then the class swots showed their true colours and upped the ante. One hundred and 10 words per minute: no problem. One hundred and 20 words per minute: it's in the bag. We could write more quickly than most people can speak. Nothing – not a court hearing, a cocaine-snorting celebrity interviewee or an eye-witness-in-a-rush – would get past us. Wendy was right about our brains going a bit funny. And after we'd passed our exams, we realised we'd found a new normal. Seeing the world as shapes and symbols was the most natural thing in, well, the W-without-its-inner-peak.

Wendy Bird's Teeline class wasn't the only time my brain's gone a bit funny. It's done something similar more recently. Each week, I root around my locker full of stories, returning to the light tales I'd tried to forget. There are old flames and hang ups, melt downs and memories. Oh, and there was that story about being propositioned by a gay fella while looking at my SatNav in Newbury a few months ago, I kinda liked that. It was funny.

But my point, if there is one, is this. The world's started to go a bit funny. It's started to shape-shift, to tilt on its access and to look differently to before. A situation will arise and I'll think: 'That'll make a good column'. Somebody will say something and I'll jot it down. I'll laugh out loud, then make a note of what was said so that I can share it with you, dear reader.

I'm not worried about things being a bit funny. Because the Tao of Wendy Bird is this: that's just part of the process. And soon, thinking in columns will be as normal as my A, B, C.