Quote Originally Posted by genuinefarmgirl View Post
Does anyone else on here write in calligraphy?
Of course, I do And the most of Russian adults do so as well.
In Russian elementary schools, all children learn the handwriting as we call it. It is just mandatory here. And we quite rarely use the "block" letters (printed style) when writing by hand, since the handwriting is easier and allows writing much faster.

And yes, your б is unnatural a bit, although it is understandable.
What you actually need is this article: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%...B2%D0%B8%D1%82.