Personal Statement: take 1

I've been away for a while with no excuse other than I went on holiday where I had no Internet whatsoever for a week! It was a lovely holiday and as usual being out in the country, seeing and subconsciously identifying river and coastal characteristics I have rediscovered my love of Geography! Well, physical geography at least and maybe love is a slight exaggeration.... However I am prepared to put up with another year of the subject although my friends and family might argue that I was never seriously going to drop anything anyway... I suppose it all depends on my grades now!

While on holiday there were wonderfully clear skies and you could see millions and millions of stars. My bedroom had a perfect sloping window where you could see them from and I felt infinitely cool sleeping under the stars, well sort of... Of course I didn't have the internet though so I couldn't use the app! I suddenly see the flaw of this app - you either have clouds but an internet signal or stars but no internet signal so I think I'll just delete it!
I decided to have a go at writing a personal statement yesterday and since I had no idea where to start I decided to write and see where that took me so I came out with this:

So, the dreaded personal statement. It’s quite hard to write about yourself and then it’s very difficult to convey enthusiasm as well as put the sense of true belonging, total immersion in a subject into words. But, hey, I always liked a challenge and that quality is probably what first started me down the path of becoming a physicist.

Well, it was either that or there are two other possibilities. The first alternative being a particularly engaging teacher who encouraged her girls to take physics, an encouragement which came close to bribery, black mail and shameless flattery at times! The other alternative is that I saw physics as an opportunity to widen my mathematical knowledge and if that meant I had to put up with learning some science on the side then so be it. So of course, you see why I stick to the more romantic option of the three, if you don’t agree with my use of romantic at least it doesn’t make it sound like I was reluctant because I wasn’t really.

I know it is the same for everyone but I have always been fascinated by space science, I mean who wouldn’t be? The earliest I can remember was doing a project on the sixties in primary school. I used to love project work and I got completely absorbed in the space race part of my decade, I felt the same feelings as the men and women from the era watching the moon landing with stunned awe and reverie, I felt like Neil Armstrong placing my foot on an alien moon leading the way for mankind into a new era of discovery, I felt like a student finding enlightenment. Yeah, I was just as silly and sentimental then as I am now!

Anyway, that’s not relevant, you don’t want to read about how I was then, how wide my eyes went at my first trip to the planetarium, you want to know who I am now. You want to check I’m not going to drop out after one term. You want to see that I will do well. You want to see youthful enthusiasm, energy and passion. You want to see that I’m worth your while. I’m writing to say hello, I won’t, I will, here it is and I am.

Don't worry I know it's a load of old poop so I won't be using it! That's half of my word count and I haven't got any of my spider diagram in it! I suppose I'll just start again, it couldn't possibly be much worse! Maybe tomorrow...