Robyn's Personal Statement: 4th Try

Mozart wrote his first composition aged 5. Picasso discovered his talent for painting aged 9. I penned my first poem aged 7. I could never say how I feel when I write poetry; but I could write it. When that inspiration hits and your fingers itch for the sensation of putting pen to paper, lest the ideas should fade, you do not think of themes or subtext. You scribble the outpour and turn inspiration to words, emotions to themes, instinct to metre. Your entire being becomes the words you write and the euphoria from writing them.

No-one sat me down and taught me how to write; I just did it. If anything, books were my greatest teachers. My love of literature lines the paper on which author’s write. At a young age I revelled in the rich description of Burnett’s The Secret Garden, the intimate characters of Alcott’s Little Women and the thrilling adventures of Harry Potter. Today, I would require an extra 4000 characters to list you the novels I have read. There are three areas in particular, however, that I hold a great passion for. The first is early 19^th literature such as Jane Eyre, Eugene Onegin and Pride and Prejudice. The second lies in international literature compromising of texts like Old Goriot, War & Peace and the Home and the World. With the latter I believe that the author’s syntactical choices are often “lost in translation”. This belief brought me to study French at A Level and I continue to study the language outside of school in the hopes of attaining fluency. Lastly I love literature that pushes, convulses and thereby moulds society for example Orwell’s 1984, Rushdie’s Midnight Children and Ellison’s Invisible Man.

Literature has a profound power to shape opinion and it is in this fact that I believe my future lies. At 14 I competed in a regional debating team for my school and I was amazed by the way in which I could change the audience’s mind simply by giving a good speech. My fascination with the power of rhetoric grew as I studied politics and read of politicians and activists that moved nations with their speeches. While I may not yet be moving nations, I do all I can to change the communities in which I work and live. In Law we learnt of the injustices in stop & search due to people’s lack of education and so I gave an assembly on stop & search rights to year 10. I was also a teaching assistant in a year 9 and 10 english class, seeking to end their apathy towards reading and writing and instil some of my passion for literature into them. From the year 10 class I met two girls who I began to mentor on their work ethic and self-belief. Lastly, two others and I won funding from Sports Relief to run a 12 week kickboxing class for 20 sixth formers, which students finished with a level 1 kickboxing qualification. All of this work accumulated in a Jack Petchy award for being an Outstanding Achiever in May 2009. My reward was £200 to spend anywhere in the school I liked. I placed £100 into a new school magazine which I am editor-in-chief for and £100 in the school production which I wrote and then organised and directed with a team of sixth formers.

Outside of school, my greatest achievement lies in my succession onto a leadership and dialogue course by the Windsor Fellowship. BLLLLAAAHHHHHHHHHH HOW DO I SUM THIS UP IN 500 WORDS????? TIS IMPOSSIBLE. BLEH. RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA RRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRR FFFFFFFFFFFFFF UUUUUUUUU DDDDDDDD GGGG EEEEEEEE. Must fill the word gap. Lallalalalalalalalalalalalalalala. Only 60 more characters tralalalala. 16 more. Done.

I have come a long way since the days when writing was just a euphoric hobby and reading an educational exploration into the world. Now, I aim to cultivate the lives of many through my writing and I know that this course is the key. Everything, from the modules to the tutors to the campus, is perfect for helping me achieve my goal. I am already a writer but with what I can learn from this course and from your University, I hope to become so much more.