Don't Turn This Around

So I have finished all but one of my personal statements, editing and all. Of course, the one that I have left is for the English PhD program, and even though this is what I spent my ENTIRE time during my undergraduate career doing, it is by far the most difficult. The website doesn't actually say anything about a personal statement, but I figured it couldn't hurt to write one. I have the outline all completed, figured it would be about 3 pages long.

Now all I have to do is start it.

And I can't.

I can't start ANY of the paragraphs. I tried to skip over the intro, figuring I'd write that later or after I finished the actual statement, but I can't write anything. Not about my thesis/interest in Romanticism. Not why I'd be a good fit/what professors I want to work with. Not my future goals. I obviously can't write the conclusion without knowing what the hell I'm going to write about, so it's no good. My original plan was to write the statement today, take a break tomorrow, and edit on Wednesday, then move on to the writing samples on Thursday, and spend a week and a half or so on those. Meaning by about mid-to-end of the month, I'd be able to start filling out applications and wondering where I will get another $250 from for fees.

I could, obviously, just relax today and write tomorrow, but it feels like a useless day if all I did was edit 4 statements and write a bo-bo outline. I didn't think it'd be this tough, especially since it follows the same format that my History statements do. So it's more about tailoring that more toward literature...so a combination of my History and Library Science statements. Ugh. This blows.

And all the while, I am hoping that I don't have to do major rewrites of my thesis to turn in as a writing sample. Because if I have to compress 33 pages into 15...even 10...I really don't know what I would do. And I just remembered I have to write an abstract to go along with my writing sample so they know what is going on there.

Oh life.


**Post title from Butch Walker's "Best Thing You Never Had"