I'm trying to write a "personal Statement" for a graduate application. It's only supposed to be 1-2 pages, something I should be able to write in about...40 minutes, but for some reason, this has taken me about four weeks now, and I still don't have a clue where I'm going to start. What is it that makes this so much more difficult than any other essay? I never had so much difficulty with any of the scholarship essays I wrote, and it's basically the same thing. I'm supposed to tell them why they should accept me into the program--why I'm interested in English, what I've done to explore that interest, how I can add to the conversation...

I guess in some ways it's more like a job interview than anything else--an interview directed by the person who held the job initially, and knows precisely what it takes. Most of the scholarships I applied for were funded by people who had little idea what I would really be doing, and I could generalize my interests to the point that they sounded impressive without necessarily being concrete or realistic. It was like selling a new computer to 65-year-old woman who couldn't tell a mac from a pc. Now it's like my customer is computer science major, working for Intel, and no matter what I say, I'm bound to embarrass myself.