My blonde ambition (From Gazette & Herald)

My blonde ambition

HANNAH GIBBONS has been on the receiving end of a little prejudice lately. Can she really be too blonde to go to Oxford?

"I LIKE books." Good start, Hannah, yes, that'll make them want to take you on. "I like books and I can play the piano and I'm quite friendly." Hmmm, clutching at straws a little now.

Welcome to the truly terrifying world of writing a personal statement for university applications. How to summarise all my fantastic achievements in one little space? Oh, who I am kidding - how to gush and stretch the truth for long enough to fool a university into thinking that they want me. I was chugging along with life fairly nicely until this little bombshell dropped, and now, sadly enough, I've gone into full-scale meltdown. "This is my whole life! In 47 lines! And I've just a week to write it!" All the other stresses of being me have paled into insignificance compared with this whopper, yet my applications to Oxford, Durham, Warwick, Nottingham, Birmingham and Manchester to study English literature have been met with some raised eyebrows.

"You're a bit, well, blonde for Oxford aren't you?" The prejudice! I've never been so insulted. Perhaps I'm not smart enough to go, I won't contend that. But too blonde! Oh dear, what a worry. As if it weren't hard enough trying to find the words to describe myself in my personal statement - but realising that everyone else would use completely different ones? Goodness gracious. Has everyone got the wrong end of the stick about me? I'm not really a silly girl. I mean, I am, of course, but that's not all I am. Is it?

"Seriously," I pressed my critics, "would you expect me to skip into my interview and start telling them about my new nail polish?"

"Ummm..."

"I mean, sometimes I do serious things, honestly. Like if I accidentally press the wrong button, I will watch Prime Minister's Question Time for a few seconds. Or, wait, I have one! Yesterday, I really tried my hardest to laugh at the history joke in lessons, and I think I was only a few seconds off getting it when the bell rang."

Convincing argument, I think... Oh, I'll admit it - I'm not used to losing faith in myself, but this week I've been fairly low. Maybe it's true, am I just too ridiculous to apply to Oxford? Is smiling really prohibited? Have I fairly represented myself? How on earth do people see me? And who exactly am I? Oooh, deep questions, I don't want anyone getting the wrong impression.

I'm just me - is that enough?

Updated: 11:33 Wednesday, October 12, 2005