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10 UC Application Personal Statement Question 2 Focus: Potential to Contribute Rationale: UC welcomes the contributions each student brings to the campus learning community. This question seeks to determine an applicant's academic or creative interests and potential to contribute to the vitality of the University. Question: Tell us about a talent, experience, contribution or personal quality you will bring to the University of California. Redheads are born under mushrooms. Don t believe me? Just ask my mother. Unlike most children who hear nativity tales of storks and bonnets, I grew up believing I had spent my nine months waiting beneath a mushroom before I pronounced my arrival with the appearance of fiery red eyebrows one fateful March morning. This fantastical tale granted me both an appreciation of my natural born uniqueness and the self proclaimed title of a mushroom activist. Overtime, my red hair has received some speculation as to its origin; if it wasn t for the fact that I have the same freckly face as my father, some might wonder how genetics allowed for a redhead to be born from two brunettes. The science of it is slightly more complicated than my mother s mushroom story, though, involving dominant and recessive alleles. Despite genetics, I am surprisingly red. In my travels, my hair has created quite a stir. While staying in an aboriginal village in Australia, my hair was mistaken (to my mother s unease) for gold and thenceforth coveted by my hosts to the extent that they were bargaining locks for didgeridoos. These same locks have earned me mantelpiece space in many Japanese homes after posing alongside a yellow haired Dane for a line of Tokyo tourists on the steps of the Besakih Mother Temple in Indonesia. 85

11 From "carrot top" (now soiled by the AT&T spokesman) to "orange cat" (affectionately given by a close friend), I ve heard it all. The hair has become my identity, starting with my soccer camp nickname Ginger Spice which resulted in an all out Spice Girls performance of "Spice up your life" at the traditional talent show. The attention as Ginger transformed me into a camp mascot of sorts, driving my individualism, and earning me the title of Camp of the Week. A twist on my most frequently used nicknames, "Pelirroja," Spanish for redhead, has become my nom-d art. I became stuck with the name in a soccer game my freshmen year. It was a typical Sacramento 102 degrees, a heat more appropriate for firing ceramics than playing soccer, but I was in an athletic trance that even the heat couldn t break. By my third goal, the final goal required in order to complete a "hat trick," I noticed that my opponents along with a rowdy group of sidelined teenage boys, were referring to me as Pelirroja (in a less than friendly tone). It resonated with my own teammates, and for the rest of the season, I was simply Pelirroja, no more "Captain" or even "M.C.," just Pelirroja. This moniker remained even after that spring season ended as I continued to be called Pelirroja by teammates and close friends. And somewhere mid junior year, it became my creative alter ego as my friend (and fellow redhead) and I decided to sell our revamped pumps and bowls made of melted records under that product line. The name has also been tagged on the silk screened bags and shirts I created for Phil Angelides California gubernatorial campaign. My red hair had even worked toward my political benefit with the campaign name Big Red attributing to my election to the position of junior class secretary/treasurer. As the second in a series of three children that make up my mother s Neapolitan combo, I have learned to blend well with both my older brunette sister and blond younger brother, while at the same time, stand out as a unique flavor on my own. 86

12 As to my identity, sometimes I pull the Canadian card, or as an explanation of my red hair and fair skin, I contribute my appearances to my one-sixteenth Welsh blood. Regardless, the fact is more than anything else, what defines me is my red hair. They say we redheads are hot tempered, easily angered, fiery, and aggressive. I will not lie; most of these things are true. But making up only two percent of the United States population we truly stand out. The unavoidable attention from my natural red hair has shaped me into the leader I was born to be resulting in my election by others into places of responsibility from soccer captain to president of a teen run nonprofit organization. Fortunately, my red hair isn t going anywhere, nor will my eagerness to take on new challenges and, in the true redheaded fashion, lead. 87

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