You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Leaving Cert’ tag.
The line for the results seemed to last forever. As is the way of small country schools, our principal and vice principal were talking everyone through their results individually and I was getting antsier with every passing second. By the time I got to that door, I was fit to burst, cry and scream. I just wanted to know. My principal asked me to sit down before he told me. Highest in the school. Is it weird to hug your principal? I did anyway, embarrassingly blurted out “I’mon be a docta” (phonetic speling is necessary here) and exited the room doing that weird half-crying, weird breathing thing. Mort.
So official offers are not released until Monday buuuuut…
With my 195 in the HPAT and 590 in the LC, giving me a combined score of 753 (I can add btw, there is a thing to change the points after a certain cut off point) I feel pretty damn confident that that coveted place in UCC Medical School is mine 
(Points last year were 715… Can it really jump that much?)
So I’m excited, astounded, thinking about things like recipes and school books and laundry and hairdryers (hair straightener issue is sorted thanks to my amazing aunt who gifted me a GHD, my now prize possession.) My year it seems was not a waste of time 
Thank you to for all the lovely comments and congratulations, both blogosphere and real world, I’ll try swipe you some celebratory medical supplies 
Parents, for letting me apply to school outside Limerick
Mammy, for listening to my sporatic crying bursts.
Daddy, for letting me sing in the bar with him to break from study.
Ms Ryan, for getting me gigs and an A1 in music.
Megan, for the supportive texts.
My amazing buddies, for believing in me and thinking I’m a genius even though I can’t tell Left from Right.
I’m still in shock. It’ll probably hit me on Monday. Until then, if anybody sees a quality hair dryer for less than €18, I would be much obliged if you let me know.
Beaucoup d’amor
In 9 hours, my fate is sealed. Okay, so my results are the same now as they will be tomorrow. But tomorrow I will know. And it doesn’t help that today was the longest freaking day of all time. It’s my own fault. My hips hurt so I never went for my run, and I substituted by first playing the balls off the piano (good idea) and then nomming the house out of ice-cream, ryvita and cheese. (Not at the same time. I’m not that bad.) I then flopped onto the couch, unable to move or do anything besides gawk at repeats of Project Runway. I have learnt my lesson. Except I haven’t and then eat two servings of dinner. (Epic chicken soup. How will I survive without my Daddy’s dinners?)
So here’s the deal. I am not afraid of failing. I am confident enough that I haven’t and will even go so far as to know that I will be pretty pissed if I don’t break 500. (I am aware that sounds really condescending but I worked my ass off. It would seem a waste otherwise.) But the anticipation is killing me. I want to know if I need to move house, learn to live with strangers, constantly cook for myself, and most importantly, buy a hair straightener. (One of the upsides of Limerick would be the continuing access to my sister’s clothes and hair supplies ) I’ve been counting down the hours since yesterday.
My friend has just informed me that our school isn’t releasing the results til 10?! What the juice… Just longer to wait.
Fail.
In approximately twelve hours time, I will be sitting at a desk in my school hall, receiving the 2010 English Paper 1. The first of the most difficult set of exams of one’s life. Although one notoriously can’t prep for English 1, I banged out two hours this evening of Functional Writing, the correct use of dialogue and the features of persuasive of writing. And planned a convoluted short story that is nothing like the Notebook (anymore) thanks to an inspirational and jealousy filled (on my behalf) conversation about the story writing process with the boy.
I am rationalising blogging as practice for: possible diary entries, persuasive writing, reading, and my paper in general. Mmmm rationalising
My coping mechanisms for tomorrow? I slept from about 3:00 til 5:30 and once that was over, decided to take everything edible in my eyeline and nomnomnomnomnom.
600 points? So not happening. But medicine? Here’s hoping.
18 more days and it will be done.
I went to town today instead of studying. And came home in the evening. And instead of studying, went to my friends party. Because I’m cool like that. Cool as a breeze about the aul state examinations ha.
Must stop eating everything within a 5 mile radius. I have evaded that Sixth Year Stone for the whole year, I am not going to do an epic fail on the whole affair in the last 2 weeks. Also, no more alcohol until June 17th. (Yes, aware I will not be done until the 24th. But there are birthdays )
I am sleepy. And plan on taking a giant lie in before going to town on my study tomorrow. (“Going to town on…” comes courtesy of my chemistry teacher. Who, yes, was at my friends 18th. What a man.)
Wednesday, English Paper1. Ack. Thursday, English Paper 2, ack, but at least I don’t have to go in until 2:00. And Friday, Maths Paper 1, not bad. Plus I have a date afterwards. Which will primarily consist of a Maths Post Mortem. So romantic.
Expect the blogging to be sporatic and incoherent. Much like this.
Much like the last episode of Lost, graduation has signalled the end of one of the pinnacle sections of my life to date. Yes, I am officially no longer a secondary school student. There’s the LC to do and such, but the rite of passage is over. And now there is nothing left to do but knuckle down and study.
I won an award on Grads night. A big one for Music. And when I say big, I don’t mean in importance, I mean in physical size. Its like the size of a small plate. I heart. The mass was very long, partly my own fault, thanks to the number of songs. But I loved it. Speeches and songs and memories. And I didn’t cry (then anyway) which I was particularly proud of considering I had been on the brink of it earlier that day whilst practicing Time to Say Goodbye.
The day was just as good. 6th Year day. A day of practice and hanging out with teachers and the Last Supper. I spent hours with my music teacher and the others involved in music. Took a million pictures to document the day. We planted a cherry blossom tree and gave various teachers big hugs.
We went to the Coach afterwards. Squez into a blue and grey body con dress in the bathroom (bathroom changing for the atmosphere!) and freaked out about losing my purse to everyone until we realised it was under Sinead’s sports bag. And my amazing town friends came out to our bogger pub to wish me happy birthday/grads. And we drank and danced and sca-ed and drank somewhere. Southern Comfort = yum. Other details are superfluous. And by that I mean, inappropriate for the average blog reader/parent’s eyes 
My friend had the afterparty in her garden with a marquee. It is this type of party where one learns the great lessons of life. Examples:
- It is always better to assume it will be too cold rather than too warm. And a spare sleeping bag will never go astray. Sean the Hypothermia case taught us that.
- The weirdest metaphors come from the sober person e.g. Me: How many wheels do wheel barrows have? A: One. Me: I’m a wheelbarrow!
- Don’t think your hardcore by drinking until 5 am if you have already been drinking for the past 7 hours. Passed out on the lawn is fun for no one.
- Whilst perfectly platonic, hugging for heat will make you miss other people’s arms around you.
- Its always a good time for curly fries.
- Small country schools produce the hauntiest students. But don’t worry. You can always hide with a blanket over your heads a.k.a The Tent of Innocence.
- News travels fast. So stay classy.
- If a help word is established (“OKLAHOMA!”) make sure people will actually respond. As opposed to another friend having to trek across the garden to save you.
- Not enough sleep = Kate sick. Too much sleep = Kate sick. Not enough food = Kate sick. Too much food = Kate sick. How on earth am I going to be on call as a doctor…
- The next day isn’t so much, Sleep all day, drink all night as it is Sleep all day, eat all night
French was surprisingly pleasant, and Biology horrendously cruel. I have no motivation to do any Math or Chem for tomorrow and hoping the repurcussions won’t be too dire.
I must make pots and pots of tea before my head fills up too much. There was not a tea bag left in the house on Saturday. I had thought the apocolypse was coming! Never in living memory had we been out of tea. It felt highly strange..
The day was an overall fail: got no sleep, missed the bus, forgot my pencil case, worry worry worried, and wasn’t allowed go to bathroom for so long I was almost on the point of tears (damn them smokers…) but all was saved when me and Sinead nabbed the warmest sunniest spot in the school for our lovely quiet lunchtime. Where we fabricated a rather amazing drunken pregnancy story to write for the exam. Oh how a mood can change
The amount of writing I did today. 6 hours. Sleepy as afterwards.
Irish Paper was beautiful. I really couldn’t have asked for a better paper. There was a bit of an issue differentiating between the words suailci and duailci but I think I got it right Also, thank you Motivated Notes for the awesome Lig Sinn I gCathu achoimre. It came up as the mandatory pros question
Whilst I had 40 minutes to spare after the Irish, English Paper 1 had me writing for the full 3 hours and 20 minutes.. My contacts started moving about after a while and everything got a bit blurry. My short composition was an article on the dangers of overexercising and it got owned. If only I could say as much about the composition. Write a story with a dreamer as a main character. Its six pages long (six!) and nothing happens. And I don’t mean, nothing interesting happens, I mean NOTHING happens. There are two characters, a boy and a girl, and the actual events which occur are as follows:
1. Girl goes to park
2. Boy goes to park
3. Girl plays xylophone
4. Boy takes a picture
5. They shake hands
It is the most random and strange thing I have ever written and I have come to two conclusions. It’s either the greatest most innovative thing to ever come out of my head…Or its complete and utter scutter. I have a horrible feeling its the latter. Oh well. At least I don’t have to think about English for at least another week!
Day 2 wasn’t really a day. It was just an extended Irish class. Surprisingly okay, but there was a nice moment where the CD continually skipped in a manner reminiscent of 90s house music. Through a window in the door, you could see our teachers exchange a look of “Oh fudge.” But the scare ended and we got to listen to two people converse about the lack of jobs in todays economy in peace. Another lovely occurence was one of the speakers on the tape, getting noticeably more and more frantic as he hurtled off on a tangent as to how we are all screwed as regards the economy, was cut off by the other with a sharp “Tog go bog e.” (Essentially “Calm down, love…”) The quiet giggle throughout the class was both amazing and utterly pathetic
Today was a half day! Yert for not doing LCVP. English Paper 2. I am tired. 3 hours and 20 minutes of writing. Writing full speed in a worringly rambly manner. Now, I’m fairly sure I owned Comparitive study, banging out 6 pages AND manage to stick to the point all the way through.
King Lear is a different story entirely. I am yet undecided as to how big an issue it was that I only mentioned Lear himself like twice… Oh Edmund. I love you so.
Poetry (Kavanagh) was fine, except that although I was sure I had written 4 and a half pages, looking back it was a page less :/ I hope my small writing makes it ok… Unseen was also quite class. Ill-Wishing Him, and I got to write for a page and a half on failed relationships. It was daycent English Paper 1 and Irish Paper 2 tomorrow. Better get cracking tonight.
It’s going to be a busy week. From Wednesday to next Wednesday, my 10 pre-Leaving Papers are going to get crammed into each school day, I have the all-important HPAT on Saturday and to top it all off we were met today, on our first day back, with the surprise of the pre-French Aural and the news the the Irish one is quick to follow tomorrow.
I expected the stress or impact to affect the breathing somewhat, but today had some nice turns to it. Ignoring the fact that the school is a temperature of Arctic proportions, the day was a lovely sequence of revision and study classes with few exceptions. My maths teacher gave five of us the opportunity to reschedule our Paper2, given that it was the day before the HPAT, and although I don’t see the point (you can’t study for the HPAT, no matter what does revision course people say) I was all, Love you, Miss!
The aural test itself was fine. The acoustics of the room seriously suck and there were some parts which were just like, whaaaa? But it was all worth it for the most epic tape answer ever. I wrote it down because it was what I heard, but was sure there must have been a mistake, it was just so ridiculous. But an after test conference between honours and pass concluded that no, these were the right answers.
1. What vehicle was mentioned in the extract?
Helicopter
2. What was the cause of the accident?
The pilot was distracted, texting.
I turned to Sinead the other day and I said, I said “Is it weird that I like Irish class more than English?”
The response was a most obvious yes but I really don’t care. I’m pretty sure it’s because my Irish teacher is particularly kick ass, but it’s not just that the subject is getting easier (after what, like, 14 years?), it seems like a new appreciation for Gaeilge is starting to emerge.
For years, I was one of those constantly moaning about why we had to learn Irish, that it wasn’t even an official language according to the EU, that it was entirely useless to me in the grand scheme of things. Today I told my sister that I wished I was able to speak more fluently and we then had a horrendously grammared conversation as Gaeilge. The language is not just the words we used to speak before English took prominence, its a connection to our history (I was revising stair na gaeilge today), to our culture. For Scrudu Cainte prep at the moment, we have to discuss the decline of Gaeilge and the danger the Gaeltacht areas are in. It really brings to focus how unimprtant all this is in the eyes of the public. Its a shame I only realise this with a mere eight months left of secondary school.
Mar a deir an seanfhocal, Tir gan teanga, Tir gan anam.
