Exam Diary: The first lock of my russet hair is hitting the bathroom floor as I shear myself in sympathy with my peers. It's the only fitting gesture to support those three unfortunates who were refused entry to their school exam hall because their haircuts were deemed unsuitable.

Actually, forget it. I have to go shopping on Saturday and I thought I might get a few highlights in advance of my French exam. I'll put this one red curl into my Grandmother's locket and wear it as tribute to those rebels. No, actually the locket doesn't go too well with the top I was planning to wear tomorrow so perhaps I'll leave it at home.

I'm not a political animal, as I discovered today during my Irish exam.

The comprehension was about politics. That was about as much as I was able to discern.

I pulled a neat trick in answering the questions though - I looked for words in the passage that matched words in the question and cobbled them together like warped horseshoes on a cranky old nag. A little trick I learned in Irish class, of all places.

The exam was not as horrific as I expected though. I decided to stay off the subject of terrorism in the end and wrote an essay on the importance of education.

In fact, I went on a bit of a rant about early school-leavers. Who do they think they are, swanning around in the sunshine while I have to write Irish essays about early school-leaving?

Ordinary maths was weird. It was extraordinary maths. Pythagoras had no place on my paper one. That's all I'm prepared to say on the subject.

I went to bed late on Wednesday night. I stayed up learning off sean fhocail. I didn't use any of them and now I can't remember any of them.

This morning I was tired and ratty and lo and behold so was everyone else on the bus. I'm going shopping at the weekend. Might treat myself to a haircut.