Exam Diary: Panic, Panic, Panic! My head is buzzing with quotes, maths formulae agus na cúpla focail Gaeilge that are my passport to glory in the next few days, writes Oisín O'Reilly.
My parents must think that I am going crazy; shouting out quotes from Heaney and Hamlet all over the house. I suppose most parents do worry about the pressure on their little Oisíns and Aoifes, especially when we declare that we felt a funeral in our brain.
Whose bright idea was it to put Emily Dickinson into the mix when students are clearly close enough to the edge? (Sorry state examiners - please don't take offence. I'm not feeling quite myself lately)
My mind is comparable to my room. Notes are strewn everywhere obscuring the floor, empty cups of coffee and cans of Red Bull surround my bed. I leave a tornado of destruction behind me wherever I go and my patient father tries to limit the damage. He won't put up with this much longer but the Leaving is a great excuse to abandon all manners, cleanliness and basic decency.
I have to say though my parents are great. Over the past few weeks they have always been on hand to top up my cup of coffee and run to the shops at all hours for snack foods and meals. At this dark hour I barely have time to eat. I can't remember how it feels to relax.
Now is the hour of recriminations, self loathing and remorse. Why didn't I listen to my teacher's advice and "start as I mean to go on"? Why didn't I order my notes in colour-coded binders and spend my weekends laminating flashcards to brandish at the bus stop?
Why didn't I discover my own "study style" and strategise my personal approach to optimal data retention? Why didn't I study?
What I'm doing now can hardly be called study - desperately shuffling through notes discovering more of what I don't know. My best bet now is to dispense with all unacademic activities completely. Sleep may be the last thing to go.
If I stop sleeping I will at least avoid the "blank mind" nightmare I routinely have these nights. My slumbering imagination tortures me with first exam panic night after night as I sit down to English Paper 1 and my mind draws a blank. Then I look up and see that the invigilator is a camel or the guy sitting next to me is wearing a gas mask and breathe a sigh of relief.
Some time later another bout of REM lifts the curtains on the next horrorshow - the one where I sleep in and miss the exam due to the total lack of sleep I am getting. That one will probably come true.
All my friends, aunts, uncles and neighbours are full of advice but I don't need a counsellor. I need a neurological engineer to fit my brain with a hard drive. Is there such a procedure?
Will I be asked to describe it in an exam next week? I don't remember that chapter! Agggh!
One neighbour, in particular, was suggesting some omega fish extract that is meant to be really good. By now I'll try anything. My usually sceptical brain is too crowded to discern miracles from quackery. Pass me the cod liver oil - at this stage I'll drink it neat.
I need 500 points. There - I've said it. I want to study politics and I need 500 points. Up until now it was just a number on a page. How hard could it be? Now the figure has taken on the gargantuan bearings of a NASA satellite trajectory or one of those imaginary numbers mathematicians are so fond of.
My aunts have suggested saying a few novenas. If I don't find the time I know they'll be saying them on my behalf. I tried to explain that God has no contacts in the State Examinations Commission.
Oisín O'Reilly is a student at Ashbourne Community School.
