EXAM BLOGGER:School: Salerno, Galway I wanna be a . . . journalist First thing I'll do when it's all over . . . a really embarrassing happy dance that I hope no one records. And then cry, probably
SORRY, WHAT’S that you say? My Leaving starts this morning?
Better pause this game of Angry Birds. This app probably wasn’t the best idea this year in hindsight. Even though I’m desperate at it, it’s beyond addictive. I keep hitting “refresh” before that annoying and mocking notice pops up to tell me I’ve failed a level.
Ah would you listen to me? More tangents than a project maths paper two! Anyway yes, the Leaving. I’m mentally exhausted just thinking about it. Moods range from wishing it over to wishing it a year away again.
Fortunately, there have been countless virtues and vices to help me through these nine months of addiction, whether it’s firing those cranky birdies at random objects or watching Jenna Marbles talk about nothing on YouTube.
Many of us stick to the two f’s for the most part – food and Facebook, obviously. Unfortunately, the more elaborate hobbies get put on the back burner, as creativity gets you nowhere in a world where marking schemes are treated as gospel, and no one has the time or energy any more to ask a simple question like “Why?”
Linear thinking could be my best friend this week. English Paper One today, and Mom keeps warning me not to do a “crazy” essay in case I clash with a conservative examiner. I suppose that just goes to show that luck is involved in this whole shebang.
Many of us are hoping for Heaney, good ole Seamus, to come up in paper two for poetry, along with Adrienne Rich and Patrick Kavanagh. A nice personal essay wouldn’t go amiss either. Allegedly, the department is looking to shake things up and make the exam less predictable, so we’ll see how things go.
Where am I going with all this? My CAO form is a joke, with an option from pretty much every faculty imaginable on the list. Despite all the websites, university open days and prospectuses, I haven’t decided what I want yet. I’m leaning towards an economics course at the moment.
Apparently I had a vendetta against myself last year and so I chose chemistry, physics, biology, economics and French along with the core three. I like science, but I never imagined that our relationship would grow to be this intimate; even walking around the local Supervalu, stiff and sore from about 600 minutes a week hunched on a lab stool, I’m plagued wondering whether that bunch of bananas was sprayed with ethene gas to ripen them (chemical formula C2H4 – six marks) and other scientific trivia.
This isn’t just preparation for a terminal exam – it’s a mental switch you can’t turn off. All through February I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing those fecking Health Professions Admission Test (Hpat) section three patterns dancing around behind the lids.
Doing all sciences, I succumbed to the advice of those talking at me (because your future is destroyed unless you strive to be a medic/engineer who sells butter to China) and prepared for the Hpat. Boy that was fun.
When it took me 10 minutes to find my seat on the simple grid-chart on the morning of the event, I took that as a bad omen – and a bad omen it was.
I keep seeing these tiny black spots every time I look in a different direction, which slightly impairs my vision, making it difficult to write out practice questions. I hope that’s not too serious – all ailments will be seen to in about 15 days’ time. The holy water, rosary beads and laminated prayer to the patron saint of exams are all set for this morning.
Every year of State examinations in Ireland has certainly been stamped with some drama or another. Long before the month of June even began, I think it’s fair to say that ours was the year where the institution of the Ardteist went a little hormonal; there was the alien hybrid of a maths course that not even teachers have extensive knowledge on, and neither sight nor sound of Irish sample papers until very late in the day.
It’s nice to think thousands of students are in the same boat as yourself though, even if subject choices, experiences and aspirations may differ.
I don’t think anyone can deny that what each of us wants to see at the end of it all is the sweet, liberating notification: LEVEL CLEARED.
My exam playlist:
HomeEdward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
I Shall Be ReleasedBob Dylan
Give Me LoveEd Sheeran
Sinking ShipsGeneral Fiasco
Video GamesLana Del Rey
Find updates on Lara's exams on Leaving Cert Live on irishtimes.comfrom noon today