Okay, so I don’t like doing two posts in a row (guess the rest of you are busy cramming) but today I have achieved freedom forever…or at least for three months. And I thought it only appropriate to say goodbye to all of you who read my posts (you know, all two of you. Love you guys!).

My summer tests are better left undiscussed…I’m not too proud of my performance, despite the fact I haven’t received the results yet. I just got really lazy near the end and the weather was so damn nice!  This morning I finished though and I can’t believe how fast this year has gone. Whooosh. Gone. And what do I have to show for it? An obsession with twins from Dublin (who I’m sure everyone is sick of me talking about by now), a background part in our school play, some pretty dodgy experiences on buses to discos and a position as a blogger on this website.

I’d like to thank Patrick Barry for so kindly giving me a space on this amazing website this year. He runs a truly great service here. Allhonours gets me through the good times and the bad times and I loved being able to share my experiences as well as reading others. The other guys and girls on this are fantastic writers and I wish them the best of luck in their exams.

This isn’t really goodbye though because I still have another year left of school ahead of me. I wonder what 6th year holds in store for lil’ ole Ciara? Maybe you’ll see me on this again next year as a transformed woman, who knows? Regardless, thank you all for being a part of  my 5th Year. Have a great summer.

Agh I can’t believe my time on this is almost over! I’ve been reading all the LC-ers’ blogs about finishing school and it’s crazy to think that’ll be me this time next year. Every 6th year I know has advised me to “study now. You won’t regret it!” I know I should listen but I’m far too lazy. I mean, I started my summer tests today without having done a tap of study until this morning! Every time I procrastinate, I start getting paranoid thinking I have attention disorders because I cannot focus on studying, when I know deep down I just don’t want to be stuck in my room drawing diagrams of V-shaped valleys.

Today we had the English test and the only things on it were Hamlet and studied poetry. I love English, even though I have a terrible teacher (a fact I never try to hide) and she was the one who made the test so I figured it would be easy seeing as all we did was read Hamlet, yet we were now being giving essay style questions on it. This morning, when I arrived into school, all I could hear were worried whispers of “do you think Boland will come up?” and frantic yells of “does anyone have notes on Dickinson?!” Then I started to panic, like all the other 5th years.

We study five poets out of the prescribed eight, I don’t know if other schools do the same amount? Anyway, our teacher told us that we’d have two on the test and a choice to pick one. That didn’t stop constant predictions of what was going to be coming up. A person in Class A said Frost would come up, a girl in Class B said Kavanagh would and so on… So with hints we thought the teachers were giving us, all 120 of us studied Adrienne Rich. So we were screwed if she didn’t come up. Thankfully, this afternoon a huge sigh of relief was shed when we saw her on the paper. The Hamlet questions weren’t too bad either. But next year, when we have to study all five poets, I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s so hard to study one right! And it’s not like I can leave out one because the other four could come up that we never did. Eek!

Anyways, another random thought popped up in my mind when I was reading newspaper supplements with exam hints in them. For each subject, they picked a former Leaving Cert student who got all A1’s. And it just reminded me of how, each year, the TV, radio and newspapers all interview and photograph the students who got 600 points and often, only them. Don’t get me wrong, these students totally deserve it and I know some spend every hour of the day studying and working their butts off to get those much coveted 600 points. Take that guy who got 9 A1’s though. He has to already have plenty of natural intelligence to have achieved them points because he said he didn’t spend all his time studying. I just think that there are other people who don’t get the recognition for their achievements even though they worked just as hard. What about the girl who got grinds and watched TG4 every night to secure her C2 in Honours Irish, despite the fact her teacher told her to move to Pass?  What about the guy who studied instead of going clubbing at the weekends because he needed 45o to study Architecture? What about the other guy who spent all summer on his History project? Don’t these people deserve as much, if not even more, recognition than the lucky smart cookies who don’t need to put as much as an effort in? Just a thought and I don’t mean to offend any A1 students- you know I’m just jealous!

I’ll be back next week for my last post (I won’t cry if you don’t).

Sorry for my absence on this for the past few…I don’t even want to check how long it’s been since my last post! But really, as a Fifth Year student on a website mostly visited by Sixth Years, I felt that as exams are approaching, the last thing they want to read are my minor complaints! I’m just after reading the others’ recounts of the orals and now all I want to do is go study for them! I’m going to the Gaeltacht this summer so that should be a help but as for French… I have never put on a French accent once in class because I can’t take myself seriously with it. It’s a bit unfair, expecting us with our rural Irish accents to suddenly become Audrey Tatou for twelve minutes!

Okay, so I’m going to jump right into this. I’m sure like most of you, I’ve had this thought for years but it was only when I changed my Facebook language from English to Gaeilge (after a pretty hilarious/confusing period of using Pirate language) that I thought to myself:

If methods of learning were a little bit more fun, I think I’d do a lot better in school!

Over the past few years attending secondary school, I’ve tried to make learning stuff as easy as possible. The methods varied from the common acronyms to composing a song about the rock cycle. Revision books are handy to concise facts and carry home instead of the 10-tonne Business book but are much the same as your actual textbook. Here are some of my ideas:

Irish- introduce newer and more modern stories and poems. Some of the ones on the course are good but others are quite pointless. A 21st century romance novel as Gaeilge? Yes please! Until the department takes my ideas on board, try some fun ways of enhancing your Irish. Foinse comes with the Irish Independent every Wednesday and there’s great articles to suit everyone. I love the fashion column personally. There are some great songs in Irish too that will get you in the right mindset. Des Bishop’s Léim Thart, The Corona’s Heroes or Ghosts, Mundy’s Mexico and Galway Girl can all be found on Youtube as Gaeilge, along with some others that may appear in the sidebar while you’re watching. And if all else fails, follow every muinteoir Gaeilge’s favourite tip: Watch TG4!

French- many of the same pointers here. Popular culture is the greatest learning aid for languages, I think. For music, I love Carla Bruni, especially Quelq’un M’a Dit. I don’t know much about French films or TV but I’ve seen Entre Les Murs and Les Choristes in class and loved them! Coco Avant Chanel is on my must-see list too.

English- seeing as we speak English all the time, that’s most of the work done. Reading and writing regularly will of course enhance your abilities for Paper 1 but as for Paper 2 all you can really do is study what’s in the books. I did find, however, that watching The Simpsons’ version of Hamlet many times in my youth helped me when we were doing it in class. You may laugh but I knew what was going to happen before anyone else and the teacher thought I was some sort of psychic!

Maths- there’s not much you can do here but even simple changes in the books could make a difference. For the Area and Volume chapter, Find the volume of a cylindrical rod is just plain boring. Find the volume of a cylindrical tube of Oreos, however, is more appealing!

Business- I don’t have too much of a problem with the Business course because the exam gives you room for creativity already. You know the questions that say ‘illustrate with a product of your choice‘? I love picking the craziest products for them because as long as you answer the question properly, you can waffle on about pooper-scoopers and tricycles all you like! Shows like The Apprentice and Dragon’s Den give you a basic knowledge of Business skills and we often discuss them in my class. I’d love to see a question such as Write 100 words on your favourite Apprentice character.

History- movies are great for this subject and of course documentaries. Michael Collins, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Downfall… there are ones to suit nearly every aspect of the course!

Geography- this is a tricky one. All I can really suggest is, go outdoors!

Hello there,

I haven’t blogged in quite a while but to be honest there weren’t many school-related topics to write about the past few weeks. We spent nearly all of January rehearsing and staging our school musical, which was a total hit! It also meant I didn’t have a lot of classes, which was brilliant at the time, although boy was it like a smack in the face with a raw fish when we got back to work! Then we had the mid-term and now things are getting stressful. However, I know these problems are minor in the eyes of all those dealing with Mocks at the moment. Hope everyone did/does well, even though I remember after the Junior Cert ones last year I thought to myself “these really didn’t matter at all”! They’re great practice though and people really shouldn’t be trying to find out what’s going to be asked because in the actual exams, it’s all about the element of surprise! We all complained about Thierry Henry for cheating in the Ireland-France match, so if you cheat for the mocks then you’re not much better than him!

So as my blog title suggests, I moved to pass maths yesterday. I really couldn’t stick higher level any more and since I don’t need it for any courses I want, I decided to cut the stress (or at least some of it) by moving down to ordinary level. Now I don’t dread trudging up to maths because ordinary level is very manageable for me. The thing is, they’ve actually gone past the sections we did in higher level so I’m behind at pass maths- oh the irony! You can’t blame me for thinking it was going to be easier, seeing as in Texts and Tests 3 for the differentiation equation they tell you how to pronounce it- ‘dee y, dee x’. Thank you maths book for giving me that pointless bit of information that’d only be handy if there was a Maths Oral! Imagine…

The only thing that really has me burdened at the moment is History. We’re starting work on our research topics already and after changing the topic a few times, I finally settled on my project title. By Friday we have to have roughly 20 pages of handwritten notes about our project from our sources, along with an essay. It’s Wednesday evening and I haven’t even started to read my sources.

I’m screwed.

As mad as I am that we’re back to school (don’t worry, e-mails of complaint have been sent to those involved!), I have to say I missed blogging on here and seeing how everyone else was doing! Since I’m not doing the Leaving Cert until next year, I decided to avoid anything school related for the two and a half weeks of the holidays. Then the two weeks turned into three (I had to take Thursday and Friday off last week because the ice was so bad) and I’ve turned into the laziest excuse for a student ever!

I won’t go on about the schools’ re-opening because I’m sure you’re all as cheesed off as I am but hopefully some of your schools were kind enough to give you today off! I was never a fan of Minister O’ Keeffe but now I have to say to him (because no doubt he’s reading this);

Mr. O ‘ Keeffe, you are no longer ‘Batt-man’. You are Robin, you are just a sidekick by doing what others told you too. We don’t want a sidekick, we need a hero!

Yeah, sorry about that everyone! Anyway, after taking two days off last week I’ve now tarnished my perfect attendance record that I’d boasted so proudly about all year. From September to December, I hadn’t missed one day of school because thankfully I was happy and healthy! It was more about the idea of having perfect attendance than winning the prize at the end of the year (it’s a book voucher, I think. I wouldn’t really know because about six people out of six hundred and fifty get it, you know those superhuman school-loving types…I envy them).

Today I’ve remembered why I try to avoid taking days off unless necessary. I don’t like catching up! Seriously, I can’t believe so much work was condensed into two days, it’s almost suspicious. First class we had Irish and they’d done ‘Bimse Buan Ar Buairt Gach Lo’. I missed the whole explanation of the story and I’m so worn out from trying to find out! Can someone please tell me who went missing in it? That’s my main confusion.

I’m usually lost in Maths so today I was even more lost. We’d a Hamlet quotes test in English which I hadn’t studied for obviously, not having known of its existence! In History we’re still doing Stalin and I really don’t like Russian history. Good news though, we’re moving on to our Irish history book soon! I’m so excited, it’s my forte.

We’re rehearsing for our school play which is on in about two weeks so hopefully we won’t do as much work, I’m back one day and I already fell asleep after dinner! In other news, I’ve got a new TV show I love- Glee! I recommend it to anyone, it’s brilliant and I’ve already watched all the episodes. It’s about a high school glee club. If only we had one of them here and if only I could sing.

So my new found love of Glee has earned me the title ‘Gleek’. If only I could study enough to be called a geek too…

Hey everyone, I’m in such a good mood today!

And why wouldn’t I be? The tests are done and dusted with almost all of the results received (more about that in a minute), the school workload is decreasing, The X Factor final is tonight and Christmas is less than two weeks away! This also means two weeks of lie-in’s, good TV and lovely food! I love Christmas so much!

So yeah, I got the tests back and…drumroll…I PASSED MATHS! It was such a relief because the test was so hard and I’ve lost my flair for maths that I had in Junior cycle. I got 57% and if I’d attempted all the questions, attempt marks could’ve brought that grade to 60%. It was so unlike me not to attempt every question because I’ve had it drilled into my brain to ‘always try everything because you’ll always get attempt marks!’ I just panicked when the test proved to be so hard and there were some I had no idea how to solve! So everyone out there who doesn’t know already (although I’m sure you’re all smarter than me on this one), ATTEMPT EVERY QUESTION!

Maths was my lowest and my highest was in Business. I’m really getting to like Business a lot now, mainly because the Business results are always my highest! The Apprentice is also encouraging me to take an interest. As much as I want to do Journalism, in the past two years I’ve got a slight ambition to do Sales and Marketing. Ah well, I won’t think about that for another while!

I was pretty pleased with my other subjects but I still have to get my History test back. Hamlet is getting really exciting in English so I’m looking forward to the class, despite having one of the worst teachers ever! I think most people have that one teacher they don’t see eye to eye with and she is mine, although she’s not as bad as I once thought.

And guess what? My Irish teacher is a suspected John and Edward fan! I was nervous getting back my test, purely because I mentioned them in my essay on the recession in a maniacal moment. She’s not the type you’d normally joke with so I was shocked when I got two ticks beside the sentence about them and a comment stating how nice the opening paragraph was. Two ticks! I’m lucky to usually get one tick!

Hope everyone who has tests gets on well and remember my tips for today;

1. Attempt every question!

2. Even if you have a teacher you don’t like, don’t let that discourage you from work.

3. Mentioning John and Edward in tests could bring you success!

Don’t worry guys, despite the title, this post will be a little more upbeat- and more sane- than my previous one!

I’m right in the middle of the Christmas tests, well two down and five to go! I had Irish and Geography on Friday, which went pretty well I think. We hadn’t done a lot in Geography for the test to have a lot of variety, so the whole thing was basically about regions, which I like! Unfortunately, there was a map of Ireland above my head and although everyone else thought Christmas had come early copying down the towns, rivers, etc. from the poster, I was at a loss. Oh well, I think I did okay anyway!

For Irish, an essay on the recession came up, thankfully! I’d already prepared one and even managed to include John and Edward into my introductory paragraph (have pity on me). I was saying how everything was gone wrong for the country, i.e., them getting voted off, the World Cup, floods and so on… you get the idea. Oh and anyone out there stuck inside because of floods, you have my full sympathy, luckily my house is on a hill but the images on the news are scary!

Friday night I watched…*drumroll*…The Late Late Toy Show! Not a year has gone past when I haven’t watched it, probably like most of you out there. I thought Tubridy was good, better than Pat Kenny but not as unreal as Gay Byrne. The kids were hilarious- Junior Culchie of the Year and of course, John Joe! Aww it really marked the start of Christmas.

And as for other distractions, now that John and Edward are gone from the X Factor, I’ve remembered how much I dislike the show. Seriously, I just watched the final last year and that was only because I wanted to know what everyone was on about. But now I feel I better finish the series, although I didn’t even bother watching The Xtra Factor last night! Sorry Holly Willoughby!

Aoiffe is gone from The Apprentice at last, Hallelujah! Finally some justice has been brought to reality TV. All we need to do now is get rid of Lloyd Daniels.

I have Business and English tests tomorrow. Eavan Boland, I’m sorry but I really dislike your poetry. Robert Frost all the way! I totally underestimated how much theory is involved in Business but I’m just going to do some past exam questions on what we’ve done and hope they come up.

Warning: This blog contains some emotional and distressing content from a very pathetic girl on a very frivolous subject.

I felt it necessary to blog at this unplanned time because life as I knew it these past few weeks is over.

John and Edward have been booted off The X Factor.

Yes, I know it wasn’t fair they got through week after week but I loved them. I really did. In all my sixteen years of living, they were my first proper celebrity crush… you know, the ones people usually develop for guys in Westlife at the age of seven? They were always just so…happy. And as wild as the hair was, there was something downright attractive about it. I was a follower since Boot Camp and they’ve come a long way, albeit with some pretty cheesy performances since then!

At this point, we must remember they had a life before The X Factor. They were in Leaving Cert, like most of the bloggers here. Apparently they were very good at art, especially calligraphy. Then all of a sudden, they were Jedward. They were being debated, tweeted and written about daily and I’m sure the LC was far from their minds.

Okay, so I know this is a very pathetic blog and is the most emotion I’ve expressed possibly ever but we must see light at the end of the tunnel. No more distractions for me! Sure, I’ll still watch The X Factor but it just won’t be on the top priority list; rather, it’ll be replaced by my upcoming Christmas tests.

So John and Edward, it was a great couple of months. You made everyone have an opinion on something so insignificant and while I suffered some taunts for sticking up for you, by the end most of my friends were converted to Jedwardism. Perhaps someday I’ll fulfill my dream of meeting you but until then, I have tests to study for and you have some calligraphy to finish.

The amount of my fellow students who want to give up French as their third language is shocking! All of course due to last night’s game…the least said about it the better. On the plus side, we learned a new verb today en français. Tricher- to cheat!

So all discussions on gloomy matters such as footballers’ hands and flash flooding cast aside, this week has actually been really good! This is mainly due to;

1. The Public Sector strike on Tuesday means we have a day off to look forward to!

2. I got 92% in my Geography test, my best result so far this year.

3. I had a really good lunch today (lunch can really make or break a day).

4. I got Foinse (the newspaper published as Gaeilge) in the Irish Independent and it included an article on John and Edward. Irish combined with John and Edward, what’s not to love? Foinse is really good by the way, I recommend it to anyone who wants to do well in Irish. It’s out every Wednesday with the Irish Independent. We also get Dremire at school too but I find the articles really complex and they’re nearly all on the recession!

5. We got our timetables for the Christmas tests today…each year, this signifies the commencement of widespread panic in the school. I think it’s because it confirms we actually have Christmas tests! I have one day off during that week because I don’t do Biology or Home Ec. I really better start studying but it shouldn’t be too hard- I have to admit, I’m still on a high after my Geography result!

I have to spend this weekend in the library because we have to hand in our proposal for the History topic by Monday. It’s all so rushed but I think I’ll manage! The topic isn’t too hard to come up with, it’s mainly the sources that are the problem…

P.S. Is anyone else as disgusted as me that Breffny was fired from The Apprentice? I love that guy!

Let me set the scene for you: Sunday evening, at about eight thirty, a teenage girl sits on the couch after hearing the announcement that John and Edward will be in the sing-off, with two thoughts running through her head. The first thought was “What? This is it? They’re definitely going to go and I might not ever see them again!” Cue melancholy violin music.

However, as I sat there nail biting at the prospect of losing the loves of my life at the hairy hands of Simon Cowell, and tabloid journalists sat nail biting wondering what on earth they’d have left to write about if the twins were to be booted off The X Factor, I decided it’d be better to adopt a more optimistic approach to the whole thing. Ciara’s Thought #2 was, “at least now I’ll have time to study!”

I guess “Business Today” and me just weren’t to be, as I’m sure you all (even those of you living underground) know by now that John and Edward Grimes live to fight another week. Simon Cowell, if you’re reading this (which no doubt you are), I love you man!

We had a half day today so I plan on spending the rest of it looking into ideas for my History Research Topic. We’re starting it this year, which I suppose is wise but it’s so hard to think of something original that has three or more sources. I’m trying to come up with something on Twentieth Century Ireland, which is my favourite topic by far. Also, Christmas Tests are in just over two weeks!