Hey guys! OK, so I asked to be an AllHonours blogger back in January … but got accepted now, in October. Seeing as I’m finished the Leaving Cert now and enjoying college, I thought I’d do a diary with tips and some little anecdotes along the way. Hope you guys find everything beneficial and don’t hesitate to ask me any questions, and hopefully I can answer them as best I can! <3 Caoimhe

I haven’t been writing here for the past month, and for that I ~profusely apologise. I think most of you can agree that the time from Mid-December to Late-January is busy and frantic for second level students, so what I’d like to do in today’s post is just have some nice circle time about what I did between now and my frantic snow blog. Expect rousing tales of concerts, open days and other fun adventures!

First off, I went to the Arcade Fire concert in the O2 in Dublin on the 6th of December. I know that was quite a while back for your liking, but the fact, quite plainly, is that the few hours I spent in that massive room with some of my musical idols are going to stay with me for a very long time. Vamp Weekend and Devendra Banhart were there too, and they were fantastic, but Arcade Fire were just phenomenal. They played a nice long set, the stage was delicious and the band’s over all stage presence was ~divine. Graaaagh I loved it so much!

We’ve moved onto our second poet in English, too, and it happens to be Patrick Kavanagh. I initially thought that any poet we studied after Philip Larkin would have to be very very good at their trade to top his act, but I’m actually quite pleased! I like his procession from cynical (Inniskeen Rd, Epic) to cheerful (Canal Bank Walk, Lines Written…), it’s really fascinating and easy to write about.

Next Tuesday my art class is taking a trip to the National History Museum to take a look at some of the artifacts that  we’ve been studying in art history. I’m a little concerned about the amount of art history we’ve been doing, as Monday evenings (art history time for me) tend to be casualties of parent-teacher-meeting-related early closures. I do like the subject, you know!  *cue the sound of me sulking back to my room to take AH study into my own hands…*

I went to the Young Scientist exhibition with a few friends, because some other friends of mine had a few exhibitions running – one of them won first place in her section! Although the air was full of pleasant sciency-brainy-ness, there was one thing about the YS exhibition that allured me the most:

FREE PENS.

Lots and I mean ~lots of free pens. I think I came home with about eleven in total, and I am fiercely protecting them from being borrowed by my family. They are SO pretty! Sure, I was coaxed into a couple of competitions for prizes I didn’t really want, let alone win (signed rugby ball anyone?), but free pens, as well as a myriad of other free stuff, like posters, badges and frisbees (!) are just. Too. Good. Too. Pass. Up.

And of COURSE I had to pop along with some friends to the Trinity open day! A day subject to a controversial re-scheduling due to the snow, I ended up having such a pleasant time wandering around the charming campus carrying a pile of leaflets, going to two taster lectures and being tricked by the World Religions and Theology stand into a long long long talk about what they do. I just wanted a mini Toblerone!

More importantly, I was slightly more guided  this time around as to what I would study. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

• European Studies (Spanish + Russian)
• English on its own
• English with something else (Art history? A language? Who knows?)
• History and Political Science
• Law and Political Science

As you can see, a career in International Relations or Journalism would be quite nice to me, but it’d be these five or so that would be fighting hardest for my attention. Another hot button for me is the fact that I haven’t ruled out going across the pond for college. It’s probably not likely that I’ll get in there, but I’ve looked at some courses in Stanford (San Francisco), Cornell (New York State), and McGill (Montréal) and they do seem quite appealing – courses like Latin American or East Asian Studies, International Relations and Government, for example. As you can see, I still have lot of thinking to do, and fast!

I think I’ve dispensed of all my thoughts and reflections so far. There’s nothing much else to say, except I’ve been listening to some really good new music lately (Wavves, Beach House, Dirty Projectors and Janelle Monáe are all particularly gr88 <3) , and I went to see Black Swan… it left me both traumatized and in awe – If you’ve seen it you’ll understand.

I don’t know if it would be wise to recommend it to you.

Paul.

Hey everyone!

I hope you all are delighted with your results and had a great night last night! It’s all finally over after nine months of having to feign interest in subjects that you honestly couldn’t give  toss about. Although it will be really weird never going back to secondary school ever again and for many of us, moving away from home for the first time…I’m delighted it’s all behind now.

After going through the longest night of my life, I finally got my results at 10 yesterday morning. Since it was my second time getting my LC results, it really did feel like it was the last chance saloon. I was shìtting it when I got that big, horrible brown envelope and was wondering how it would go down at home if I decided to just not open it. But of course, my mother wasn’t going for it and as soon as I got back to the car, she took the envelope and opened it…..and it was the best shock of my life.

A C3 in french (I seriously thought that I had failed it!), B1 in English and Business, B2 in History, B3 in Economics and a C2 in Biology…..which means 455 points…a number I was not expecting. I was so happy that repeating had paid off, despite being so reluctant in the beginning. I’m glad I did it and I advise anyone who’s not happy to repeat if they need to. It is a lot of hard work and it’s hard as your friends go to college but it is incredibly worthwhile and if you want your course badly enough, I think it’s the best way to go.

It’s been a great year and I actually quite enjoyed it (but I know it’s easy to say that in hindsight!) I wish everyone the best for the future and hope it all works out!