How often do we think of our future? Or rather, dream about our future? Probably far too often. You more than likely spend a lot of time drifting off in Double Biology imagining holding a degree in French Law, how many children you’ll have, or maybe you just contemplate what you’ll be having for lunch that day? Whatever the case, how many of you actually spend your valuable time thinking of nothing, but just enjoying the present you’re living in?

This year will be the last year most of you will spend in a secondary school. Usually we are so caught up in the stress of exams, the worry of results, and the  prospects of college that we lose sight of what is in front of our very eyes: the last time we will ever be in sixth year in a secondary school. If I could go back (and let me assure you that nothing would prevent me from going back if I could) I would tell all of those that have meant something to me over the past six years the significance of their role in my life. Where would I be now had I not known them? And more importantly, who would I be now? The majority of us become our friends, and they; us, so how would my life be different now had I not been friends with them then? Its really now that I ask this question that I realise the absolute importance to cherish the time we have with those around us. Far too often it becomes too late and we forget to remember those that are right before our eyes.

Exams will happen. College will happen. Friends such as the ones you know now may never happen again. So celebrate the friendship: laugh, cry, get ridiculously drunk, eat copius bags of chocolate, watch the latest weepie because you know only your best friends will watch it with you, laugh some more, spend a ferocious amount of money on THE DRESS (the one that only comes second to the one you will wear when you marry), spend a half an hour styling the short hair that you tell everybody you don’t straighten but know that they know you do, kiss girls, kiss boys, break girls’ hearts, break boys’ hearts, take comfort in your friends’ arms when you have your heart broken, sing even if you “cannot” sing, dance even though you know that we know you “cannot”, gossip, whisper, shout, be bold, be bad, be good, be helpful, be careful, be honest, be happy, help each other through the stress and strain of the Leaving Cert year, guide each other on the way to college, and tell them that you will never ever forget them even if you do lose touch because, above all, losing touch will happen.

Au revoir, mes amis,

Ian

P.S.: I hope you all did brilliantly (are doing brilliantly) in your mocks. I decided that I’d post a blog after most of them are over. Happy Valentine’s Day (I hate commercialism!) See you soon!