*Mental note to self* Reading the preface of a book does not count as study. Repeat x 100000 times Sorcha.

I’ve a pretty big maths test coming up this week, I’ve set aside the weekend entirely to studying for it. (Dedicated aren’t I?) It’s one of those “revision of 5th year work”  tests, and naturally after the summer, nothing in this book looks familier to me at ALL. Even the Algebra questions look dodgey, and they’re meant to be the easiest ones. Panic button? You betcha.

I’m beginning to think the teachers are using shock tactics to rev us into action. You can just imagine the kinda conversations they’d have with you too!  ”Oh, you can’t do <insert impossible maths question> ?? Well dear, I’m just not sure you’re putting in the effort….”

I’m determined to avoid said conversation, so with that in mind, I’m sitting here all day cooped up in the house with my head stuck in a refill pad surrounded by pencil sharpenings and rubber bits. FYI, those snazzy little blue and red rubbers are useless. Don’t buy them. They wreck your pages and leave dark blotches as evil reminders that you still can’t get the answer to Q2 a).

But moving on…

In other news, all other subjects are fine, nothing too hard-hitting as of yet thankfully! English and Maths are the two I’m most worried about, but I’m taking them bit by bit, so we’ll see where that goes. Oh, and I really haveta say that I found nothing more pointless than writing a five page letter to Kavanagh about his poetry. I mean is that necessary? Not only did I know for a fact while writing the letter that I’d never ever get a reply, but also I felt a tad stupid telling Kavanagh the poetic techniques he used… surely then man knew himself if he was employing onomatopoeia? I half felt like typing up my letter and sending it off to the first Patrick Kavanagh I found in the phone book. Ya know, just so somebody’d get it? I bet they’d appreciate it too..

Finally, I forgot to mention the subjects Im doing for the big L.C, and when I was reading through other peoples blogs, I figured I’d better follow suit!

All honours:

Maths

English

Irish

French

Home Ec

Biology

Business

L.C.V.P

P.S)  If anybody’s reading this while in the process of choosing their subjects, I highly recommend the above mix. Home Economics (a.k.a  Social and Scientific) combines a bit of Biology and Business, whereas L.C.V.P is one of the easiest 70 points you will ever get (especially if you’re doing business as a subject anyway!) And, something to keep in mind – an A1 in a pass subject is 60 points. A distinction in L.C.V.P is 70. No homework, no stress, easy points. Anyhu, that’s all from me for now!

Next time peeps!

Sorcha x

First of all, hi Mog, it’s not me!

More importantly, what was up with English Paper 2? Yeats, Rich, Elliot and Kavanagh, I don’t even think God saw that one coming. Like half the country, I was praying for Longley and Boland. Ever since the Paper 1 mix up last year, I knew I would do Longley on the day, surely he had to come up? Failing that, Boland was a dead cert, seemingly. At 1:59, I could hear a faint Longley chant starting. You may now open your papers. F*@#. Plenty of gasps around the room. So I checked out my other options. We never studied Elliot in class, I decided last night that in fact I hate Yeats, so that left me with Rich or Kavanagh. Rich’s feministic views are quite insightful and inspiring….lol jk, I’m a man! So it was just me and Kavanagh. Some how I managed to remember my sample answer from Easter, and in fairness the question was okish. Elsewhere, things went from bad to worse with the comparative. Seeing as we ignored Vision and Viewpoint in class(not so clever now), literary genre was my option. Generally with it, you just go in and transcribe eight pages of pre-learned stuff and maybe refer to the question here and there. But not this year. This year you actually has to think about it. How does the “unexpected” add to good story-telling. How the hell can you do that when comparing under the headings of how the story is told and setting? Yuck.
Lear however was fine. I thought this was the only one with potential to be bad before going in, but no. Turns out we did the exact question in class last month on why the bad characters excite us more than the good ones. Quotes glaore, happy out.

Paper one was fine, Heaney comprehension, hopes for 2050 and the optimism speech, lovely. Quoted Einstein three times and finished on “Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs” by him. Sorted. 28 A4 pages and half a pen later, the first one was ok.
Maths tomorrow. There’s more riding on this than anything else. No pressure though, paper 2 isn’t until Monday! Hope it’s going well for everyone else!

Cillian