Monday provided a great example of pathetic fallacy, the kind you only read about in ’Bímse Buan ar Buairt Gach Ló’. On May 23rd, the day of my graduation, the unpredictable weather reflected my mixed emotions about leaving school.

In the morning we arrived to get things polished up for the evening’s mass, in a desperate attempt to convince the parents that the school hadn’t been the location of a flour fight the previous Friday. Of course there was the ritual of signing yearbooks too. My messages to friends recalled private jokes and contained promises to stay in touch, while girls I never talked to much got the standard “hey, good luck next year, I’ll miss *insert that one class we had together here* with you”. It was a good laugh and a welcome escape from the constant studying and talking about studying. It definitely did not feel like the end of five years in secondary school. Then, as the morning’s cup of coffee began to kick in, I was suddenly struck with a number of questions.

Why am I saying “goodbye” to people I see every day? Why is the congratulatory banner that’s used every year for graduation being brought out? Why are they handing us out our trees? More importantly, why is it an annual tradition for graduates in my school to get trees? It’s never been explained yet every year, without fail, they are there to take home. I mean, I assume it’s symbolic of new beginnings and a little gift to help us start off our new lives, although a wad of fifty euro notes would have done that too.

The whole Leaving Cert/leaving school thing was finally sinking in.

Despite this, our mass in the evening was not as emotional as people had expected. Any sadness was overshadowed by incessant picture-taking and the comments that followed; “OMG delete”, “can we take it again, I look an elephant on the run from the circus here” and the classic “if you put that on Facebook I’ll kill you”. Of course they were uploaded anyway!

Our graduation song was Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Breakaway’. Subject to a great deal of abuse, it wasn’t my ideal choice either (I proposed Eagle Eye Cherry’s ‘Save Tonight’ and ‘In My Life’ by the Beatles, which are typical choices but for a good reason), although I figured it probably more appropriate than suggestions of ‘S&M’ by Rihanna. Sure, some people in my year may relate to those lyrics (although if that’s the case, the less I know about it the better) but ‘Breakaway’ can be applied to us all. After all, we are breaking away, from school and from life as we know it.

Why the mixture of emotions? Well, on the one hand I’m sad to leave. Whether I liked it or not, that school has been my second home and safety net since the age of twelve. It has been the setting of many new friendships and even more memorable experiences, things that will stay with me long after that tree has died of thirst.

Then I think of all that awaits and I’m suddenly excited to leave. The uniformity and mundanity are things I am happy to leave behind, as are the rules, some teachers and that suspicious smell on the second floor corridor. This really is our moment. So many possibilities lay out before us and it’ll be interesting to see where everyone goes from here.

I’m talking about school as if it’s in the past but despite the events of four days ago, it’s not over yet. I was there today and will be there tomorrow. This is how graduation in Ireland differs from the finales of my favourite American sitcoms. The teenagers in those shows attend their graduation ceremonies, all the loose ends are tied up, someone cracks a witty departing line and they drive into the sunset, while we’re left wondering which character is going to get their own spin-off show. Here, we are still popping in and out of school to study or go to helpful classes and will be sitting in the hall, in our uniforms, during the exams. In August we’re back again to get our results but after getting those, I hopefully won’t have to return there as a student again!

So it wasn’t the Hollywood goodbye, although it was an official goodbye of sorts. Even when we’re in the building in the coming weeks, it will never be like old times. Back then, we stressed about not knowing a couple of Kavanagh quotes. Now it’s a case of not remembering who Kavanagh is!

I am, like most of you out there, currently in panic mode. I don’t even want to type how many days are left until 8th June and in a way I just wish it could all be over. Then it will be time for my own spin-off. And I promise it’ll be better than ‘Joey’ or ‘The Cleveland Show’.

Hello

Hope everyone’s enjoying the break. I know we have to study but as my year head said, we still have another 6 weeks of this, so take the break while we can. To people getting up at 6 to study, 1) Fair play yo you but 2) take at least one lie in before we go back. Personally, I don’t like getting up early, so I haven’t set an alarm so far. Sleep is to important, or so I’m told.

So the orals. French and Irish. They went reasonably okay. French firstly. Well our examiner was so nice Thankfully. Some people were annoyed she didn’t push them enough but I felt that I was able to show off what I knew. The hardest question she asked me was on my document. I changed it from the mock oral because there was too much scope. Now, it was a picture of my grandad playing the uillean pipes. She asked me how do you promote the making of uillean pipes. Turns out, there had been a report on the radio that morning about how uillean pipes were being shipped in from abroad. Just my luck, eh? I stumbled around it so I hope she was a nice marker.

Irish was pretty good too At the beginning of the week the examiner asked loads of really tough questions and had no difference in questions for honours and pass. Queue panic. People were crying, hyperventalating, learning of spiels about the floods two years ago, the differences between Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael (I didn’t even know there were any) and any other random question he asked. Well as it happened, he settled after Monday. I was on Wednesday and got to spend most of it talking about Science I got Sliocht 10, which is the shortest, I think?

43 days, 0 hours, 12 mins and 26 secs left.http://LCTimer.com #LeavingCert

Got that tweet this morning. Any time someone tweets the word “Leaving Cert”  this bot tweets you and tells you how long you have left. When you retweet it, it’s usually met with “OH MY GOD FML” or something along those lines.

Anyone here use boards.ie? I was on it the other day looking at the Easter plan thread. So much BS in my opinion. People studying 10 hours a day with 1 half hour break. If it is true they’ll be burnt out by the end of May.

Oh yeah, I handed up my History Research Topic as well. I did like  my topic, but my god I was never so happy to see someone die, for the simple reason I knew it was coming to an end. I did it on William Joyce – “Lord Haw-Haw”. Really interesting. It was so hard to get it down for the word count. Thankfully, I did. Now just to write a gazillion essays over the break. I have 6 done so far so maybe 4 more by Wednesday?

Good luck to everyone doing the LCVP exam next week

I’ll blog more often now, because for the next 6 weeks my whole life will be about the LC. :p

Bring it on :L

So, Irish & German orals over, LCVP portfolio sent away, Geography project handed up, Home Ec journal long gone.. You’d think I’d feel a little bit more positive about the LC, seeing as I have parts already completed, but no. I don’t remember ever feeling this stressed out on any other holidays! I’m not even going to talk about how much or how little I have done in certain subjects, but I really need to get more sleep & use my time better.
Mocks went well, I got 525 (Biology A1, Geography & English A2, German & Home Ec B1, Maths & Irish B3, Applied Maths.. D1). It’s more than last year’s points, but I don’t want to rely on that, in case points increase. Plus I really, really need high points in the hope of getting a scholarship. I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to work out finances for next year, because honestly, for me, that’s what will determine what I do next year, not my points. I know a lot of people are in the same situation, but I’m staying positive
The orals were.. Different to my expectations. Irish was, without being cocky, brilliant! For me at least. I got the Sliocht I wanted (Sliocht 7) and the conversation was quite natural and lively. I was fairly late, so people before me had told me that the examiner was lovely but kept talking over them or practically answering the question himself. I needed to do a good oral, so I decided that was not going to happen. I think the examiner was probably scared of me, because I kept shouting really loud, fast Irish at him.. Hey, it was MY exam! German wasn’t as good, sadly, but I expected that. General conversation was a train wreck. She wouldn’t let me dictate the conversation at all, and asked really basic things that I got confused with. Picture sequence & role play went a lot better at least! But it’s really left me wondering if I want to do German next year. My written work is excellent, I know, but I wonder what good is that when I’m not the best at speaking the language? I can have a conversation, but my Irish accent is just so strong, I can’t even make headway at a German accent! I heard myself on video yesterday, and it was like “Oh Dear God.. Do I REALLY sound like that?”
So, I should probably get my ass offline and do more work. I’ve worked out that between Grad, Sports Days & Fashion Shows in school, I only have 14 school days left after Easter. That’s enough to make anyone start on their Easter eggs a little bit early..
Chloe

With little over a week until the Mocks start, the panic has swept in. The annoying thing is that I wasn’t even worried about these insignificant, poorly corrected exams until teachers and fellow students drilled the panic into my head. Of course, the issuing of Leaving Cert exam numbers during the week didn’t help my state of mind. In addition to all relevant exam material, I now have to learn a six-digit number off by heart.

I also had a CAO crisis during the week. They seem to be en vogue among my peers for the past month or so and I was almost getting concerned about my laid-back attitude towards my chosen courses. I eventually caught on to the craze last week when I realised Arts with Film Studies just wasn’t for me. The more I thought about doing it, the less I wanted to do it. My previous ‘certainty’ that it was the course for me quickly faded away and I rooted out all the prospectuses once again. I narrowed the decision down to General Arts and Commerce, both in NUIG. General Arts triumphed (for now) because the maths and accounting side to Commerce is pretty unappealing to me. However, I don’t like the common perception of Arts students- you know, that they’re a lazy, boring shower of so-and-so’s who don’t know what they want to do in life. Okay, I am exceptionally lazy but even that statement is a bit harsh. I’d still like to branch out into Journalism if that’s what I want in three years time.

Anyway, to cheer myself up I decided to fill up the blank spaces on my CAO with some ‘funny courses’. Yes I know, how original… Maybe I’ll just become a professional comedian instead of taking the college path. I reworked my application to include Baking and Pastry Management (I’m not laughing at anyone who actually wants to do this, if you saw my attempts at baking a sponge cake you’d understand the joke) but as it’s ten points higher than General Arts, I guess the joke is on me. I also added some construction courses, inspired by my favourite TV show to make fun of, Fade Street. If that Vogue can get an internship at Stellar from working on a building site, then why can’t I? If it’s hard to picture her bricklaying and mixing cement, it must be ten times harder to picture me, the girl always picked last in PE, doing it.

As for the Mocks timetable, it’s not the worst. We had a thorough dissection of it at lunch and after listening to comments such as “I wish French was on the Monday morning” and “I’d love to swap Tuesday’s tests with Friday’s tests”, I realised that it will make little difference to us. Either way we won’t have a large amount of time to cram but that’s okay. No don’t worry, I haven’t gone insane. I think the results will give me the kick I need to focus on the topics/subjects that need to be focused on, which I can’t seem to identify at the moment.

I must say I don’t know what I would do without my Starbucks mug these days. Its size can hold twice the amount of tea/coffee as your typical mug and it adds an air of glamour to the very unglamorous task of studying. It’s one of the only things getting me through Sixth Year. See also: Large amounts of food.

*sighs* I actually did try. I had the most beautiful time table – Christmas was going to be crammed with study, but also loaded with the nights out and the days set aside for simply doing nothing. I had it all thought out – I genuinely was going to make a huge effort!

You can predict whats coming… my time table (like they tend to do) went way off track. 6 hours a day? Try 2 or 3. Max. Not that I think I’m doing badly, I’m just not doing half as much as planned. And worse still – Ive turned nocturnal! This whole week I’ve slept in til 12pm, regardless of alarm clocks, wake-up calls, etc. To be honest, I think I’m just wrecked. Before the Christmas holidays I was under the impression that doing everything like some sorta student superhero was just a matter of “penciling it in” but alas, I’ve learned a valuable lesson. Guys, nobody beat yourself up about not doing enough study over the holidays. Theres no point. New Year’s eve I had a little bit of a panic attack, thinking that come the 1st of January it was game on. In true movie style, everything just hit the fan. This shizz just got real. Mocks are in February, and even though I know things have a way of working out, theres still that nagging voice that I haven’t done enough and that there’s no way I’ll be prepared.

Mid-crisis I realised that yeah, okay – I’m not gonna be prepared. My worst nightmare of being in over my head is inevitable. But thats okay. Mocks seem HUGE to us right now, though that’ll pass. We can only do as much as we can. Even if we have the days where we slack, and even if studying hours on end doesnt work out for some as it might do for others…. its okay. We’ll all get there in the end. Remember my “hang on in there kitty” post? Well…. I still mean it. I am well aware how cheesy my blog is turning out to be, but really I felt I had to write it, even just to assure myself more than anyone else that things are gonna be alright. When I’m all done and dusted with these exams in June, I fully intend to read back through my blog and I know that I’m gonna stop at this one and cringe. It’s gonna be one of those “I wish I could turn back and tell her to cop herself on, lighten up a bit – enjoy this year.” Still, had to be written. I remember somebody telling me over the summer that Leaving Cert is an experience – one not to be missed. Hah. They said that its one of those things that we’ll fight against til the last exam, but appreciate for the rest of our lives. It’s only now I can see where they’re coming from.

Roughly we’ve got about 5 weeks til the mocks. Give or day a few days. Breathe.  Besides, whats the worst that could happen?*

*Ans: You could fail. (Ain’t that blatantly obvious kiddo?) And if anybody reading this does fail any of the mocks… or even doesn’t do as well as hoped.. Embrace it. Shrug it off. Just don’t let it get to you. At the end of the day, it’ll make your actual result in the Leaving Cert so much sweeter. Look at it as a challenge… Bring it on.

Oh the irony of Ireland having a meltdown.. Because it’s covered in snow.. Which refuses to melt. God I’m funny! Right? No? Well there goes No. 1 on my my list..

1. Become a comedian. What better time to crack jokes than when your country is in disarray? Try come up with a few new snow puns, because really, we all know we love them. If that’s proving to be snow fun, count how many times you can bring the recession into a conversation. Zero points if you just try to end everything by saying “Because we’re poor!” Minus three points if you rob the idea from Facebook.

2. Watch TV. Ah, the old faithful. Stick on the box and turn into a couch spud. Refuse to allow your mammy to turn it off because you are LEARNING. X Factor is helping you with your Music homework. D’Apprentice is contributing to your Business knowledge. I’m A Celebrity is about Geography. The Panel brings you up to date on Current Affairs, perfect for CSPE! Not to worry if you don’t actually do any of these subjects – coming up with all of these excuses requires creativity, similar to English!

3. Facebook. Oh it was obvious that it’d feature in the list SOMEWHERE. But just in care you’re really bored, post a new status. One of those really annoying, unbearable ones that goes “Like this & I’ll tell you what I like about you!” You can take up an entire evening by checking who has liked it, then wondering what to do when someone whom you don’t like, likes it. It also takes quite a while to come up with a compliment for someone whom you haven’t actually seen since Junior Infants, before they moved to Monaghan and added you as a friend eleven years later. The panic you will face is useful: “Oh My God, what am I supposed to write about her?! I barely know her! Okay, let’s think calmly.. Oh Jesus she’s gone offline! Before I wrote back! Now she thinks I HATE HER!! Calm.. Calm.. ‘Dear Mary, I like how you borrowed my pink crayon in Junior Infants. Hahahahahahahahaha!!!’ Right. There. Sor’ed” This is similar to the panic you will face in an exam. Think of it as practice.

4. Eat. No, this does not require snow. If you are anything like me, you will have doubled your diet since you began an exam year. You will also only use exams as an excuse to eat what you could eat anyway. But you need brain power! Your parents will try convince you that fish, and vegetables, and icky things are best for you, but ignore them. THEY’RE JUST TRYING TO GET THESE ICKY THINGS OUTTA THE WAY SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO EAT THEM! Because they would then get to eat the chocolate. The chocolate which has been proven to aid happiness. You need to be happy. You need sugar for energy. Clearly, you, as a student, need chocolate. Or ice cream. Remind parents that during winter, you need extra calories to create body heat. Reassure them that you are eating brain food and saving them money because you’re making your own body heat. You don’t need central heating.

5. Be at one with nature. Go for a long, relaxing walk in the snow. Skip through the fields. Glide down the road which is free from cars. Spin around while snow falls. Reason with yourself that maybe William Wordsworth WAS right about nature. You love nature, and you’re so peaceful that you will ace your exams because you have had a spiritual resurrection. Smile and breathe deeply. Then fall and whack your hip and curse and cry and rub your hip and look around hoping that no-one has seen you. Trudge back home, muttering under your breath about how you hate nature and it’s useless, and there’s a reason we have technology. Sit by the fire and ring your daddy to ask him to put more coal on the fire because you’re cold. He will do this because you are facing exam stress and cannot be aggravated. Put on your slippers to find your feet have broken out in blisters due to the wellies you wore which were three sizes too small. Decide that you are sick and tired of trying to amuse yourself.

6. Study. Realise that your novel ways of studying aren’t really helping you. Go into your room and sit down at the desk with all your books, which you haven’t organised in accordance with the principles of Feng Shui because you’re only trying to fool yourself. You now know this and are going to fight the urge to procrastinate. You sit down, determined to work, open your Irish book.. And the electricity goes. Oh well, no-one can say you didn’t try!

P.S. Another great way to amuse yourself is to write a nonsense blog, then spend half an hour praying that nobody actually follows this advice.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..” 

No please, make it stop!

I’ll be honest here, I’m a proper scrooge when it comes to Christmas; I hate the snow, I hate missing school because of a bit of snow, I hate making snowmen, I hate snowballs (especially when I’m pelted with them on my way to school..), I hate ice-skating, I hate the cold, I hate the commercialism of Christmas, I hate how greedy kids are, I hate how you have to give up your bed for family members who should have spent Christmas in the Bermuda Triangle – “yes Aunty Mary, I know.. “A tidy room is a tidy mind” ..” Like C’MON!

It feels like I’m the only one who feels like this but I can’t be. Can I..? C’mon, there has to be a few more people out there that have spent the morning studying and can’t understand the madness of not being in school today? No? Oh okay then..

My younger siblings were in school today so I had to bring them to school, and as our schools are conveniently next door to each other, I was tempted to go in and ask the Principal could I work on my construction project but I didn’t as I knew the answer would be no and I’d only end up cleaning the cafeteria anyway.. By the way, does anyone else do construction? It’s an absolute wagon of a subject I think 

I actually got excited earlier when I saw the snow melting, but then it started to snow again. I’m supposed to be going to the TCD open day tomorrow but in that weather I just don’t know? The only thing is, I went last year so I’m comfortable with the college, but I haven’t been to a talk on one of the courses I have on my CAO.. Ah sure, I’ll decide in the moro.

So basically this has just been a rant, or a waste of a blog.. Whatever you want to call it? I’m also thinking, (well actually no, not thinking, doing!), blogs as Gaeilge so if that interests you make sure you keep an eye out for my blogs! 

Peace out, and happy studying! 

Dia Dhaoibh!

My name’s Rebecca, but everyone calls me Becca. Unless I’m in trouble for not being home on time, then it’s the full name..

Anyway, lets get on with things! I’m eighteen, I go to an all-irish school so I’m fluent as Gaeilge and yes, I’m doing my Leaving Cert this year (woohoo!) but I’m also at a bit of an advantage as I’ve already done the Leaving Cert and I am, obviously, repeating it this year because I didn’t get enough of the lack of a social life and stress from last year!

No but seriously, I’m more focused this year, I know what I have to do and what I definitely shouldn’t do, how to make out (and follow!) study plans, how to improve on my answers and how to use notes and helpful sites effectively; and if you know me you’ll know that wasn’t me last year.. I’ve never been a bad student but I had a bit of a rough year in fifth year and instead of putting it behind me I let it follow me into sixth year and basically become more important than the Leaving Cert, which I now know was utter and total rubbish!

So yeah.. That’s me! If you’re interested in any tips I’ve found along the way, how exactly the Leaving Cert and CAO system works, what it’s really like to repeat and have to do two years work in one year, why you should work your butt off for the two years you have to instead of having to repeat like me, or anything like that just stick around because you are in for a very honest and frank account on what it’s like to be doing the Leaving Cert.. Again! 

Peace out, and happy studying!

Chances are you’ve said this to yourself, or your homework journal, a few hundred times since the start of the school year. I sure have, and now that the Christmas exams are coming up, the nerves are starting to go into overdrive…

Oh, procrastination, you wily demon.

Sure enough, it happens to the best of us at the worst of times. But by goodness does it have its way with the student! It can mess up your study habits, and generally make you feel less motivated to… be motivated!

I am an occasional victim of acute procrastination, unfortunately. Last Saturday, I had a plan to settle myself down and power through a pretty intense session of study like an angry, all-American eighteen- wheeler. Trends in the periodic table? I’d knock them out of the park!, I said to myself. The themes in Larkin’s poetry? Sorted!, I envisioned. And how about sketches of bronze-age artefacts for art history? Tattooed onto my brain, I joked to myself. Excited at the prospect of increased knowledge and points, I cleaned off my desk, took out a pen and notebook, looked that annotated periodic table straight in the eye and said “you’re mine now”. I was in the zone, and nothing could pull me out. Well, almost nothing.

But then.

My phone made a rather peculiar noise.

Almost like a vibration.

I knew I should have turned it *all* the way silent. I knew I would lose my train of thought as a result of looking-at-my-phone-ness. But I was sure I could let it go. I looked anyway.

What appeared on the screen was a text from my friend. Which then led to a few minutes on some social networks, which then led to a few more minutes on some social networks, which led to me reading an interesting article about how we’ve grossly underestimated teenagers’ spending habits, which then led to me having to wait for a certain television program to start, which then brought me back to my room in a small daze.

Then I went downstairs to get some tea.
When I came back up to my room, there was a chemistry book, a blank sheet of paper, a pen and a small scissors scattered on my desk. I had no idea why they were there. Then I remembered Epic Study Plan.

I collapesd on my bed in retaliation, leaving my books confused and slightly hurt at my drained willpower.

My advice to you, the good students of Ireland, is to watch out for this fiendish phenomenon. It’s climbin’ in your windows, snatchin’ your concentration up. So hide your phones, hide your computers, and hide your MP3 player… well, until your study break is over, anyway.

So stay strong, everyone – after all, as “Author Unknown” said: “The best way to get something done is to begin!”

Much good tidings,

Paul.

To quote the little old women at my bus shelter, “It comes earlier and earlier every year”. Okay, so they were talking about Christmas and I would normally complain too about the early arrival of everything Christmas-related but not this year. Everyone seems so down and out about the Budget and just the state of the country in general that I say, why not talk about Christmas? I don’t know about you all but for me I can think of no happier time. Two weeks off school (even longer this year though), mouth-watering food, busy shops, a nice cosy fire at home…Okay, snap back to reality Ciara before you break into song. What I was trying to say when I started writing this (yes, would you believe that this actually leads to something exam related?) was that while I have no problems discussing Christmas now, I think it’s too soon to start talking about about Christmas Tests. The sad thing is, the Christmas Tests are before Christmas. Crap.

Yeah, the second we arrived back last week the teachers started calling out prescribed chapters for the exams and before you know it, everyone has made study timetables and Granny has started lighting the candles for them at mass. I’m sat here wondering where to start with all my study…Times like this I’d really like a crystal ball. Or a photographic memory. Maybe if I get Granny to light an extra big candle I might get one of the two. I think a trip to the library is in order this weekend, without my friends in tow because let’s just say they make it hard to study…ever play Hide and Seek in a library? I have. I need to finish the second draft of my History RSR anyway.

In other news, we got our Drémires this week. I know, the fun never stops in my life! For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s like a mini Irish book with essays and grammar tips, etc., aimed at LC students. It’s handy but I find the comprehensions too complex. I’ll stick to my Foinses for the most part, thank you very much. My French teacher advised our class to pick our documents for the oral in the coming two weeks. Is she serious? The oral is months away! I don’t know what to pick, any ideas? I was thinking of a picture from the Gaeltacht but I just know that’ll put me in the Irish language state of mind that I really have to avoid, considering it’s a test of French. She said it could be a picture of anything but the other class’ teacher told them it really should be French-related, so they’re all picking French movies (the same one) and French celebrities. Unfortunately I’m not as absorbed in the culture, although I like croissants (cliché much?).

I’m going to start studying in a few minutes (I promise) and then reward myself with some TV. The Apprentice- I’m addicted! And I do Business so it’s practically educational.