Would anyone like to know what I hate most about the Leaving Cert?
Its complete disregard for my preferred sleeping pattern- that’s what! It’s a Saturday morning and I woke up at 7am. 7am!! That should be illegal- it’s wrong, deplorable, repulsive and distressing. I’m so used to being viciously awoken at 7am (Actually, 6.45 *shudder*) that I’ve now started to do it on my own accord. It’s hideous. I usually prefer to wake up closer to 7pm on a Saturday that 7am! This is all the Leaving Cert’s fault, if it wasn’t for that abominable set of examinations I could sleep all day long.
To be honest, there are a lot of Leaving Cert- related things which irk and exasperate me, but the fact that it’s after affecting my natural body clock is the worst possible consequence. I’m quite distraught; I’ve become that strange teenager who awakens when it’s still dark outside and counts it as day time. It’s not that I haven’t tried going back to sleep, but it just won’t work. I simply can’t sleep all day long, so I’m going to have to accept the fact that I’m totally abnormal and henceforth subject to your taunts. And, obviously, blame the dratted Leaving Cert for everything
Since I’ve last blogged, an abundance of extremely fascinating education-related things have happened. I apologise for the massive gap between posts, I’ll start posting more from now on, and that, my friends, is a Jennie Promise.
Firstly, I sat my Christmas exams, which, as I mentioned in my last post, did not seem to instil any fear in this hardened secondary school student. They were ridiculously grand, except for Chemistry which I honestly thought I’d failed. I didn’t, I actually got 84%, but that’s merely the sign of a nerd. I haven’t got most of my results back, but those A1s in Irish and Biology are just lovely. I arrived into the Geography exam 30 minutes late (Surely a sign that I’m too easy going?) so those results may not reflect the work I did (Which is actually minimal, but it’s such a wonderfully easy subject that… well…meh). I’m usually quite punctual, so in my defence I’d like to point out that it was the fault of my bus for taking 2 hours to get me to school, I didn’t just decide to go have a look around town or something.
In relation to the aforementioned Christmas tests, which bored me to death and didn’t affect my sleeping pattern whatsoever, I have to tell you all that there was absolutely no late night cramming. None. The only thing I did differently in the run up to them was stay home from the beloved pub the Saturday night prior to their commencement, which was pointless, seeing as I watched television instead of studying anyway. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I can still get somewhat stressed, but I’m way more relaxed about the whole thing this year than I was last time around. My wonderfully non-ginger hair is fully intact, I’m pretty much stress free.
Moving less than swiftly onwards, Open Days have been attended. Well, Open Day actually.
On Wednesday I went to all the bother of getting a 7.30 train up to the buzzing metropolis of Dublin in order to spend a day looking around the Trinity College campus, and what a wonderful waste of time it was. Please don’t get me wrong, I had a great day, I just don’t think there was anything overly rewarding about the whole experience. The 5 hours or so spent on trains was actually quite enjoyable- Oh you De La Salle boys, how you keep me young. I just feel the actual Open Day itself was a disorganised mess. I couldn’t get into any of the medicine talks as they were packed full of kids wearing Abercrombie & Fitch hoodies and talking about the best brands of fake tan to use (Do I sound bitter?). I went to the stall to talk to Medicine students or whatever and they just weren’t in any way helpful. The course I was offered last year was Radiation Therapy, but I obviously didn’t accept it. Perhaps I should have, the guy at the stall was incredibly nice and really sold the course well. So now I just don’t know whether to put Pharmacy or that down on my CAO form after Medicine. Thanks really-sound-radiation-therapy-student, look at the decisions you’re forcing upon me!
I’m not letting the messy Open Day put me off the college of course. It’s still really nice, with an excellent reputation. A few of my wonderful friends are already first years up there, so they kindly showed me around the “secret parts” of Trinity. Y’know, like the cool hang out place for priests and stuff. Thanks guys.
WIT Open Day was on Tuesday actually, not that I went. I don’t actually live in Waterford; I didn’t go to school there before or anything like that, so I’m not up to date on the traditions of Waterfordians (and many of their slang terms: they say “boy” at the end of every sentence. Weeeeeeeeeird). Yeah, so I went into school on Tuesday, expecting a regular day of classes and the likes. What a fool I am- there were no other 6th years around, they’d all gone out to WIT (Or stayed home in bed), even the ones who don’t want to go to college at all, or don’t want to go to WIT or what have you. I was torn between spending the day in the Study Hall and going home, but as you can imagine the latter won.
Anyway, this post’s becoming rather lengthy, and in fairness I should stop now while I still have somebody’s attention. There are plenty of other things that need to be done, like watching television or getting out of my pyjamas or something. Potentially, I could go off and study, but I could also log into msn…
On an aside, did anyone notice that it’s almost Christmas? Maybe I should go get into the festive spirit. Or gorge on Mince Pies. Decisions, decisions…
I’ll be back soon!
