I don’t like it when people think I’m degrading them, but I do like honesty. From my previous bout with The Leaving, I’ve experienced girls with the I’m Lauren Conrad syndrome. Usually very attractive, and average in school until Senior Cycle stuff. Then it becomes,  “I want to live in luxury with the Gucci bags, with boy’s chins hitting the floor when I walk in, I’m so confident, and to be frank, more  intelligent than the rest of you”. No my dear, you’re not. You can try, and you do to be fair, which gains you much admiration, well mine at least. But you’re still not bright.

Honey, wake up and smell the roses. Intelligence levels have been decided long before you were fifteen or sixteen. You’re not going to get 570 points come June. No doubt some girls will, more girls than boys, but the girls I’m on about will be short of that without doubt. And this isn’t a vendetta against beautiful women, if a beautiful woman is intelligent and has been impressive during her schooling then there’s no reason as to why she wont get 600 never mind 570. I know them too. But people who frown upon others for being “like retarded” when the fact is they too were closer to the bottom than the top on entering secondary school. Stop eating books. Nobody thinks you’re intelligent if you’ve not slept and spent thirteen hours looking over business or physics the night before an exam. They just think you’re a, well, silly is the word. Especially when the exam returns with anything but an A.

Then it comes to “what are ya looking to do next year?”. Oh Dental Science. Oh Law with French in Trinity. Oh Actuarial and Financial Studies. All high points and ambitious targets. Well they’re too ambitious for a lot of people. You can learn off a mathematical formula, you can quote a poem word for word, you can learn a date in history, but come exam time you will be found out. You’ll still achieve an amazing Leaving Certificate for someone so average, but you wont get the course you want. And while you might be disappointed, everyone else will just think you’re a delusional fantasist because you thought you’d reach your target in the first place.

However don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t admire these people more. They are so determined and driven that it’s hard not to wish you were as committed to study as them. I can’t say I’d like to do as much as them, I believe there’s a point where it becomes too much. But if I could do half I’d be fulfilling my potential. However the point is my potential is above those mentioned. And that’s not arrogance it’s the truth. If I worked as much as them I’d take the Leaving as a piece of piss. But they will work more, and wont acquire a place in their desired course next year. And that’s the saddest thing. Unless of course they’re an up-their-own-hole cunt. That’s a good one then.:)

Oh and noone in my current school falls into this category! Purely last year and people I knew from other schools in years gone by. (Dodged that bullet).

Regards, preparing for a backlash, Ronan Morrissey.

anyway..so it’s day 4 of my 9 day ‘working break’,or so it’s been dubbed by the teaching units of pobalscoil na trínóide and 4 days sitting at a desk without contact from the outside world is really making me wish my pres were before the mid term. Lucky valerie and the majority of other people! Studying is great and all but without breaks which involve actual social contact it becomes somewhat unpleasent,and unpleasentness is no friend of mine. Also when staring at your pre timetable becomes slightly entertaining when compared to what your actually supposed to be doing then you know your kinda in trouble. So i’m taking a break from studying for my leaving cert, so that i can complain about it ^_^

I’ve been studying Lear for the last hour or so and all i can come up with  aside from the whole play being a bit of a mind fuck, is that Cordelia is a total biatch. If say your mam or dad was going senile and they asked you to tell them that you loved them wouldn’t you friggin well do it?? I know i’d sugar coat it and possibly hang bells off it,So I find this whole business of her not being able to compromise her ‘integrity’ as a big croc of sh*t tbh. Seriously,she’s just a self righteous biatch and she’s just as stubborn as the guy who we’re all supposed to say was a fool to use the love test and blah blah blah. Apparently it’s tipped that a question about COrdelia as a role model is gona come up this year and i really hope it does,just so i can write a nice long essay about how i think she’s a total biatch. Being negative is so fun in exams,it’s quite similar to bitching about people so my being a teenage girl comes in quite handy.

I should probabley go study some more,since I haven’t even finished reading wuthering heights and i’m planning on writing an essay on it next tuesday so that’s all for now folks

Annah

This is worrying news for those sitting the Leaving Cert in June.

If these figures are correct then no one has a safe course. Some courses won’t see a substantial rise in applicants however others could see points rise significantly.

The rise in applicants is directly linked to the recession as young people choose to further their education. The fear of job losses has pushed many to re-skill and re-train themselves in the hope of finding secure employment.

This is our aim too. We want to have third level qualifications and we all want secure careers out of them however it’s clear that these next 4 months are make or break time for many of us!

I got an e-mail and I knew I should post something, but expecting me to do it would’ve been like expecting a Haitian to run a marathon. Pure mean considering the state I was in. Suffering vicious headaches, mucus build up (I’m dead sexy), dry mouths, impoten……. well I felt awful. And the last thing I needed was for the shrew of a doctor to shine a big Jesus arising from the dead-esque light  into my eye to try find the solution to the headaches, then tell me there was little she could do to determine the cause of the problem! We need better doctors medicine students!

Truth be told I would’ve welcomed this dilemma twelve months ago, few days off like boi! But now, yeah it’s hindered the auld study progress. I mean there’s only so much Loose Women and Maury someone can watch. Incidently, you can NEVER have enough Total Wipeout! But the fact that I’m watching Richard Hammond make jokes as brutal as Loose Women, JLS and a relationship with O.J. Simpson all combined on a Saturday night isn’t exactly as good as a few Loose Women out on the town.

But anyway everyone’s probably done their C.A.O.’s. End of story with that, you’ll NEVER get to change that! Phhfftt. Of course you will, people just try scare ya, the facts are that it’s good to give yourself a goal to work towards, but you have until July technically to sort it out! So take it easy, maybe even listen to some Sigur Ros while sipping on Iced-Tea (Mr. Kraft from Sabrina memories btw), chill, relax, it’s not the end of the world as Maury would say. Whether LaBron’s the father or Shaneiequa, as long as the bab……. Sorry, digressing. Some people will make the right choice, some wont, some will end up delighted, some gutted, either way you should just put the task of the C.A.O. in the backseat now until after the exams, hush!

February, pres, mocks, whatever you call them for most students they’re falling on our laps in this month. All I can say from experience is, it’s only the pres! While I’d give The Leaving a capital letter, the pres are so insignificant (well they’re not completely useless but many a flaw do they have) that I don’t value them worthy of one! I mean, last year, jesus, people getting 530 when they end up with 460 in The big LC, others getting 370 when they achieve 450 when it matters come August. Some marks are as inaccurate as Jordan’s chest, or Dannii Minogue’s face for that matter. Don’t squeel crying at some prick grading your questions too poor, the pres are all about experience, timing and the likes. And if you still care, you can get the papers off the internet! Not that I recommend that or anything of the sorts.

Is there a point in the pres for Repeats, without doubt! Especially if they didn’t give a hoot last year. In fact this Sunday last year, I was sessioning on down for the Superbowl throughout the night, how American! Steelers v Cardinals, woohoo! U.S.A., U.S……. Ehm. Needless to say the next day, well school wasn’t an option. Especially when it started snowing! Intense drinking and snow, like Christmas in Poland. You’d be surprised how much one can mature over a year. As Maury would say.

Oh and I’m not impotent.

Ciao and Merci Beaucoup.

I am so tired though. Wrecked. All the time. And it hasn’t got so far into this whole LC thing that I’m allowed be in a bad mood all day every day, a door-slamming, exahale-and-roll-of-eyes type of mood, without someone calling me out on it. I’m looking forward to that. The freedom to grind your teeth and shoot dirty looks whenever and wherever you please! The snappy retorts! It’s like freedom to be my true horrible self.

Now that’s not true. I am a nice person really, and I only retort snappily when absolutely necessary

I took a look at our exam timetable the other day, of course Music is on the second last day and of course I’m going to have to remain under house arrest (of sorts) for a week while everyone else is living it up, footloose and fancy free. (Of course I have just discovered formatting. And yes, I just pulled a triple attack of bold, italics AND strikethrough on your sorry asses.) On the upside, I can concentrate on my set works for that week. Berlioz, Mozart, Deane and the Beatles. Deane is so totally wtf. I am the only one in the class who doesn’t squirm and grimace when my teacher tentatively suggests we might revise it, and that’s only because I’m amazed that someone would actually think to make music like that. Anyone who hasn’t heard it…the first few bars would give you an idea of the whole thing. Squeaks, squawks, Psycho-style saw violins…yurp. Fun fun.

Anyone doing anything fascinating/weird in their practicals? Unfortunately I was not blessed with the patience required to succeed at musical instruments, I have tried and failed at guitar and piano several times because I actually cannot grasp the concept of practice. It is horrible I know, but I expect to see results in everything instantly and when I don’t…I’m all “Kthnxbai.” So I’ll just be singing. Ughhh, singing. Quel ennui, I know.

You can tell I like this here blogging, can’t you? 

Valerie

I hope Christmas and the turn of a decade was kind to all. Mine was full of days with family, nights with friends, some success at the poker table (which is quite rare for me), and indeed what December and January are made for. Not Jesus, I’m fairly anti-religious. But darts of course! We could all learn something from the likes of Phil “The Power” Taylor. And when I say something I mean desire, drive, ambition, not diabetes or obesity.

We can pace ourselves. For those who’ve done themselves no favours so far, you should use your energy to start doing some serious work. Please. For me! I don’t want people ending up as I did last year. Ending up in McDonalds for breakfast on a May morning embarrassingly. Let’s say, three and a half hours a night? I dunno, most schools run that in-school study sort of scheme right? That should do for two hours or so. If you attend that is! So come home, feed yourself a decent dinner, watch some telly (what’s popular nowadays, Home and Away?), maybe indulge in a Red Bull and some chocolate, then feck back up the stairs for an hour and a… oh dear, I’m forgetting about The Champions League!:( Eh, hmmm, dilemma. Right maybe take ninety minutes off if your team are playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday! (Liverpool fans, The Europa League isn’t a valid excuse so just give it up. Then back down the stairs for Desperate Housewives or something light! Maybe even some Premier League darts on the occasional Thursday? Proof of success, a friend of mine, nothing until January, solid effort until crunch-time, 450 points.

For people who have been working arduously for the year or even more, keep it up. You’re doing perfect stuff. Just, as mad as it sounds, don’t do too much. You can burn out. I know of people giving up too much time (usually the delusional fantasists I’ve mentioned before and will get around to at a later date), double digit hours of each day studying. And in the end they end up disappointed. Too exhausted to study come June. Even physically they look more and more like a wreck come exam time. We’re walking into a pressure cooker environment, the last thing we want is people dying out when they must put their money where their mouth is. On the other hand people who spend a balanced amount of time working end up happy, knowing that they got what they deserved. They couldn’t have done much better for themselves.

The point is leave yourself some time to enjoy life. Work too, it’s only 180 days of your life until the end of the exams come June 25th. I think the, what should I say, unique subjects are that day, like Japanese, Unicyling and Frog Biology. One hundred and eighty days, if we can’t manage that, ehm, well we’ll end up saddened and, maybe even The R Word (rep*ating). And we don’t want that.

Anyway, apologies for this short and unimaginative post, I’m thinking darts all day. The P.D.C. World Championship Final is just about to start!:) If Stephen Fry is a fan of darts it’s good enough for me! In fact I must keep track of his Tweets throughout the game. And just as I type that, Simon Whitlock and The Power hit consecutive maximums while warming up! Let’s Play Darts and enjoy the song at the break! I’m so enthusiastic!:) ONNEE HUNDREDDDD AN’EIGHTTT-EEEEEEEE!!!

Thank you very much.

You know it’s funny. I’d gone to pretty much all of the Open Days. I’d dragged my mates around the different stands, to the boring information lectures to the point where it was much better to split up, letting them check out the university “talent” while I checked out courses. “Pfffft,” they said, “loads of time.” So today it paid off: I got out all my prospectuseseses (prospecti??), happy that I had some grasp of what I want to do. Okay, Medicine down the five slots there… Then lost. I mean, I know that you need to have a back up, a back-up for your back-up and so on. I put down back-ups. I mean, I know now that I want to do Medicine and there’s really no other course that I’m interested in, especially after thinking it over the past few weeks, even months. It’s deciding where you might end up going  if things don’t go as planned,the complete uncertainty that’s so unnerving. They say change is good, but one that ties you down somewhere for 4 years? Yipes. Must be the Mother Theresa of the World of Change.I guess it’s good motivation to really knuckle down and get what you want to get.

I wasn’t even going to do the CAO for another few weeks until someone warned me about the Dublin HPAT test centre and the possibility of it filling up and then having to go to Galway or Cork. That would be one hell of a day. For anyone in a centre outside of Dublin in the event that Dublin does fill up… I think that you’ll be able to tell which candidates they are. The twitching ones that will cry tense tears of exhaustion as the time to put down the pencil draws ever closer. Then I saw myself in the situation. Not a chance I’d cope, I’m bad enough in exam situations without being sleep-deprived even further with travel time. Hence the CAO panic and now I have my number and HPAT registration all done and dusted. Figuratively speaking.

So what did I put down as my back-ups in the end? Human Health and Disease, Science, Physio and Occupational Therapy, roughly in that order and it’ll probably change after this post. After all that I nearly wish I really did go check out the talent because really I’m no more concrete on my “definitely maybes” than I was six months ago. Yet as 2010 draws closer and closer I can’t help but think where, in little over six months time, my CAO application will lead me and for my friends, their’s. I think today is the first day, the first big wake-up call I’ve had, of life beyond the Leaving and life beyond school.

30th December 2009 folks. A day for change.. now the 31st? Let’s hope it’s a positive change for study!

Mister X.

I moved up from the shticks to my lovely Appartment on the UCD Campus on Tuesday and started Orientation the following day. I was having a ball of a time there. Loved it. Myself and the student bar really hit it off.
On Friday, I moved all my stuff back out.
SCHLATERZ DUBLIN.

I’m sure most of you are wondering what the hell I was thinking. I repeat, dead set on getting Medicine and, after lots of bother, finally manage to get it, one year later than expected. Then I drop out!?

Well, basically, what happened is this.
I woke up bright and early Thursday morning, got dressed and set to go into my Academic Advisory lectures in UCD, when I got a phonecall from a number I didn’t know.
Guess who it was?
Trinity Admissions office.
Guess what they were offering me?
The 5 Year course in Medicine over there.
Guess what I did?
Jumped up and and down excitedly, before accepting my THIRD ROUND, RANDOM SELECTION CAO offer the following morning.
And then?
I dropped on out’a UCD and started calling myself a Trinity student.

It’s been a few days since I got the offer and I’m still somewhat in disbelief. Like, this doesn’t happen all too often.
Although, astoundingly, it also happened to a very good friend of mine last year.
I was loving UCD, it’s a great place altogether, and the craic is mighty, but I couldn’t resist Trinity. I mean, the course is a year shorter and it’s what I truly wanted. And I got it on Third Round offers. FATE.

So basically, I’m now a winner. A Trinner Winner. Life is good.
This will certainly be a final post from me, the LC and all that’s related to it is well and truly over.

Moral of the story though- Thank God I repeated. It’s a wee bit later than I’d hoped for, but I’m officially where I want to be, doing what I want to do.
Wooohoooooooo!

Good luck class of 2010!

EDIT: (09/10/09)
I’m so unbelievably fluky! I got bumped up on my Biology recheck to an A1. 575 points- hello!

Today has been the much awaited CAO offers day. My lack of nerves in the run up to the actual Leaving Certificate Results was made up for, infinite times, last night as I gritted my teeth and crossed all of my fingers, hoping against hope I’d be offered Medicine today. I’m not a Religious person but, trust me, I was praying to just about anything that the CAO offers would treat me well today.
And treat me well they did!

I never got around to blogging my actual Leaving Cert results last week- the past few days have disappeared off in a blur of sleeping and celebrating. I was pretty delighted when I opened that horrible brown envelope, let me tell you.
I’d warned all of my friends and family in advance that the likelihood was that I’d get lower points this year than last year. I had myself convinced.
I’d totted up my predicted points over and over again, and it always seemed to land somewhere in the 510-525 bracket. I’d made my peace with it, and decided my 550 from last year would do the job.
However, I didn’t *actually* do worse this year! I somehow managed to scrape 565, which I was very pleasantly surprised and happy with!
I counted my points from the following:
Three A1s- Irish, English and Geography.
Two A2s- French and Biology.
One B1- Chemistry.

I was a little upset with Biology, admittedly, as I got an A1 in it last year. Also, Chemistry let me down. I got the same result in it last year, even though I felt this year’s paper went a lot better. I’ll have a look at the scripts and see if they could be brought up, but I don’t mind at all.
Leaving Cert results mean very little to me right now as they’ve been completely overshadowed with my CAO offer.

I, my friends and loyal readers, have accepted course DN002- Medicine in UCD.
I’m overjoyed. Deliriously content. Euphoric.
I can’t quite voice how I feel, because I really don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before. I honestly didn’t think I’d be getting Medicine today, especially not in Dublin!
I missed out on Trinity, my first choice, by a mere 3 points, but I got my second choice in UCD and that’s more than good enough for me.
UCD was, after all, my first choice last year.

I waited up all night, and as soon as the offers appeared on the internet (A cheeky little scanned copy on boards.ie) and I saw that I’d be studying Medicine this year I just began to grin. It’s a feeling like no other, and I’m incredibly delighted.
Had I not been offered Medicine today, I would have accepted Human Health and Disease Science in Trinity, but I would not have been quite as satisfied as I am right now.

As it turned out, had I not repeated at all and just taken a year out, I could’ve gotten exactly the same offers. UCD fell at 720, I was already on 723. This year’s Leaving brought me up to 726. Luckily, I can do nothing but laugh about the whole situation.
The introduction of the HPAT worked out very well for me. Less so for others, of course, but I’d never have gotten UCD if it weren’t for that bad boy aptitude exam. Although, if it weren’t for that bad boy, perhaps i’d have been more motivated.
For all my complaining and whinging throughout the year, things have worked out for me! I’ve had an amazing Summer, and looking back on my year it wasn’t so bad. I met plenty of great friends, saw many new and interesting faces.

This day last year I felt somewhat empty. The idea of repeating hurt. Seeing my friends accepting their offers to go off to every corner of the country and beyond sent pangs of disappointment through my very being. But, just a year on, everything’s after working out.
The year flew by, and I’m glad I waited around to get my dream course instead of jumping into something I wasn’t really happy with.

It’s a strange time of the year for us all- friends and classmates heading in opposite directions. Hopefully, mostly grinning.
To anyone reading my blog, I hope you’re all happy with your chosen paths. And for those of you who’re feeling somewhat upset, look at my story as one of success. In the end of the day, you’ll get what you want. It might take a little longer, it might involve a lot of stress and hardship, but it’ll be worth it in the end.

To anyone going down the repeating route, I wish you the very best of luck. I saw some amazing success stories among my own friends and classmates this year who went back to school, and the general consensus is that it was worth every single minute.

Best of luck everyone, I’m officially out for the very last time!
Thanks for reading all year, it’s been a pleasure.

-Jennie.

If you’re on this site you’ve probably paid my blog a cursory interest at least. Figure you might be interested in what I got, in the end. As of 12pm noon today the results have been available over the internet. You just need to remember your PIN number, which took me like a goddamn hour to find. I was more relieved when I found the damn thing than when I saw my results. Which weren’t bad.

Totalling 405 in points. Slightly above average. Story of my life.

Funnily enough I was expecting to fall into the 320-360 range, so I did considerably better than I thought I would. So I’m happy enough. The A1 in english also provides me with some bragging rights (though for me it’s more of a “fuck off I got an A1 in english” in the holster if anyone gets more points than I and feels the need to express that sentiment)

I think most people got the same feeling as me. That “huh, did significantly better than I thought I would” feeling. See, I don’t think the Leaving is really about the results, in the end. And I think, for the same reason, the system has been kept the same all these years, despite the flaws. You see, every culture has what is known as a ‘rite of passage’, since the dawn of mankind. Something you have to accomplish, in order to prove your maturity and adulthood, which builds your character along the way. Something everyone goes through as a society. The Leaving Cert, I think, is the modern-day equivilent of bringing down a woolly mammoth and taking home its tusk, or hiking to the top of a sacred mountain and meditating for days without food.

The results are just a consideration. A minor point in the grand scheme of things. The important part is, we beat the Leaving Certificate.

Or I did, anyway. Sucks to be everyone who just failed everything. Day-um.