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.

It seemed to have all the signs of a regular day at first- rushing to the bus stop at the very last minute, legging it onto the bus breakfast-less, stressing out about the fact that I’m way behind for this Leaving Cert thing yet lacking the ability to force myself to actually do more work, generally whining, whinging and ranting. Y’know, the usual.
As soon as my friend and I trudged off the bus, however, things took a turn for the better. Well, maybe not for the better, but they took a turn anyway. That much was true.

Instead of heading into school straight away, myself and my good dear, favourite fellow repeatee took a detour into town for an aimless wander, or perhaps some coffee. “We’ll go in my second class, surely”, we told ourselves. To cut a very long story short, 2 hours later, on a complete caffeine high,  we found ourselves  in Topshop- where, another of the select few female repeats was also to be found. Repeat LC-ers motivation is such a force to be reckoned with!

The general consensus reached was that school is horrible. It’s awful, it sucks and we’re all very much so fed up of it at this stage.
Sure, there was no point going in at that stage, we told ourselves. We’d be wasting our time. We’d just be sitting around in classes, clenching our jaws, hating the world.

We’re young, intelligent, enthusiastic, great young people, and we knew there just had to be something more to do that day. Something exciting. Something exhilarating. Something out of this woooorld!

However, when myself and my aforementioned darling of a fellow repeat and I pooled our money together, we had about €5 left, so our options for the day were pretty meagre. Did we really want to bother going into school now, at this stage? No.
I’d already missed Maths class- why else would I bother nearing the building?
I had a return bus ticket, so I could’ve just gone home. But then I’d have to explain to my parents that I’m a mess. A waster, An idiot. A disgrace. An embarrassment. An outright humiliation.
It was even beginning to drizzle somewhat, so we couldn’t just sunbathe in the park or something. (Not that I’ve ever done that, but if I’d wanted to, I’m afraid it just wouldn’t have been a viable option.)

There was only one thing left to consider- The library.
This too was flawed, in that we didn’t really have an awful lot of books with us as they were, y’know, sealed in our lockers. In school. Where we didn’t appear to be.

A quick trip to our lockers was called for.
We strolled casually towards the school, went in nonchalant as you like, visited the lockers (Which, unfortunately for us, are located outside the Principal’s office and adjacent to the staff room) and filled our bags to our heart’s content.
Colour co-ordinated, immaculately organised folders, anyone?
Then, back into town we went, to the library. Content as you like. Laughing at how cool we were.

I LOVE the library in Waterford. Love it.
I actually get plenty of work done there, because nobody’s forcing me to. It’s not like a free class where there’s always going to be a bit of messing and a teacher urging you to study “because there’s only DAYS until the exams!” If you want to get up and go for a stroll around for a few minutes, you can just leave. If you feel like studying whilst listening to music, you can stick in your headphones without being glared at. If it takes you an hour to learn 4 pages of Stair na Gaeilge off perfectly, then that’s alright. Nobody’s nagging at you to speed up or anything.
There’s nobody around asking you “How’s the study going?”- because if one more person asks me that, I WILL punch them in the face.
It’s great.

I spent several hours there- with only a one hour break off in the middle to go shopping for Tit Tape. And to eat and stuff, but, primarily, to buy tit tape. A lot of things are just more important than revision, like ensuring the dress you’re planning to wear out on Saturday night won’t cause you to reveal yourself to the world.

I’m thinking that’s going to be my main plan from now on- Take the bus down to school every day, let onto my parents I’m assiduous and diligent, and showing up for classes- but chill out in the library.
I’m such a rebel for mitching off school to go study in the library. Sometimes I just wonder…

There’s really nothing better than the beautiful, beautiful library.
I got plenty done, a lot more than what I did on Saturday & Sunday combined (Literally, nothing).
Tomorrow though, apparently, I have to go in to get a “Year Photo” taken.
And, apparently also, I have to wear black shoes.
Navy ones will have to do. I’m such a rebel, messing with the system all the time.
At this stage in the year, I just really want to mess around with things, even in the slightest way to get my thrills.
Honestly, I must be seething with anger, frustration and stress deep deep down. Probably. I’m waiting for it to surface.

Anyway, as you can probably tell from this post, I’m totally jittery. I’ll calm myself down a bit before I update again! Just wanted to let you all know that I’ve degenerated almost fully now, and am slowly but surely spiralling downwards, into a pit of doom. It’s nearly 1.30am- I should be sleeping, not blogging!

Ahhh, whoever’s in charge of setting school holidays and stuff (In this case, Jesus?)- Cheers. I salute you. I really needed a while off to vegetate a little and forget more random stuff I actually did learn earlier in the year. I needed to spend a little bit of quality time with my good friend Facebook. I needed to listen to Bat for Lashes new album around 20 times. I needed to sample a few different wine varieties.
Seriously, I really appreciate it.

Someone asked me the other night about what I did last Easter in terms of studying and how it compared to this year’s meagre attempts at getting stuff done. This got me to thinking and eventually “bhuail cúpla smaointe mé”. My effort this year, well, it’s quite similar really.
Last year, our orals were after the Easter break which, I must say, was pretty good for motivation. I do recall actually doing some work, but it was pretty much only in Irish and French- I still spent my weekends in the pub and my other evenings doing far more important things. Most of my friends were living near me at that stage (As opposed to now, where local friends have, for the most part, abandoned our lovely hometown to get some sort of a Third Level Education elsewhere) so distracting myself was much easier, but that’s not to say I haven’t managed it this year. Thank you, Internet.
Back then, I was a little more naïve.
 ”Jennie”, I said to myself, “You’re going to do 10 hours of study a day for 10 of the 14 days off this Easter. That’s 100 hours, no problem!” I made myself a little chart with 100 boxes on it and told myself I’d tick off one box for every hour I got done. I think I’d be lucky if about 5 of those were ticked off in the end. Poor, naïve, foolish, younger Jennie.

Personally, I much prefer weathered Jennie. She understands how things work in reality.
Yes, I have been known to say ridiculous things like “I’m definitely going to do loads of study today!” or “I’m definitely putting the head down and working from now on! I have to reach my full potential” or “<insert ridiculous, unrealistic statement here>”, but underneath it all, I know I’ll do as little as possible, and I’m actually becoming quite cool with that. And, for the record, my hair’s much nicer these days too.

We all know of those really hard working students who put in an awful lot of effort and get everything they could ever dream of (academically only of course) and really, I’d love to be one of them, but I’m just not. I can’t fully dedicate myself to something which I’ve lost all interest in to be honest (ie, the LC).
A lot of people seem to have gotten the impression that all I do is study. Not the case, unfortunately.
I want to study medicine, yes, and I do tend to get pretty good grades, but I’m not wholly dedicated. I get really mad at myself when I don’t get top grades, but if I’m to be truly fair to myself I KNOW I don’t deserve them most of the time. This year, I’m hoping I can beat my last year’s 550… but I’m doing equally little work. Foolish Jennie.
Natural intelligence works a treat, but I’m just not THAT naturally intelligent. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve left the house with my t-shirts on backwards or inside out or something.
(Maybe that just proves I’m not able to dress myself more than anything else, but whatever. I did it again today. Again, foolish Jennie.)

So, basically, I’m destined to fail. At life.

I actually can’t remember where I wanted this blog to end up. I got off to such a good start, praising time off and so on, but now look at me, concluding that I’m a  failure. I think I’ve just undermined myself.
Bah!
Time to go have a beer, methinks. I’ll update a little bit more positively soon! Maybe I might even get back my motivation. (YAY! LEAVING CERT! I’M GOING TO BEAT YOU!!)
It’s looking doubtful though. “Meh” is the word of the moment.

Anyway, I opened it up and got bombarded by an excellent title: “Exams Kill or Exam Skill?” Unfortunately, this is where the magical journey of exam skill enlightenment ended for me. It just all seemed a little clichéd, a little…. “meh”. Immediately, I decided that exams are vicious and murderous things which shouldn’t be mastered, but avoided. And denied.

I’m a repeat student, so I know all about denying the reality of the Leaving Cert, and avoiding study.
Like, for example, the fact that I keep telling myself that it’s only February. Plenty of time left.
I mean, deep down I know that this is foolish and I can’t help but feel that I’m “repeating the mistakes of last year”, but it’s a lot easier to pretend I don’t have to go through all this torture than actually prepare myself properly for it.
Ah, sweet sweet denial.

So anyway, here’s my guide to avoiding exam reality. If you’re on this site in the first place you’re possibly looking for some sort of motivation to study, but since everyone else sitting the Leaving Cert this year is my competition, I’d very much so like to drag the rest of you down with me. Come live on the edge like me! It’s simple, this rebellious dossing business, just follow these 5 simple steps:

1. Spend as much time as is humanly possible online.
 The internet. Don’t you just love it? Such an excellent and educational resource. It’s also wicked fun for dossing. Trust me on this one… there’s the social networking sites, there’s msn, there’s rather a number of great forums which are totally irrelevant to real life, there’s JENNIE’S LEAVING CERT BLOG, there’s various other blogs which are also great, although obviously nothing could ever surpass the greatness of Jennie’s blog, there’s youtube in general. There’s everything. If you find it difficult to waste several hours online at a time then just leave me a comment, I’ll lead you in the (wrong) right direction. Avoid those Leaving Cert related sites, mind. That could possibly be misconstrued as learning, and we don’t want that.

2. Start drinking more tea.
Don’t like copious amounts of tea? Well, that’s got to change. Personally, I’ve become a tea addict in recent times and I think all of you should join me. There’s just nothing better than watching that kettle boil and pouring that steaming water into a nice cup containing a glorious (Lyon’s) tea bag. Ah, heaven. Now, I’m a fan of black tea myself (It’s nicer, so shut up… I shan’t be ridiculed!) but that’s completely beside the point. Tea breaks are a necessity when studying. Personally, I like to make some tea and bring it down to my room so I can sip on it whilst studying. And as soon as the cup is empty it’s time to make a new one. Remember that, it means you get about 10 minutes of study in before a 5 minute break.

3. Change to Meteor.
First of all, I’d like to point out that I am in no way affiliated with Meteor. Secondly, I’d like to advise you all to switch your phone networks at once- Meteor’s the only way to go if you want to waste lots of time but not lots of money. Free calls and texts to other meteor customers or free texts to everyone? Ah, it’s too perfect. I only switched a while back and since then I’ve had my phone glued to my hand. I can’t emphasise the importance of keeping up your correspondence. Whether it’s people you see everyday or people you see once a month, they should know how you’re getting on at all times.

4. Pave the way for college life: Go Drinking.
Go on, it’ll only kill off a few of the weaker brain cells. I can’t remember the last weekend I didn’t go out, and there’s nothing better than a hangover on a Sunday morning. You can’t study with a hangover! It’s foolproof! Like, even if you wanted to… you just couldn’t. So don’t underestimate the importance of Jagerbombs for Leaving Cert students.

5. Exercise, but only in a non-traditional manner.
Y’know the way everyone says that you should keep on your hobbies during 6th year? Well, quite frankly, I just don’t think there’s time. What with all that time dedicated to dossing around online and drinking lots of alcohol, you’re not going to be able to fit in football training sessions or the likes. Plus, then you’d be really developing as a person, working as a team and stuff. There’s no “I” in team, and if I’m not there then what’s the point? The world revolves around me, contrary to popular belief. No, what you want is a bit of working out in the gym wearing t-shirts to the effect of “Nobody knows I’m a Lesbian”, which make people look at you strangely while you’re sweating away to the beat of your iPod, which is fun. Gym- Good. Teamwork- Bad. Also, I’ve become quite partial to late night strolls. Have you ever just been sitting there attempting to study when you’ve felt like jogging away? Well, I have. Like, when the choice between studying and running/ walking/ hopping arises, pick the latter for God’s sake. Last night I decided to go walk around my garden for 30 minutes. Yes, just walking in a little circle, alone, in the dark. It was quite cold also, but what of it. The alternative was a trigonometry question I was trying to avoid.

So there you have it, you can all join me in my downward spiral which will undoubtedly culminate in me doing some sort of basket-weaving/ jam-making/ bread-making course in a buzzing place like Arklow or Leitrim next year. Come on, it’ll be fun.
Remember: Exam Skill isn’t needed, because exams kill. They really do. Just pretend they’re not happening and you’ll be fine.
I’ve my HPAT exams (Those medicine aptitude yokes for anyone who’s “huh?”ing) on Saturday. My whole future depends on them, basically. I know this, deep deep down, but I’m remaining calm. And my Mocks. Those. Sure, they’re just around the corner too. Ah God.
I’ll let you know how that whole thing goes for me.
For now though, I’m off to make myself some tea. I might even go all out and have a biscuit too, I’m just THAT out of control/ rebellious/ daring.

Disclaimer: To maximise points in the Leaving Cert, do not heed any of my aforementioned advice. Please note, however, that any self praise remains valid.