Well. That was something, wasn’t it?

The past week was the longest 7 days ever to exist. I honestly felt that Music would never arrive, that I’d be trapped in this sort of “almost-finished-not-quite-there-yet” time warp thing forever. Evidently, I am not. Music has been and gone, and I have to say it was a challenging enough paper.

Listening:
Question 1 = Deane! Predictions came through! The world rejoices! It wasn’t too bad of a question either. I had to guess the question about the rhythmic figure in Excerpt 2 though, because I’d honestly never seen/heard of it before. The final question about the name of the work (Seachanges) came out of the blue, but I recalled reading something about it in some notes our teacher gave us – so thanks Miss! Mozart, Berlioz and the Beatles were really lovely. The Mozart one could have been tricky, but I listened that particular movement this morning and something struck me about that part so I was covered. I think I have a 5th sense

Irish music…I really hate that question most of the time, and I still dislike it. The third excerpt (traditional/classical fusion) was hard – what features? Where? I stuck down something about it being a traditional Irish tune played by classical instruments, they can be happy with that.

My psychic abilities also came into play with the Aural Skills question. Just yesterday I quizzed my teacher on us having a pop music question, since most of the other years were classical. Guess what – pop! I had to stifle laughter when “It’s Not Unusal” played. Why? I have no idea. Seemingly, I was a rollercoaster of emotions  - I almost burst into tears at “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Really, I don’t know why. *shrugs* Overall, I thought that was easier than many of the past Aural Skills questions, feel free to disagree!

Composing:
Q1: Melody
As predicted, a minor melody. Key was G minor, I think? This went ok for me, I made a silly mistake though which I know is going to haunt me all summer. Instead of putting a sharp accidental in front of the Te, I put a natural sign. I know this totally changes the sound of the note, but hopefully I won’t lose too many marks for doing that. It’s absolutely killing me.
Q5: Harmony
This was difficult! No apparent cadences except the one at the end! I was unpleasantly surprised. Luckily cadence chords fit in at a few other places so in the end I had a couple more possibilities. I was utterly meticulous with this harmony. I checked and re-checked notes and chords and mused over chord progressions for AGES. Fingers crossed it was alright.

I finished my paper, handed it up and walked out of the exam hall. Funnily enough, I don’t feel relieved. I guess a part of me has started worrying about the results, and it won’t let me rest. Nevertheless, I am ecstatic to be finally finished. It’s the strangest feeling. Blogging this year has been a source of comfort to me, and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I will probably blog coming towards the results so you haven’t heard the last of me yet

Happy summer everyone! I love ye all! (Even the ones who don’t love me…)

Valerie

Depression session today. I had prepared Newgrange, Bronze age, three of the Ninja Turtles (Leonardo, Raphael and Michaelangelo) and I was relying on a nice packaging/graphic design question for the Appreciation.

But no.

Irish Section: I had to do the first question, which I was not happy about. For one thing, I hadn’t revised the Iron Age (even though I remembered that it was the Broighter Collar and that it had La Tene designs on it) and I absolutely HATE “Describe the item in the illustration” questions because that really is all you can do with them – describe the item in the picture. I wrote about 3/4 of a page on the first part and the remainder of the page describing the Bronze Age period. I wrote a few lines about the little I can remember of the Iron Age, drew a bunch of pictures and left it at that.

European Art: Raphael! Yay! The only question I liked. I wrote about “Madonna of the Meadow” and got about 3 pages including sketches. I did this first as it really was the only thing I was confident about.

Appreciation: This part was HORRIBLE. Graffiti? Fashion/Sportswear? WTF? I did the fashion/sportswear question terribly, only one page that didn’t address any of the issues raised in the question and felt like crying. What is it with Art and making me want to cry? And I don’t even mean in a it’s-so-beautiful-I’m-moved kind of way. In a bad, sad way.

I’m really upset, especially because my practical went so horribly as well. I was counting on Art History to bring me up a bit, but now…I’d be lucky with a pass.
At least I’m finished now until Music, I’m gonna go out and meet some friends later – might take my mind off things!

Valerie

(Note: Ordinary level Maths being discussed here)

Yes, pure gammy. I have done every single exam paper from 2009 back over and over again, yet somehow they manage to pull the most obscure weird little summies out of nowhere. Let me see:

Q1: I have completely forgotton how to do scientific notation or whatever. I punched in the numbers and pressed the EXP button over and over again, yet each time got a different answer. I gave up. The part (c) had me thinking for a bit, but on reviewing the question I figured it out and I’m pretty sure I got it right. Yay! At this point in the exam I liked Maths.

Q2: Oh algebra. We’ve never been friends. At least I can rest happy in the knowledge that I will never have to do it again! Question (b) bothered me a bit as it said “Solve for x and for y” and to me that implies one answer, and I got two. Who knows. Part (c) of that question I completely ignored, as the method for alegbraic division has entirely left my mind. I started to dislike Maths.

Q3: I did the (a) part, then decided I would leave it out completely and only do the required 6 questions. Still disliking Maths.

Q4: Complex numbers = not complex! Except for the (c). I can normally do those sort of questions, but the reals and the imaginaries would not sort themselves out no matter how many times I tried. At this stage I reasoned with myself: Maths isn’t so bad, right?

Q6 (we don’t do Q5, for undisclosed reasons): Again, the part (c) got me. How the hell do you get f ‘(x) of that thing? No idea. The little table thing was a cute idea. Thanks SEC. Hate you.

Q7: The first principles and product rule were ridiculously easy, but they had to make up for it in that weird-ass part (c). I answered (ii), acceleration question, and left it at that. Well and truly despising Maths at this point.

Q8: Part (v)! What was that? Three real roots? Guh?

At half 4, I laboriously treasury-tagged my graph sheets to my exam booklet (how gammy were they? About as gammy as the paper, in my opinion) and handed it up. I just have to pass Maths, as I’m not counting it, but I was kinda hoping I’d be confident enough that I had passed it. Oh well.

Irish next (yes, I just deliberately ignored Maths Paper 2.) I’m slightly worried about the essay, because the only way I’ll be able to produce a good one is if I learn it off. I’ve got Polaitaiocht, An gCulu Eacnamaiochta, Drugai agus Difhostaiocht prepared, but who knows what’ll turn up on the day. Any tips? My teacher doesn’t “do” predictions, but she’s been going pretty heavy on Politics all year, so I’m going to focus on that. Though if we’ve learned anything from English Paper 2: Predictions mean absolutely NOTHING.

Good luck good luck good luck!

Valerie

I’m sorry for my big break in posting there, I was tremendously busy these past few weeks with orals and practicals and history projects and getting mildly obsessed with the new Doctor Who and…wait, where was I? Oh yes.

Orals went well, I think. My year had heard some horror stories from the repeats – their French examiner was pregnant, hormonal and had some sort of personal vendetta against every French student in the school. So when a tiny, wispy haired little pink marshmallow of a woman walked in to the library to give us the “Don’t be worried! Yeer GRAND” talk the whole year breathed a collective sigh of relief. She lived up to her nice little-old-lady image, thank God - she handled my “Colin Firth!” reaction when she asked if I’d seen the Pride and Prejudice film quite beautifully.
Irish was better, which was bothersome considering I prefer French. Even so, I got lost a little and didn’t articulate myself to the best of my ability (“Ahm, deanann an, umm…”) but I was more composed and together than in French.
Practicals were fine although my voice was a little wrecked by the time I got to my 6th song and I let out a few horrible squeaks, much to my distress. I agonised over those squeaks, my gappy Irish and my mumbled French for a couple of days, running through every second I could remember both in my own head and to anyone around who would listen, until I had to be reminded that the orals and practicals are OVER, FINITO. YAY!

Last Thursday saw me handing up dear old Harvey Milk for the last time and finally finishing the harrowing ordeal that is writing the Extended Essay. Now that was a relief. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I’d be able to write a 2,000 word essay, let alone the required 1,500, yet I managed to shoot over and above what was needed and paid for it dearly in editing. Editing isn’t fun, especially when you think everything is necessary. Eventually I got the thing down to about 1540 words, still over the target but it’ll have to do. One piece of advice I will give any 5th year History student out there: Please choose something you are interested in and want to learn about for the RSR, or you’ll just drive yourself absolutely nuts. Take it from me – I went half-crazy and I actually liked, nay, loved my project.

So that just about brings you up to speed on what’s going on chez Valerie at the moment. I have my Art (Craftwork, life-drawing etc.) next week. I’m playing it safe and doing a poster, considering my modelling went horribly in the mock. At least I’ll leave the art room with something that looks like a finished product, as opposed to a damp grey lump of clay that you have to mind like a little baby in case anyone touches it and it’s trunk/arm/head gets squashed or falls off. (Clearly, I hate clay.) I haven’t done much prep work for it yet, so that’s next on my long long to do list.

Sigh. I can’t believe it’s May. I keep saying it, but I hate how fast this year has gone. I don’t feel the slightest bit ready. When I think of the Leaving Cert as a whole, I start freaking out, yet when I think about it in terms of separate subjects it doesn’t seem so scary. I guess we all just have to keep doing that, taking it one day at a time, subject by subject. We’re GRAND.

Someone should write a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Leaving Cert. They’d make a killing.

Valerie

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Leaving-CertNet/253296809652?ref=ts

It’s the day of the French oral. I wait patiently in a small room, feeling confident. I am called into the examination chamber (I was going to just call it a room but chamber sounds nice and fancy) and, strangely, there are quite a few people in there. I am confused. I sit and the examiner starts talking to me in English.
“Talk in French! Why haven’t you put on the tape?” I cry.
“Shut up you,” she snaps back.
I make some feeble attempts at French conversation, she remains unresponsive. Eventually she turns to me and produces a packet of chewing gum from her pocket.
“Fine then. If you’re so smart, describe this chewing gum to me!”
I panic, I do not know the French word for chewing gum. Why is she doing this to me?
She puts on the tape, but music starts coming out. She starts dancing and singing along. She throws a book at me.
“Read that,” she spits.
I start to cry. My English teacher enters the room and sings at me as tears roll down my face.

I wake up whimpering and shaking my head feverishly, frozen for a few moments in utter terror. Then I realised it was only a dream, I had not just screwed up my oral over a description of chewing gum. What relief!

Thankfully, I’m not terribly worried about my French oral. The Irish oral is a different kettle of fish, however. I have an excellent Irish teacher who in her spare time must also be the totalitarian dictator of a small country as she controls every aspect of our Irish-speaking lives, including our oral material. She’s basically given us everything we know in the form of notes and handouts and while this is totally awesome in terms of the quality of the Irish and it all looks beautiful written down, not much of it is in my head. I have around two weeks to get it in there though, and some of the questions I KNOW we won’t be asked (the sheet of questions she gave us must be from 20 years ago…Example: What do you think of the situation in Ulster? She made us learn an answer to it, in the future tense. There will be peace etc etc. WTF?)

I received a letter from Trinity a while back containing a questionnaire for the English and Drama Studies course, which I filled out hurriedly and horribly while trying to prepare for History grinds and which has more tip-ex on it than actual ink. However, it seems they didn’t mind that or the hopelessly contrived answers as I now have to go to an interview/workshop thing on the 20th April. Woo, go me!
Except not really. That week happens to be the week of my Irish oral and Music practical. Yeah. I don’t know if all schools do their orals/practicals at the same time, but gosh Trinners! How am I going to work that out at all – as the French say, on verra…

I must get going and do some study. Grrr.

Valerie

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Seriously though, summer is creeping up on us faster than…um, something fast. I saw the ice cream man today. The ice cream man, for Chrissakes! Where is the time going?
I know where it’s going to – the new Lady Gaga video, painting my nails, procrastinating and eating chocolate in Lent (like a true rebel.)
Ah no. I do study, but recent mock results prove otherwise. I am disappoint.

Maths (Sweet Ordinary Level) – 58% C3
Not great by any means, but considering I didn’t answer 2 questions and only did what I could on the others, I’m pretty happy.

French – 82% B1
As we say in Ballina, chuffed city. I’d be very happy to get this in the real deal. It’s the only thing I’m proud of, mind you

Music – 58% C3
So disappointed. I did my melody in the wrong key which made me extremely sad…My listening was also atrocious, mostly cos Mozart came up as a main question and I totally wasn’t prepared for him. Sorry Wolfgang. Maybe next time.

Art – 66% C1
I’m ok with this actually. I did well in my life drawing, still life and Art History, but my craftwork brought me down. I chose clay modelling and towards the end I was getting so sickened with sculpting tiny elephant tusks that I just threw it on a wooden board and said “There. That’ll do”. Evidently it did not do.

History – 50% D1
Argh. I hated even having to type that, never mind having to tell people. I couldn’t answer the Irish question nor the Contextualisation on the Document Question. I’m mad about the Irish section though, I should have been able to answer more than one question out of the 4 but no, my teacher had not covered anything else but Cumann na Fucking Gael (sorry Mom.) My pink exam paper is destroyed with the fruits of my in-exam frustration (it says “I can’t do this” and “I’m going to fail” on every page.) I’d like to put in a word here about my history class. I have mentioned before that there are only two of us in it, and people always presume that it must be like a grind. Hmph. Not much of a grind when you have to get grinds for the grind.
(Say grind one more time. Grind. *stop quoting Mean Girls Valerie*)

So. Out of four subjects, I have 200 points. Mmm. I’m still waiting on English and Irish, but I’m not expecting anything wonderful there. I know the mocks don’t matter in the grand scheme of things and that this is the kick up the arse I needed, but I really thought I was pacing myself and being consistent with study. Back to the drawing board I guess! All smiles! We’ll be grand!

Guh.

Valerie

The life thing that got in the way was an experience that left me in a very confused state. There is nothing like someone you don’t know berating you on your life choices while cameras roll in the background, waiting for any sign of emotional fragility. Yes. I auditioned for Reality TV. Fame: The Musical. It wasn’t terrible, I didn’t sell my soul to the devil (at least I don’t think I did…) and I didn’t really mind not getting through to the main event – the live shows - but all the same, it affected me in strange and unwelcome ways.

The reason I feel this is relevent to my blog is because it threw a huge mother of a spanner into my carefully organised career-picking works. As I have mentioned before, I love to sing and perform. It’s something I considered as a career for most of TY and 5th year, after which I got too sensible for my own good and decided it would be best to have something to fall back on, don’t want to put all my eggs in the one basket and all that. That’s the clever thing to do, right? So all the way through the audition process I maintained that I was not going to study Musical Theatre in college but follow my second love, Journalism. Most people found this very interesting.
“Why are you here if you want to be a journalist?” they asked.
Well, um, I love singing.
I learned very quickly that you cannot simply love it. You have to eat, sleep and breathe it. I immediately felt terrible for even daring to intrude upon something that people feel so strongly about, that was so important to them. What place did I have there really?
Evidently my feelings came across, as the judges cited my indecision to completely devote myself to musical theatre as one of the reasons why I didn’t proceed further in the competition. They said they hoped that my experience there would help me decide what I wanted to do with my career. To be honest, it just left me befuddled.

I always had a little plan: earn my degree, get work experience, then go off and try my hand at theatre. Now, I feel like I was selfish for even thinking about casually dipping in to something that others have worked so hard for. Can one really have one’s cake and eat it? Or should we just pick one thing and stick to it? I don’t know.

I’m not posting this to look for advice or even to moan about wanting to follow my dream and the unicorn over the glittery rainbow but oh it’s so hard etc etc. I’m wondering what people’s opinions are on this, do you have one career in mind only that you would be happy to do for the rest of your days? Do I come off as a selfish brat in this post? Probably. For the second time in this post, I apologise.

As for the commenter on Ronan’s post who said that the bloggers this year aren’t very interesting, here’s apology number 3 (albeit a sarcastic one. Can you hear it? “Well soooo-reee.”)

Also, I want to wish anyone who hasn’t already completed their mocks the best of luck! Same to those who just did the HPAT – that’s ye, Mister X and Annah. Hope you get the marks you’re looking for.

That’s all for now, folks.

Valerie

PS: To any mock correctors that may be reading: Will you please hurry up and finish correcting our mocks? Please. I’m getting antsy.

It’s a Saturday. I’m supposed to be studying for my Maths 2 and Irish 1 exams on Monday but I’m having the most horrible trouble concentrating. So here I am!

As of Friday I have Maths 1, English, History and all my Art practical work done. Let me take a moment to discuss History.
IT WAS AWFUL.
Every kind of awful. I couldn’t answer any of the questions on Sovereignity and the Impact of Partition. Three questions we haven’t even covered (thanks, teach) and the one I could possibly have done I hadn’t studied, of course. I wrote the saddest, sorriest, most irrelevant page of history I’ve ever written and promptly gave up. Dictatorship and Democracy: fine. America: kind of ok, I had to bullshit, which I don’t really like doing. Document Question: the only case study I didn’t look at came up, that’s how it always works, isn’t it? It was funny actually, I think I jinxed myself. Right before the exam I was studying* with my history classmate and I said “OMG I bet ~this~ will come up.” And it did. Grr.
(*chatting, insulting historical figures and generally avoiding study)

After the loveliness that was English, History was wayyy disheartening. I had a bit of a sulk later on in the evening and threw aside the schoolbag in favour of singing class and trying to find my doppelganger for Facebook (no one’s ever told me that I look like anyone, which is great for everything else except Doppelganger week.)

Next Thursday, the 11th, and it’ll all be over. My year is planning on going absolutely mental for the midterm, y’know, to get it all out of our system. I recently realised how much I love doing stuff that isn’t studying. I dream about going to the cinema, or even oh! going to Penneys! (Yes, Ballina has a Penneys. It’s kind of our landmark.)

Hope everyone’s having a more pleasant mock experience than I’m having.

Til next time, my dears.

Valerie

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

“OMG did you hear Mary Kate asked JohnJoe over the Christmas!”
“I’m gonna ask Eugene guys!” “Good for you Margaret!” etc etc.

Yeah. Good for you, Margaret.
How the hell am I supposed to concentrate on my mockadoodledoos (they’re a wake up call, see! Oh I’m so clever) when I’m obsessed with finding a male type humanoid to put in a suit and stand next to me for a few hours? I suppose it’s my own fault for choosing to go to an all-girls school which, contrary to popular belief, makes girls 10 times crazier about boys. So much for the “less distractions” myth.

Also, can I ask WHY is telly getting so good just when I shouldn’t be watching it? Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, Glee, Criminal Minds…ugh. Maddening.

Must stop this from degenerating into a complete rant.
I did my CAO. It was quite scary. I put down a shedload of courses, most to do with journalism or English. Our careers guidance teacher has started pulling people out of classes, sitting them down and basically interrogating them on what they expect to get out of their Leaving, their goals for specific subjects, study plans, whatever. Now this is the absolute last thing I want to do. I understand that the school is interested in scouting out who they might be able to hype up for the 600 but…I’m gonna keep my goals to myself for now.

Everything is kind of starting to kick in now! I’m actually looking forward to the mocks, is that a bit mad? I just want to see where I stand at the moment, where I need to work more, where I can afford to ease the pressure a bit. Orals…Hm. I often wonder why, even though I have been learning it for most of my life, I struggle to string a sentence of Irish together. And then when my Irish teacher is shrieking “NA BRIATHRA NEAMHRIALTA GIRLS!” or some such at us I realise: I learned the most important structures of Irish grammar when I was in 4th class. I was 10. Now, 8 years later, I am expected to be able to just conjure it up from the foggiest of the foggy depths of my brain? Hah. Not gonna happen. What’s worse is that every teacher is absolutely shocked when we can’t remember it. Oh yes Miss, cos I go over my 4th class grammar notes daily. Sheesh.

Oh dear. This did degenerate into a complete rant. Tá brón orm.
(No really, I am sorry for this dreadfully boring post. I am currently experiencing writer’s block like you wouldn’t believe, it took me about 2 days to get this post in shape. I officially fail at blogging.)

Valerie