O happy day

The wait was the real killer. For the entire summer, my every thought seemed to spiral around one question: Did I get enough?

My canon of recurring dreams also received a new addition: the Leaving Cert Nightmare. One was about scraping the points I needed, but failing Maths – putting college out of the question.
Yes, I was ruminating like a cow with indigestion – but I wasn’t alone. A problem shared is a problem halved, and my friends and I shared ours so many times that they were practically diced by August 15.
Curiously, I slept well on the eve of Envelopes Day. My brain was probably trying to distract me, and I’d like to thank it for letting me play with The Strokes for a night.
I don’t know how I ate breakfast that morning, but the legendary Mr. Downey’s sage words defused anxieties instantly: “Whatever’s written on that piece of paper is just that – writing on a piece of paper.”
I sort of knew I was going to be all right when principal Mr. Curran congratulated me – but I still ripped open the envelope as if tearing off a plaster, praying that the points-calculating would be closer to counting prize money than scraping together loose change.
My Leaving Cert saga had a happy ending, but it wasn’t the same for everyone. Many dreams of studying Medicine will have to wait for another year, or else pursued by another route. Because my hoped-for course is English and French at TCD, I never really thought about the stress and worry of choosing courses where not even the perfect 600 can guarantee entry.
But then I saw scores like lottery winnings that still weren’t enough. Maybe I’m ignorant of the difficulty it entails, but I really believe that introducing a combination of points and aptitude testing is the way to go for these courses.
I didn’t hear any complaints about Honours Maths, but there were a lot of worried faces in June – so Minister Hanafin’s announcement about reform is a relief.
There were pleasant surprises, too: my friend scored an unexpected A in English, and is well able to uncross his fingers about Nursing in UCD.
While many talk about the wanton savagery of Leaving Cert celebrations, I wonder if what you see tallies with the students’ own feelings. No matter what you get, another five days have to pass before you know it’s enough.
Accommodation is a headache right now (that and finding a debs partner). Prospective TCD and UCD students can’t apply for on-campus rooms until the offers come out, and the scramble for digs has already begun. My advice to future students is to start hunting early (and that goes for the debs as well)!
But the main thing that’s on my mind is the question Radiohead ask on ‘The Bends’: “Where do we go from here?” For many, it’s college. Others are taking a year out to get their heads together or earn money. A number of students in my year have already started apprenticeships.
Wherever we’re going, all 52,000 of us have hopes and expectations for the future. Some of them are so far down the line that we can’t really act on them – but the feeling that’s nagging at most of us is that we should be acting on them.
I suppose the best advice is to relax. Two months after the biggest exam we’ll ever do, a little rest is vital. You might learn something important – whether a dream course or career holds up under closer inspection, or whether this is the right year for it.
At this age, the road ahead seems long – and there’s nothing wrong with a pit-stop along the way.
I’ll finish up with a word of thanks to the people who’ve gotten me this far: the correctors; my subject teachers Mr. Jim Ahern, Ms. Olivia Maher, Mr. Niall Sheehan, Mr. Ger Morrissey, Mr. John Mahon, Ms. Ann Walsh and Mr. Michael Stack; career guidance counsellor Ms. Lucy Ryan; principal Mr. Dermot Curran; all my friends at the CBS Kilkenny; and my sister and my parents, who’ve always managed to save my sanity.