”Rainbows apologise for rainy skies.”

To start off, I must apologize for not writing sooner. That sounds like the first line of every letter I wrote to my American pen-pal, before our postal correspondence fizzled out three years ago. Not the point. Following the button on the internet box button breaking, and listening to a total of seven hours (between the household) of, ”all of our agents are currently on call; please hold and your call will be answered in rotation” a new internet box arrived. A day later, a big bad virus downloaded onto the computer, which I have repeatedly insisted I had nothing to do with -  however, the family still blames me. We only got the computer part of the computer (as you can see, I don’t have the technical words ”down”) back today, ”fully functioning and 100% in good health” we were told. Let’s see how long that lasts for. Enough excuses. Now, I ask you to accept my most sincere apology for not assuming my blogging role sooner.

In the entry I submitted for a position as a blogger, I came across as a bit of a study-aholic, one of those people you see with a biology book first thing in the morning and begging the study supervisor for ”just five more minutes, please” at the end of the day. I could now deny this and try to convince you that I really am the most super-cool, laid-back person you will ever have the pleasure of meeting. But I won’t. I stand proud with a geometry set in one hand and a Fench vocabulary copy in the other. That’s a little bit about me, for now. As The Terminator, I think, said,  I will be back. I’ll write soon, I promise. Coincidentally, that is how my letters always ended.

Tags: apology, introduction

Even though I am determined to do well in the leaving, I am unbelievably apathetic about the whole studying issue, and so I’m not one of those enviable, dedicated students who spent the Christmas break studying. That being said, the time has come when even I’m admitting that it’s time to get ‘back’ to studying. It’s not a very inviting prospect. Today is the 1st of the January, the first day of a new year, a fresh start, a great time to turn over a new leaf and all that. Pffft. In an effort to motivate myself, I wandered over to examinations.ie where I found this years exam timetable. ( http://examinations.ie/exam/Written_LC_EV_2009.pdf if you want to take a look.) For me, a student who studies neither home ec, engineering of any kind or geography, I have a nice, gentle start. Good luck to those of you who do all three.

There are roughly eight weeks until the pre-exams start, but of course this differs from school to school. Eight weeks…almost two months…is that enough time to learn two years worth of work in seven subjects? Sure why not. Another great way of motivating oneself to study is by filling out the legendary CAO form. The closing date for doing so is the 1st of February, which looks a whole lot closer this side of Christmas. Filling it out is easy, just go to the site ( http://www.cao.ie ) click the ‘apply’ button and follow the given instructions. It’s foolproof. After that you can view and change your application however many times you want, for free, provided that you apply online.

Well that’s it from me today folks, have a happy 2009

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Tags: cao, christmas, leaving cert, New Years

And then there were six.

Greetings and holiday wishes, my name is Grace and I appear to be the latest addition to this merry band. I hail from Cork (most importantly) and am, of course, a fellow leaving cert-er. Every time I hear that last phrase it reminds me of an introduction one might give at an AA meeting. The comparison is somewhat close. My hopes for this year are A: stay sane. 2: get my course of preference and D: not whine too much through the whole ordeal. The last is already moot and the first is questionable, as for 2 I’m hoping for Journalism and New Media in UL which was 405 last year. A realistic goal if ever I saw one.

I just finished my Christmas exams and think they went okay…it’s hard to tell cause I’m one of those people that consider an exam well done if I have answered every question. Although this is indeed vital for success, it often leads to over confidence…hmm. The happy results will be out in January of course, which, along with the pres in February, is looking all too close. The subjects I’m doing - if anyone wants to know - are economics, business studies, biology and French. All seem totally manageable individually but slam the four together along with the usual core subjects and that’s a lot of revising. As you all know.

Enough about school, who’s looking forward to CHRISTMAS? Christmas has never been so welcome as far as I’m concerned, I’ve already watched Home Alone (a Christmas must) and gotten started on the wrapping. Things are looking goood.

Til next time, slán leat.

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Tags: christmas, exams, leaving cert

In the last two weeks the girls in my year have divided themselves into two groups: there are those who trudge around the corridors moaning “I’m tooooo siiiiiiiick to be in school” and shivering, and there are those wandering the corridors looking paranoid and clutching tissues and garlic (nobody has the heart to tell them garlic only fights vampires and cholesterol, not colds, but sure maybe it has a placebo effect) scared of catching something. I’m in the second group, if there’s a cold going round I’m bound to catch it so I’ve been very wary, knocking back vitamin drinks like Jaegerbombs in the hopes to stay healthy.

It seems to have worked and I’m still part of the 27% in attendance in senior cycle. (yep,it appears only 27% of senior cycle students are attending class in my school, though I’m sure Transition Year makes up a good deal of absentees) I’m so happy about this as in third year I was quite sick for a week or two and it was so painful trying to catch up on work, and that was just the JC! Also, who wants to be sick over Christmas? There’s only a few days to go until the big day and there’s such a great buzz in the school at the moment.

Operation Put Santa Hat on Skeleton was a resounding success, and the festive little model was joined by fairy lights along the teacher’s bench and a tiny Christmas tree. The physics lab also has a fiber optic light-up tree and a small plastic Christmas tree with red LEDs, I love festive decorations! At this stage the whole school has decorations everywhere and everyone is in a festive mood, especially since Christmas fm was put on in the radio in the 6th year common room. In fact, half the year was late for class because Last Christmas came on the radio and everyone stayed behind to sing along.

On Wednesday evening we had our annual Carol Concert with the school and staff choirs. I’ve been in the school choir every year since first year, except for transition year, and the early morning  rehearsals when it’s still dark outside really get me in a Christmassy mood. It was a lovely concert, and one of the few things I’m going to really miss about my school. Sure there will be other choirs in college, TCD and UCD both have wonderful choirs so I’ve heard, but it won’t be the same at all.

You bright sparks out there will notice the top of this page says “Leaving Cert” and I haven’t said much about the Leaving Cert in this post at all. Well truth be told for the last two weeks I haven’t been able to do anything at all. I always find something else to do (usually Christmas Shopping and wrapping). I think maybe I was a bit too focused on the Leaving Cert for a while, and now my mind can’t take it any more and is demanding a rest. I’m not terribly worried (yet) as I know I’ll make myself work over Christmas, but it’s so frustrating finding it so hard to get around to doing stuff when I found it so easy before.

I thought that maybe the Open Days I went to (TCD and UCD so far) would get me working again, and although they both made me realise how competitive medicine is and how hard it will be to get into it, it hasn’t made me work all that much more. Ok, hasn’t made me work at all. I’ll so a separate post about the open days soon, it probably will turn into a bit of a rant about the TCD which was the most shambolic of shambles.

Hopefully by the next time I post I’ll be able to say something positive about how I’m working!

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Tags: choir, christmas, focus, health, motivation, open days, TCD, UCD

I seem to complain an awful lot, there’s absolutely no denying that. So what’s “grinding my gears” this evening? Well, umm, the weather actually.
That’s right, I’ve decided to try to be as original as possible and whinge about how bloody cold and wet it is! Every morning, every single solitary morning, there’s ice everywhere and every damn afternoon there’s rain, followed by more rain. And a bitter, chilling wind. What gives? I’m absolutely freezing!
Now, I know this horrible weather isn’t exactly the Department of Education’s fault, but making me brave the elements yesterday? That was all their fault. I may have FROSTBITE (Please note the hyperbole) at this very moment, and it’s all because of their STUPID Geography syllabus.

As some of you may know, 20% of the overall mark for Geography is given for a project type- thing which you do well in advance of the Leaving Cert itself, like in mid December, for example. It’s actually quite a good thing in the long run, I guess, but right now my limbs, which are barely functioning after being exposed to horrific amounts of coldness, just won’t let me see things that way.
Yesterday was the day, the fateful day that every Geography student across the country looks forward to (apart from me), where we got to carry out our field work investigation yoke. Something to do with river deposition or something. I’m sure it’ll all come flooding back to me once my brain defrosts. (Oh please excuse the pun… Ha!)
Anyway, where was it? In the Comeragh Mountains.
In the middle of December.
Please, just imagine the coldness! Will somebody PLEASE sympathize with me? No amount of ski thermals, hoodies, coats, mittens or scarves could keep the chill of it all out.
We had to wade through the river, the freezing cold river to take measurements and stuff. That’s right, in almost Arctic conditions, stepping into a frickin’ river and throwing tennis balls around like nobody’s business.. and all in the name of Geography?
I mean, I’m all for learning and stuff, but is it really necessary to make us freeze, almost to death?
Does the Department of Education really think it’s a fun, festive idea to almost kill us all off, measuring things like the gradient of a river bank. Here, now, no 16-18 year old really gives a toss about analyzing bed load. Nor do we care about stuff like the shape of river beds or their discharge or ANYTHING to do with rivers. Seriously. Physical Geography is just not cool! I’m aware of the fact that you can do other stuff like count the amount of cars passing a certain junction or something ridiculous to that effect, but that really sucks as well to be fair.

Admittedly I had a little fun, just a little, but the whole trekking-through-mountains-when-it’s -literally-freezing thing just gave me such a fantastic opportunity to complain here on this very blog that I couldn’t pass it up. Contemptuous? Cynical? I aspire to be, friends.

My wellies are funky, but filthy. You’d think I’d wash them, but alas, no. They still have Oxegen mud on them. And last-year’s-geography-trip mud.

Check those absolute beasts of footwear out:

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Tags: cold, comeragh mountains, field work, geography, wet

It appears that my somewhat pessimistic views aren’t shared by the majority of the population. Which is a pitty, the leaving cert has won, people are thinking like the board of education wants you to think. It annoys me greatly how thousands of potentially great minds are being destroyed by this circus.

But not to dwell on the past. Allot of weeks are gone in the leaving cert, good riddens i say. The time of the year where companies attempt to market their products heavily upon us is here. And were nearly on the home run to the leaving cert. Personally i haven’t opened a book yet, my ability to study hasn’t appeared yet and frankly i don’t think i actually have one. i guess i have nothing really to add with this post, but to make people aware of how frigging lazy i am!! I also have a bot of a cold starting, and more often than not, I’m coming home, and having a good ‘ol nap.. which sort of eats into your study time. I’ll start tomorrow, i swear.

its just a pitty school takes up so much of your time, that’s all..

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Tags: cert, dislike, gone, leaving, time