There are 48 hours until the most significant exam of my life thus far begins in earnest.

The Leaving Cert is suspended over me like a dark grey cloud, bringing spells of fear, anxiety and tension. I only wish the cloud were some place else - the Far East perhaps? Since I am deprived of the opening stages of the World Cup, why shouldn't everyone else be deprived also!

The Leaving Cert is the culmination of six stretched-out years of secondary school. In essence, the Leaving will determine my last two years in school as a success or a failure. Whatever the verdict, I have experienced a remarkable rollercoaster of highs and lows.

Sitting the Leaving Cert will be a totally foreign experience for me, like the Land of the Rising Sun for the slightly more fortunate. The Junior Cert offered a parallel in terms of the formalities and rituals of the State examination and I coped, but the pressure of the Leaving and the whole notion of the points system is in another league.

My parent's hopes have plummeted downward throughout the year, mainly due to my erratic study pattern and some "mediocre" school reports. As the poet John Dryden said, "By education most have been misled." I seem to have ended up completely off-course!

My ambition is to become a sports journalist and I hope to study arts in UCD. Unfortunately, it's odds-on that I'll come up short of points. However, any college place I may obtain will probably be deferred until the autumn of 2003. I would like to take the year out to work and earn some much-needed cash. My parents feel this would be a good way to discover the "real world". Compared to "my world" (Dublin city centre, Saturday night, approx. 3.30 a.m.) this "real world" will be quite a shock.

To those who have steadfastly known exactly who or what they wish to be since day one, I say one thing - you are a dying breed. We modern-day teenagers spend more time analysing and pursuing the opposite sex than studying any textbook or third-level prospectus. Most of us prefer the craic to the library, the classroom or the seminar.

So I have decided that my conscience is clear - and that's the most important thing. Just ask Roy Keane.

Patrick O'Brien is a student at Stratford College, Rathgar, Dublin