I feel wrecked. My knuckles are aching on my hand, but I am so glad I got everything finished and I was able to sit back and read over things for a little while at the end. The extra 20 minutes was so important, especially on the second paper when I felt really pushed for time. In the morning we all stood around outside the gym. There were a couple of hundred of us doing exams. It really helps the way our class get on so well - we were just able to chat and try and remember our quotes and talk about what happened at the weekend. I managed to remember most of my quotes. I was sitting at one stage looking around, desperately trying to remember one I had read over the night before, but I just couldn't grasp it. There's always someone flicking their pen or rooting around. You're trying to keep really focused and get the quote back in your mind but you get distracted. think I managed to put enough in to make up for that. The first English paper was all based around the theme of Irishness. I found it quite restrictive. In the mock papers there was a lot more variety. It explored the identity of living in Ireland - it played it pretty safe, so I don't think that anyone could find it offensive. I did the question about Mary Robinson's inauguration speech and the one on writing a speech to welcome foreign students to Ireland. For my composition I wrote a short story about a straight-laced solicitor who decides to become a drag queen. Our English teacher was always telling us to write something original and to do something fresh. It helps to keep the examiners interested when they're marking the paper - hopefully. The second paper comparative study was probably the most fun to write - I really got into the theme. I did it on Cinema Paradiso and Jennifer Johnston's How Many Miles to Babylon? It was about how narrative can broaden our understanding of an issue. I was comparing the way the different texts looked at friendship. Dad picked me up after the exam. My mum and dad are great. I can't bear to be at the centre of all the attention, so it was good when I got home and Mum and my sister were talking about normal things. me a real sense of relief. The worst part of the whole process was when the examiner said: "You have 10 minutes left". There was this really loud gasp and groan that went up in the room and you could feel all the tension of this frantic scribbling and leafing through paper. I went to bed at 10 p.m. last night and just looked over maths formulas and listened to TnaG for a little while before today's papers. My mum said: "It's all over now and you've tried your best". That's how I feel about my first exams - relieved, pretty happy and exhausted. Sarah Caraher from St. Vincent's Secondary School, Dundalk, was in conversation with Janet Stafford.