EXAM DIARY:WE WAITED and waited. And finally, the day arrived. I wasn't exactly hovering outside school for the weeks between finishing the Leaving and yesterday, but it pervaded my vacant thoughts and, I imagine, the thoughts of most sixth-year students across Ireland. The restless night beforehand, the shaking hands, the nervous laughter, the clandestine tears – they all manifested themselves on that build-up to results day 2011.
I was nowhere near my school when the envelopes were torn open, when my friends screamed in elation or made vain attempts to hide their disappointment. I was somewhere in the middle of Scotland, wondering why on Earth I had elected to be there on the most important day in my young life.
Okay, so that sounds a little exaggerated. But the sad fact is that the Leaving is important, that this embarrassment of an education system allows our futures to be defined by two weeks of fact regurgitation in June. So it was important, and I had every right to be an emotional wreck, thank you very much.
As 9.45am approached, I was becoming more and more uneasy, envisaging the very worst, doubting any kind of success.
As each minute passed, my plight seemed to exaggerate itself in my mind. I needed to get over myself. But the hype was just too much. It got the better of me. I was a mess and it was not until I had shakily read over my results for what felt like the thousandth time that finally it became real. The letters and numbers started to take a shape, mapping out my future, defining my academic standing, declaring whether or not it had all been worth it.
It had. I got what I needed, I got what I wanted – a place in law at Oxford. I was delighted and shocked; the weeks of nerves had allowed the worst possible expectations, so when in the face of expected failure I saw success there was a long period of disbelief followed, quite understandably, by some jumping and giggling.
I spent the next few hours being thankful for technology. Texts of congratulations were sent. Calls of enquiry made. E-mails were happily received. Scotland would not get in the way of this moment. My happiness was multiplied by the news from friends having done well. The beginning of each new text and call forced me to relive some of the experiences of the morning, only now it was not about me anymore, it was about my best friends doing incredibly well and hopefully securing the courses they deserved. It was about all of us experiencing the horrors of the Leaving and coming out the other side of it smiling, looking forward to the years to come, laughing in the face of the Department of Education and the sleepless night they had given us.
Before all this madness I had been enjoying my newfound freedom. And it’s a different kind of freedom than before – because it’s not just summer holidays, it’s forever. If tomorrow I decide I want to live my life in the back end of Bulgaria making jam, then I could do that. It’s unlikely, but it’s nice to keep your options open.
Each time I passed my school over the summer I found myself grinning a little, content that my destination was elsewhere. Those concrete buildings that I saw as taking up six years of my teenage life are now disconnected from me. Their looming presence does not evoke the same fears of monotony and repetition that they used to.
Finally, those buildings belong to my past. And that’s not a slight against my school; if it was not for the work I – and my wonderful teachers – did there I would not have any of the opportunities I have now. But six years is a long time. And now it’s over. Well, technically it was already over, but there’s a symbolic finality in the whole results thing.
I imagine you can tell a lot about a person from how they react to results. Some people start to go a little loopy. Others become unnervingly quiet with newfound inclinations towards dark corners.
There are a lucky few who deal with these things with grace and elegance. I am not one of those. I fidget. I scowl.
But post-results I feel like a different person. I know what is happening next year. Things are more certain and with that comes a great sense of relief.
But certainty is not the only gift results day has given me. Now that I know what I’m doing next year I can get excited about it. I suppose you might call it the thrill of the known.
Carin Hunt is a former student at Wesley College, Dublin