EXAM BLOGGER:College: Salerno, Galway I wanna be a . . . Journalist
THAT MATHS Paper 2 was no joke, was it? Except the one about the negative equity. That was priceless.
We certainly weren't laughing when it was revealed on irishtimes.comthe Irish paper was being scrapped because of an administrative error. Are people taking this seriously? The sub paper turned out to be fine so perhaps we dodged a bullet after all.
The report is the last thing I remember about Sunday. I sat down to watch the build-up to the Ireland game against Croatia and woke up to Aprés Match. Seems like it might have been for the best. One fewer cloud in my coffee on Monday morning.
Actually, there hasn’t been a great deal of Euro fever in our house. My sister and I are both taking State exams. My parents are treating us like pregnant women or men with the flu. It’s all “whatever you want, love” and petrified silence.
Nonetheless, I knew I wouldn’t study at home this weekend so myself and my friends snuck into the NUI Galway library and squatted there from dawn until dusk. No telly, no music, no Facebook. That has to be the worst part of this whole business – rationing my music intake.
Although I have discovered The Beatles are great to study by. The tunes are just so tight and well-crafted they make you want to be a better person.
So we’re bombing through now. All the freakouts have died away. I cannot get over how quickly people are back on FB and Twitter after each exam. Within minutes of the end of English Paper 2 someone had written a Sylvia Plath obituary in the style of the Our Father and stuck it up online. I still have five exams to go, with the ridiculous Irish Paper 2 in store today. Even as a native Irish speaker I couldn’t possibly handle the inhumane time constraints of this exam.
After French tomorrow I need to reacquaint myself with the totality of knowledge surrounding physics and chemistry. At this stage it’s all really a countdown to Snow Patrol and Florence. Having only recently recovered from the blow of learning that the Oxegen Festival is pulling a sickie this year, I am ably making do with a cluster of smaller events around the country. Chiefly in Galway – why would you go anywhere else?
I may not have time for the Ireland-Spain match, what with gravity and radioactivity and all that. I suppose the lads have one thing to be smug about – the Spaniards are just beginning their bailout, we’ve much of the pain behind us. One way or the other I have a feeling our Spanish Inquisition on Thursday may be even harder than my physics exam. At least I’m young enough to repeat at the next fixture.
MY LEAVING CERT AND EXAM PLAYLIST
Best moment of the Leaving so far:
Opening up English Paper 2. I was right not to trust Sylvia.
Worst moment of the Leaving so far:
Opening up English Paper 2. I actually heard my friend's heart breaking.
Facebook status update of the week:
"Where's Plath? Are you Kavanagh laugh?"
PLAYLIST
Florence and the Machine (right)
Never Let Me Go
Mumford and Sons Blank White Page
The Beatles Eight Days a Week
Bon Iver and Lykke Li Dance Dance Dance
B.O.B. So Good
Colin Hay Waiting for My Real Life to Begin
Of Monsters and Men Little Talks