DIARY:I was told I might slip up because I did not always conform, because I was simply too ambitious with my pen. Result? English A1
THE BIG news was waiting in crisp white envelope. As I opened it, the sensations thrust forward – anxiety, worry, relief, exasperation.
And genuine fear, which struck at precisely 9.32am yesterday. But I got it. Four hundred and ninety five points.
495!
Me!
Wow!
I was surprised and delighted because I took the road less travelled.
I was told I might slip up because I did not always conform, because I thought quicker than I wrote and because I was simply too ambitious with my pen!
English. A1.
There it sat looking up at me and I shoved the page straight back into that envelope thinking, “That’s it, that’s all I wanted, I’m happy if I failed the rest!”
Luckily, I didn’t. This was the subject I loved. The subject, I’ll admit, I did not always study for – rarely actually (sorry Mom and Dad!) – but always loved.
People could tell me some of my other subjects were all over the place, that I was confusing past and future tense Gaeilge, but I never let them tell me I was messing up English.
Almost everything I put down on that paper was my own, no phrases, no fluff and no feathers. Funny that it was the only A1 I got isn’t it?
In second place came art with a warmly welcomed A2, this being one of the only other exams that allows you to express creativity and your actual self. Anyone else seeing a pattern here?
Business leaped from a disastrous E in the mocks to a B1 in the exam that mattered. Sweeping Bs in Irish and geography were, I’ll confess, a bit of a shock to me as those two were my “certain As”.
A C1 in French – sure I’m able to translate the back of every Lancome product, watch French movies comfortably and converse with fellow Leaving Certs in the language at 3am outside a chipper in Cork city after a night out.
This Leaving Cert as a whole did not knock me. I’m going to college to do what I love. Arts is looked down on as the easy way out, but it’s what I want to do.
In June, I had left the exam hall despondent and down. Two months later, I am exhilarated, thrilled.
Now, my bespoke college combination of English, French, politics and philosophy for UCC may be subject to change. The past year has taught me that it’s not possible to anticipate or predict exactly how life will pan out.
Come what may; I’m still me, I’m still here, I still have my guitar and my dreams of big screen premiering.
Leaving Cert, you say goodbye; life, I say hello.
Leaving Cert diarist Jessica Leen is a former student of Christ King school in Cork. Her next diary entry will appear in Monday's Optionssupplement on the CAO first-round offers