In the last two weeks the girls in my year have divided themselves into two groups: there are those who trudge around the corridors moaning “I’m tooooo siiiiiiiick to be in school” and shivering, and there are those wandering the corridors looking paranoid and clutching tissues and garlic (nobody has the heart to tell them garlic only fights vampires and cholesterol, not colds, but sure maybe it has a placebo effect) scared of catching something. I’m in the second group, if there’s a cold going round I’m bound to catch it so I’ve been very wary, knocking back vitamin drinks like Jaegerbombs in the hopes to stay healthy.
It seems to have worked and I’m still part of the 27% in attendance in senior cycle. (yep,it appears only 27% of senior cycle students are attending class in my school, though I’m sure Transition Year makes up a good deal of absentees) I’m so happy about this as in third year I was quite sick for a week or two and it was so painful trying to catch up on work, and that was just the JC! Also, who wants to be sick over Christmas? There’s only a few days to go until the big day and there’s such a great buzz in the school at the moment.
Operation Put Santa Hat on Skeleton was a resounding success, and the festive little model was joined by fairy lights along the teacher’s bench and a tiny Christmas tree. The physics lab also has a fiber optic light-up tree and a small plastic Christmas tree with red LEDs, I love festive decorations! At this stage the whole school has decorations everywhere and everyone is in a festive mood, especially since Christmas fm was put on in the radio in the 6th year common room. In fact, half the year was late for class because Last Christmas came on the radio and everyone stayed behind to sing along.
On Wednesday evening we had our annual Carol Concert with the school and staff choirs. I’ve been in the school choir every year since first year, except for transition year, and the early morning rehearsals when it’s still dark outside really get me in a Christmassy mood. It was a lovely concert, and one of the few things I’m going to really miss about my school. Sure there will be other choirs in college, TCD and UCD both have wonderful choirs so I’ve heard, but it won’t be the same at all.
You bright sparks out there will notice the top of this page says “Leaving Cert” and I haven’t said much about the Leaving Cert in this post at all. Well truth be told for the last two weeks I haven’t been able to do anything at all. I always find something else to do (usually Christmas Shopping and wrapping). I think maybe I was a bit too focused on the Leaving Cert for a while, and now my mind can’t take it any more and is demanding a rest. I’m not terribly worried (yet) as I know I’ll make myself work over Christmas, but it’s so frustrating finding it so hard to get around to doing stuff when I found it so easy before.
I thought that maybe the Open Days I went to (TCD and UCD so far) would get me working again, and although they both made me realise how competitive medicine is and how hard it will be to get into it, it hasn’t made me work all that much more. Ok, hasn’t made me work at all. I’ll so a separate post about the open days soon, it probably will turn into a bit of a rant about the TCD which was the most shambolic of shambles.
Hopefully by the next time I post I’ll be able to say something positive about how I’m working!
I have observed similar groups in my school…I have now (thank god) shifted from the shivering sick group to the paranoid healthy one. The matter is made worse by the fact that my school is perpetually FREEZING!
I dunno about this year but I went to Trinity’s open day last year and it was a bit of a mess…
I got the leaving cert jitters at the start of the year and it took time to settle down and realise that there is only so much I can do to get pharmacy in UCC. Now it seems that everybody else is starting to get panicky at the moment with the whole CAO dilemma and the pres around the corner.
In biology the other day I asked a girl in my class what you want to do with your life and she almost had a panic attack!
MMMMMMM………..Jagerbombs!
I can totally relate re: open days. Was talking to a few med students in NUIG and TCD and a lot of them said that going to open days when they were in 6th year got them really motivated. But as for me, zilch. Still pottering around doing a bit here and there and hoping it all falls into place.
Yeah. That’ll happen.