It was the end of 2009, and I had a resolution. To start a new study plan, right on the first day I came back to school. The plan was simple: to go through one chapter, for two subjects, every day, doing exercises and proving that I knew it all, and was ready for the mocks. I was ecstatic. I kept talking about it and discussing it with just about anyone who cared enough to listen. This was my sure-fire method to get A1’s, and I just wanted to use it to excel in my mocks, and in my Leaving Certificate.
The snow started to fall, however.
And before I realised, the study plan went out the window. Having lived 16 years in Portugal, snow is fairly new to me. I can look out the window, right now, and see my whole street covered in a sheet of white. I still find it magical. Walking in the snow, being out in the snow, all of that was brand new to me. And I loved the feeling it gives me. I looked like a little kid, staring at the snow the way kids do when they see something new.
Add to that the fact that I am someone who lives permanently in the “I’m going to finish all my work today, and tomorrow I’ll study” state of mind, and it’s easy to see that my study plan is not going to start any time soon. It’s a shame, I wanted to study (yes, I actually WANT to study, because I’d love to have a brilliant result to be proud of), but I’m afraid that that’s not going to happen. After I go back to school, I’ll get my mind back in the right place, and make a shorter, less exhaustive study plan, just to revise before the mocks, and then I’ll proceed with my complete study plan for the Leaving Certificate. Fingers crossed!
What about you, have any of you seen your study plans go out the window (or at least, change) due to unexpected this snow wave?
Yes. My dreams of covering the remaining chapters of Biology course went out the window onto my snow-drenched lawn 🙁
It’s gonna be hard to get back on track, in my opinion. I am curious, though, is Biology the only subject that you still need to finish covering the course of? Because in my year, we haven’t finished covering it for ANY subject.
Oh no! We’re pretty close to finishing the Chemistry course though, and my Irish course is practically done (with the help of a summer course). Oh, and Music of course, but that’s hardly unusual! I have approximately ONE poet done in English properly, bit behind there 😉 And at this stage I doubt my Maths course will EVER be finished. Biology, I’ve got a good 5 or 6 chapters to go through.
*sigh*
Oh well. I’m still finding time to come on this.
I’m a hard worker, as you can tell.
😉
omg!:O…uv finished the irish course?…are you doing higher level?…i am and we still hav a prose,2 poems and the 8 prescribed poems 2 do!:O…we got stuck with a straight out of college teacher and to be honest i don’t think she has a clue what shes doing!..i see you did a summer course but still…im fluent in irish and because of the teacher i dont even get 2 make use of it for the mocks because our teacher isnt giving us an aural exam!…is anyone else is this messed situation?:P
Oh, I forgot German! That’s going pretty alright, just need to polish up on my grammar and letter-writing skills. And tape. Actually, I need to practise a LOT of aural. (Not oral, the perverts among us would have a field day if I said that :o)
Oh, I get what you mean now. You did a summer course for Irish? Was it that Gaeltacht thing? They kept talking about it around here, a few of them went there during the summer 😛 I don’t think any of us will be done with the course by the time we’re doing the mocks. To be honest, I sometimes just wish for them to delay it. I thought its purpose was to get us ready for the exams and for us to find out how we’d do if we did the real exam, to give us a way to see what we have to study more and what’s already in our heads. If we don’t get the course finished, it won’t be as accurate, in my opinion.
Yup, it was a Gaeltacht alright… of sorts. Except without the general fun and cheeriness that usually accompanies the happy-clappy image of a Gaeltacht. More a concentration camp type of Gaeltacht 🙂 Pretty glad I went though, my Irish results went up something shockingly after it. T’was great, even if I do still shudder recalling it 🙂
Mocks in my school are generally only used as a method of shocking the students into realising the actual implications of time limits and stuff – I don’t really plan on using my results as an indicator of how I’ll do in the LC. Still hope to do relatively well though, obviously!
Are you doing an extra subject instead of Irish? Is there a Portuguese exam actually? That’d be dead handy for you! 🙂
Strangely enough, I can’t reply directly to your comment. I think we’ve reached the limit of the whole reply to reply to reply to reply to comment on post? 😛 Oh, was it really that bad? I have never been in one, and the only thing I know about them comes from what my friends told me.
I hadn’t thought about it that way, though it makes sense. The Christmas exams did that to me. After I realised how little I had been studying until then, it made me start a study plan (which failed, as I pointed out in this blog post :P)
I am not doing an extra subject, though I will do Portuguese exams. There has to be an exam for every EU language, apparently. It is indeed going to be handy, but I am curious as to what it’ll be like, to be sitting an exam on my own 😛
[New Post] Study goes out the window. – via @twitoaster http://leaving-cert.net/study-goes-out-t…
Omg im sooo screwed 4 the mocks…i hope i will have enough time to start studying after cos ive done nothing all xmas….am i reli screwed?
i need 490 points! :O
You’re only screwed if you hire a bad prostitute 😉
Otherwise, with a bitta study for the next few weeks, you should be grand.
Cram like you’ve never crammed before!
That’s what I’m counting on anyways.
🙂
I agree with Orla, it’s cramming time 😉
Aw, I think it’d be cool to do an exam on my own… The smallest class I’m in though is German or Chemistry, and there’s a good 10ish people in those.
So unless I go on a huge murdering spree during revising ‘Chemical Equilibrium’ or while talking about meine Hobbies (auf Deutsch naturlich), I think I’m stuck in a full exam room for my LC. Oh well. Think the whole killing people might hinder my study plans slightly anyways. Y’know how it is with that kind of stuff.
😉
Yes, murdering people will hinder your study plans JUST slightly, Orla 😉 I don’t have classes with only 10ish people, I believe. My french class is overcrowded, as we had no german class when I got into fifth year.
I too composed a miraculous study plan to start last monday…..to date, I am now one week and one day behind in starting it. . . . I tend to procrastinate in anyway possible. I really need a wake up call…..maybe the mocks will succeed in giving me one?
Hopefully they will. 🙂 I know my Christmas exams did give me somewhat of a wake up call, so I’d say the mocks will give you one too. 🙂
I cannot study…. usually Im such a hard worker(and I mean that in a not over confident way) but since the week before christmas I cant bring myself to do one teeny weeny bit of study……..its depressing! 😀
That’s the same with me. Darned unproductive periods, we should exterminate them. 😛
Ah, you see I felt guilty about all those snow days in which we should have restarted work and, yes, like a nerd I am proud to say that I actually studied. It lacked timetables and coordination (which means I only studied english, biology and a little french) but by God I did!
Although I’m back in school tomorrow which means that I shall begin my scheduel once more of ushing to and from school in time to see “The Gilmore Girls.” Ah, life little joys. 😀
I’m back in school tomorrow as well, hopefully this will make us all go back to our study plans 🙂 Congrats in succeeding to do what most of us couldn’t, by the way. 😉
HermioneHair, we’re on the same page. Biology and English are just so massive that I revised it in chunks too. I’m glad I did though, they’re both such massive courses. Also to Orla, what did the Gaelteacht-cum-concentration camp cover in a few weeks that made your grades jump up so drastically? Must be actual notes of the Leaving course and not just syntax, etc.?
Good luck getting back into the swing of things Bruno, your blog is great 🙂
Oh, just saw the two comments questioning my amaaaazing Irish capabilities (Sardonic wit is a great thing, isn’t it?! :()
Nimo and MisterX,
The Gaeltacht I went to was more of an Irish revision course? A bit kind of whammy-bammy in the sense that they beat the whole Irish higher level course into you during the period of 2 weeks. Metaphorically, of course. So I arrived home after it with a big pile of notes on all the higher level poems and all the prose and an immensely improved understanding of the dreaded ‘gramadach’. Oh, and severe writer’s cramp as well. 🙁
Only problem is, that was last August, and I’m kind of struggling to remember everything I did there now. Still definitely worth it though.
And Nimo, I completely empathise with you on your teacher dilemma, I’m facing the exact same conundrum in English at the moment. Ah well, we’ll struggle on.
🙂