Orlaith Miller WAS a Leaving Cert student in Scoil Chriost Rí, Portlaoise. From Vicarstown and a past pupil of St Colman’s NS in Stradbally, she hopes to study English and History in college this coming September.
The exams are done! I don’t know what to do with myself honestly, everyday of the past two years I have been working for this point and now it’s all over.
All the notes I knew like the back of my hand – or not at all – are either packed away to go elsewhere or thrown into the recycling bin (there must be entire rainforest in the blue bin at this point).
Even though the exams were just over a week ago, they are a blur now. It feels like yesterday that I was facing two weeks of exams and now they are done.
In those two weeks I faced highs and lows, I nearly forgot to go to my Ag Science exam thinking it was a day later than it was, watched Ryan Tubridy go from giving a beautiful Leaving Cert message to radio silence with €345,000 in spending money that came from everybody in the audience and learned that registering for Taylor Swift tickets is more stressful than the whole of the leaving cert.
I have to say the final exams were great. French had unexpected yet easy essays. While I did fear History, it too was grand helped along by frighteningly accurate predictions from my teacher.
Music was lovely and if nothing else I am free from the clutches of Gerald Barry’s Piano Quartet No.1. Ag Science was tricky but not impossible, however, I’m just grateful to have made it to that exam.
I handed in my uniform and my books to the school and my secondary school experience is officially over. It’s the end of an era, as my mother would say but I view this ending as more of a comma than a full stop.
The post Leaving Cert path is different to anything I’ve ever faced before and there is so much I will carry with me on this path from my leaving cert ; experiences, memories and friends. As J.R.R Tolkin put it “Home is behind, the world is ahead”.
For now I’ll enjoy my new found freedom pushing the 25th of August to the back of my mind until that part of this crazy journey arrives.
SEE ALSO – In Pictures: All smiles as Daniel and Majella O’Donnell officially open Rathdowney community gardens
