English One was a fantastic paper. I hate to sound lame, but I almost enjoyed it - I did a persuasive speech on the importance of literature and it was essentially a culmination of fourteen years of devouring books into a six page essay. If I don't get an A1, I'll be after the SEC's children. I love English paper I because it's almost creative - I just went in and had the bants, really, no study needed at all! Unfortunately, it quickly gave way to Home Economics, a subject I had spend hours despairing over all year. Did you know that Home Ec. has a 3% A1 rate? Well, guess what, I'm not part of that 2-3%. Such is life - I relied far too much on common knowledge, which will either cause me to do very well or fail. I really hope it's the former...
The strange thing about the first day was that it didn't feel like my Leaving Cert. English felt fun, like writing on a blog or for homework. Home Ec. didn't feel like an exam, mainly because the paper was damn stupid. Still, better than two rock hard papers to reduce me to tears, wha?
No, day two was the one for the rock-hard papers and, more crucially, the tears. English paper II. Can you imagine the feeling between being given that paper and opening it? If you can't, well it's similar to a certain scene in a certain blockbuster that's soundtracked by this:
THE HORROR!!!!!!
Of course, when my lovely examiner uttered the dreaded "you can begin", I have never moved so fast. I looked at them for 30 seconds or so, but barely took in the Hamlet and Comparative questions. No, I was after the big'un: prescribed poetry, 50 marks. Would my lovely Heaney be up? Would Sylvia, who I'd done a good seven essays on be up? Would my watching of "Out Of The Marvellous" and reading of "The Bell Jar" be worth it? In short: no. Unless you're talking about the enjoyment I got from studying two great poets, it wasn't. No Plath. No Heaney. I gasped in the middle of the exam when I saw who was there:
In case you've never spoken to me for more than ten minutes before, Adrienne Rich was my favourite aspect of LC English. She also made me a femnist, which I'll write about someday, so obviously I was delighted to see her! My only issue with Rich is that I tend to run away with myself, but after an hour and a half and six pages, I had finished up LC English on a damn good Rich essay. Didn't stop me feeling awful for the rest of the country though....
Got my comeuppance in Maths yesterday, where I possibly scraped a C3. The paper was ridiculous - I still can't figure out some of the questions! Paper two won't bring my grade up either, but hey, what can you do...I've survived this far. I have six consecutive exams next week, which won't be fun, but then I'll be (almost) free to blog to my heart's content!
See you then :)
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