Aug 13 2008
My Leaving Cert Results
Well, the Leaving Cert results are out today. Well done and commiserations to anyone it matters to.
My results day was a bitter-sweet affair, as I’m sure it was for a lot of people. Since the day the exams finished, I had been on a high. I don’t think I gave my results a single thought until the morning of the results. I had a brilliant Summer – one that has only been rivaled this year. I met so many wonderful and strange people. I had money and went out a lot. I had a girlfriend with loose morals. Life was good. I had no reason to ponder my future – the present was good enough for me.
So, I walked up to the school (I think a group of us went up together – it’s a bit blurry). I collected my results and left (alone). I opened them as I walked towards the front gate of the school. I reached the basketball courts, the halfway point, and collapsed in a heap on the ground. My chest hurt, my vision tunneled and I bawled my eyes out. I saw my future and it was short. I had royally fucked up. Me, a good student, an intelligent student, I completely ruined my future by not studying. I cried. I cried. I cried.
I have a vague recollection of one of the bimbos in the class consoling me. At that moment in time, much as I needed consoling, she was the last person who was going to make me feel any better. I pulled myself together.
Within the hour we had congregated in my local pub. I was feeling better. No – I wasn’t feeling better, but I was hiding it better. We had a few drinks, we discussed life, the universe and anything. I remember seeing Lottie that day (we were not going out together at the time). Her group got kicked out of the bar for being too young. Ah, how we laughed. ๐
By 3 o’clockin the afternoon, I was far too drunk for anyone to be at three o’clock in the afternoon. I decided to go home (I’m not sure it was a conscious decision). Lying in bed in the early evening, I cried once again. I could see nothing ahead of me. My girlfriend at the time made efforts to comfort me, but she wasn’t particularly good at it. I think she was the only person who had more disdain for me at that point that I had myself.
I don’t remember if I went out that evening or just stayed in bed. It’s all lost to the ether at this stage. Over the following three months my life took so many twisting changes that it was hard to keep up. I ended the year 2000 with a new job, a fun college life, a new home in Dublin and, most importantly, Lottie.
I‘m happily able to look back on my life now with very few regrets and, awful as that day was, I wouldn’t erase it. The Leaving Cert is NOT everything. There is so much more to life than results and college places. I would not swap my uneducated life for anything now. Sometimes even the bad moments in our lives can have unexpectedly positive outcomes.
One chap on Ray Foleys how this morning got 35point – So no-one can complain.
My leaving cert day was also a bit of a blur. I remember being pleasantly surprised. I remember hiding my happiness as my best friend had not done as well as she hoped and she was very upset.
I do remember seeing you in The Forge and I did not get kicked out – My friends did – I just went with them because I am a god friend. (poo on you)
I remember drinking down the beach (classy), I remember there was Karaoke and I think I was so pissed and tried by mid afternoon I went home to bed.
While ofc ourse the leaving cert is important (more as a right of passage than anything else) It IS NOT THE BE ALL AND END ALL.
@Lottie – Yeah heard about the lad who got 35 points . lawlz
A girl i heard go 9 A1’s . Which is just ridiculous because afaik , the most points that you can be given to attend a course in college is 6 A1’s aka. 600points .
Is she that insecure that she wanted to keep all her options open? Dear god help that woman…
I always wonder about the people who get 8 and 9 A1s. They’re a secret robot race whose sole purpose is to ace the Leaving Cert.
In my experience Anthony – they don’t end up as very fulfilled individual’s. They may have snazzy jobs …once they eventually leave college at 34 but spending that much time with your nose in a book has a very negative impact on your interpersonal skills.
The morning of the leaving cert results, I had to travel from Drogheda to Dublin on a bus. The main thing I remember that day is feeling like I been kicked repeatedly in the stomach until half twelve when they finally let us in to get them. Fortunately, I was lucky. I got what I needed to get into the course that I’d planned for for the two years leading up to it but even then, the uncertainty remained. I had to wait for another two weeks before the colleges gave out the first round of places! That two weeks felt like a year! When the day finally came when the places were posted out, I think my mother was more anxious than I was!
For anyone going through getting leaving cert results or waiting for college places, I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s absolutely pointless dwelling on it. Things have a strange way of working out. Especially when you don’t expect them to.
BTW, to reduce the tone of my response slightly, On the way back from Dublin to Drogheda I had to stop the bus four times! Is there anyone who hasn’t drunk too much after getting leaving cert results?
@Lottie 35? Feck! How? You get points for writing your name!!!
@YerMan I went to school with a bunch of people who got well over 500 and two who got 600. I’d love to say they were unsociable geeks, but sadly they’re all well adjusted an dsuccessful now. ๐
@Darragh Nope, nobody! ๐ I think I was very lucky in a way that the results didn’t cross my mind the whole Summer. I never felt any pressure until the day I got the results. After that, I think it was just a wonderful relief to have everything relating to school behind me.
@ Darren – Forgive me if im wrong but i dont think that rule still applies anymore ( writing your name to get points )
@YerMan I sincerely hope it doesn’t. I was only half-joking. Don’t you write a student number on the paper anyway, not a name? Maybe that’s where the 35 points guy wet wrong. ๐
My results have kinda ruined the last year for my family via indirect ways.
I’ve been fine though ๐
Cracking post Daz, good work. Oddly enoug I don’t recall our paths crossing on results day. Didn’t even realise how disappointed you were with yours. I was in a very similar position to you (bright person + fuck all work = shite results) but I just felt numb at the time, the full horror of how badly I’d fucked up didn’t hit home for a while.
I was happy with my results when they came out, I couldn’t believe I’d passed, I know everyone says they studied, but I genuinely didn’t do a TAP of study and I know if I did I’d have done better, but I didn’t and have never dwelled on it, I got out what I put in, so not point in dwelling on it or crying over spilt milk.
I got a place in Dundalk on a computer or business course or something (see how interested I was in it, I can’t even remember what course I done), when I was travelling up & down on the bus I went in SOME days, but used to go to the Muirhevna after lunch for the rest of the afternoon, but when I moved up I NEVER went in, I’d get up around 11 or 12, head to the Muirhevna for most of the day, sometimes I’d go up to the college but that was only to use the computer rooms to doss on. Fridays were a complete no go as I’d weekend/summer job in Dunnes at the time I used to get the 12 or 12.30 bus home and go straight to work, I didn’t bother going back after the 1st year as I’d absolutely NO interest in college or the course I was doing, my parents still thought I’d passed college up until last year!! When I left I stayed working in Dunnes for the summer before moving to another job and I’ve been working ever since, though I’d say I’ve been working almost all my life as my parents had their own shop & b&b so I’d been working there and when I turned 16 I started going out to work.
A friend of mine stayed on in college & got her degree in comupter and has ended up in the same job as my last one, which goes to show work experience sometimes works out better in the end then a degree.
Great post Darren!
It’s funny how at the time it seems like your whole world centres on it but with time and choices, it doesn’t seem to matter at all.
I was such a lazy LC student. I was excellent at cramming so never did a bit of study during the year and just crammed it all in before the exams. Not a care in the world.
And then, once the LC was over, it gradually dawned on me that maybe I should have put a bit more effort in, you know just in case. Finally before the results came out, I was a complete nervous wreck, convinced I had failed. Fortunately, I actuallu did fine and got the points I needed but also got such a big kick up the arse for letting myself get that way.
@B’Dum You make your mother cry a lot!! I’d have been thrilled with those results.
@Andy Likewise, I don’t remember seeing much of you that day. Do you have a LC story?
@Mary It’s nice to look back on life and be glad and sure that things have worked out for the best.
@Annie Fair play. It’s really not worth all the stress and worry though, is it?
I was not really that impressed with my results either. Came across them the other day and I think I am more upset with the results now than I was back then.
But I got a course I enjoyed and made friends I could never forget and am in a position of worth in my job.
I do know a few people that did 8-9 subjects, I know 1 girl who started doing Japanese, just for the fun of it.
Darren: I had no opinion on them then, still don’t… but her response was terrible.
The day of my Leaving Cert results i remember seeing you walking down the town as i was on my up to your house to grieve,pretty sure we went to The Forge and then to Phil’s with Harnett.After that it all becomes a bit of blur that revisits me in my dreams,much like an acid flashback.I could be woefully mistaken but didn’t you have an acting audition at Trinity around that time?Or have i mistaken a particularly vivid dream for reality,it’s happened before unfortunately.
im awaiting results for this summer shit shit shit