Leaving Cert student with two-hour school commute is ‘looking forward to chilling’ after exams

Is it harder to study when it’s sunny outside? Not really, as I took a day off here and there over the past few weeks: you can’t study all the time. On my days off, I went to the park or had a cycle around my neighbourhood of Balbriggan in north Co Dublin.

That’s quite a distance from my school in Crumlin. I get up at 6am and it can take two buses over an hour and a half, or even two hours, each way. But, I started my Irish school journey there before we moved to Balbriggan and I didn’t want to have to start again somewhere else.

Clogher Road is also where my friends are and it’s a really good school, with engaging teachers that have helped in difficult times.

The school provided me with access to JumpAGrade, an online teaching platform, to help me catch up after I joined the school quite late into fifth year.

Holly Cairns on her Leaving Cert: ‘I wasn’t an academic student’

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Joe Duffy on his Leaving Cert: ‘Nobody mentioned third level. It was never discussed’

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Donie O’Sullivan on the Leaving Cert: ‘The Irish oral fell on my birthday. I hoped the examiner would go easy on me. She didn’t’

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Gordon D’Arcy on the Leaving Cert: ‘Let’s say I outperformed expectations’

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On the bus, I sometimes take a nap or listen to a podcast; I don’t try to study as the bus moves a lot and is full of people. This time has been intense and I’ve put a lot of work in – I hope it pays off.

English paper one was the first exam and I took the ordinary level paper. I’d describe the exam as somewhere between fair and easy and the theme was “life lessons”.

I wrote about lessons for the future and I wrote a short story on kindness. My story was pure fiction but it was about someone in my class – one of the “naughty” boys who surprised everyone with his kindness and I enjoyed writing it.

Next up is maths and I am hoping it is as fair as today’s exam.

I’m hoping to get into a post-Leaving Cert engineering course, from which I’d like to get into a higher education engineering course. I want to do well, I want to have opportunities.

[ Leaving Cert parent’s diary: ‘The pharmacy is packed with us asking for vitamins to boost energy and pillow sprays to induce calm’ ]

When these exams are over, I’m going to visit family and friends in Oslo, Norway, and I’m really looking forward to chilling and catching a breath. Oslo is familiar, it is home, but it has been a long time: I was last there in 2016.

Right now, I’m off for my third driving lesson – a car would have been very handy for the commute to school.