Three attempts at the Leaving Cert didn't make the results any easier. Yesterday, with my laptop resting on shaking knees, I found out if I finally got into medicine . . .
RESULTS DAY seemed to have followed the exams with indecent haste this year. I had decided to get my results online, and so had to wait until midday yesterday.
First, a brief confession: I took a sleeping pill on Tuesday night to avoid a night of anxious insomnia, but unfortunately, it wasn't strong enough to soothe my fraying nerves.
I was still awake with the dawn chorus and tried to maintain some inner calm. Endless episodes of Law Order: SVU kept my mind sufficiently on graver matters. As the clock nudged past noon, my mum actually had to remind me to check the results.
With my laptop propped on my shaking knees, I brought up the webpage.
The moment the page appeared, I slapped a hand over the right-hand-side of the screen so that I could expose each subject grade independently.
Irish was top of the list. An A2, not unexpected, identical to last year.
English, A1. Ditto. My heart was beating so fast it threatened to leap right out of my chest.
Geography, B1 - what?! The first anomaly in my expectations. I had been so certain of an A1 in that subject that this B1 seemed to leer at me in an almost offensive fashion.
I chose not to dwell too extensively on it, but moved on down the list.
Classical studies was next. Upon reading the subject title, my pounding heart constricted. Classical studies was my last exam, and the one I had felt most disappointed about. I thought I'd be lucky to scrape an A2.
I prised my fingers from the screen. A1. I must have gazed at those two little figures for 30 seconds.
For a ridiculous moment, I even wondered if they had mixed up my geography and classics grades, before shaking the idea from my head. You know the system better than that, Laura.
The top grade in classical studies seemed to make up for my baffling result in geography, so I moved on.
French, A1. No great surprise, but pleasing nonetheless.
Finally, art, which has always been a tough subject to guesstimate. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. I detach my sweaty palm from the screen. A2.
I exhale deeply, and only then do I realise that I had been holding my breath.
So I sit back and loosen up. I bring up the calculator on my laptop, remembering that points are the name of the game.
Knowing the correlation between grades and points off by heart, I calculate the damage: 565. I'm certainly happy with that.
In the words of Othello's Iago, "I know my price; I am worth no worse a place."
Immediately, I know that it's enough for dentistry in Trinity, and was enough for medicine in Royal College of Surgeons last year, but I don't hold my breath for that. Open wide Dublin! I'm a dentist in the making!
I am happy but I will still appeal some grades. Last year, I launched a vehement appeal against my French result, securing the A1 I thought had slipped away.
Today, my geography grade is really stinging me, and I'm experiencing that same sense of injustice.
I'll certainly view the corrected script to see where I fell down and possibly appeal.
And now, with the points in the bag, we begin the waiting game again.
The first round of offers is doled out on Monday morning, but the Leaving Certificate ordeal is far from over. There are the second rounds to come and all that messy business of viewing and appealing scripts.
This period can be complicated and confusing for many, and once we're all finally settled, the appeal results will come along in mid-October with the potential for muddle in arrangements.
So, when the hype dies down in a week or two, remember the many Leaving Cert students who will still be awaiting their fate.
I may still make the cut for medicine with 565, but as of now I intend to accept my offer of dentistry in Trinity when it arrives on Monday.
I have spent too long evading the allure of college life, and I plan to finally succumb.
Three Leaving Certs and a total of well over 1,500 CAO points is sufficient punishment.
With this year's results I feel satisfied putting the Leaving Certificate behind me for good.
• Laura Brady wrote the Irish Times Exam Diaryin June. She was a repeat Leaving Cert student at the Institute of Education, Dublin. She will be writing about college life for Education Today in The Irish Timesthis autumn.