I'M BACK, BACK AGAIN.. (sorry). It's been over a month since my last blog post, and I'm just so excited to be back in action! So, over the last two weeks I've been doing exams, more specifically my Junior Cert. If you're not from or living in Ireland the Junior Cert is basically an exam you do three years into secondary school, it's not that important. However I was still really nervous and scared about it, because teachers make it sound a lot worse than it actually is! My friend Joe has a YouTube video on 'The Junior Cert Rant'. It is so funny and definitely worth a watch he almost has 1k views which is amazing!!! Go over there and watch it, and subscribe because his videos are great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kx5krgMM80
Before I go into my rant about exams, I would just like to say that I'm doing a 'Let's Talk About' series. Anyone who may know me will know that I'm very opinionated and I argue a lot. I might do these every once in a while. If you want me to talk about something in this, please let me know.
My Experience With Exams:
Okay, so since the start of secondary school I've been plagued with 'you need to know this for your junior cert' 'your jc is important' from teachers. And it's really annoying and daunting, since first year they tell you that the Junior Cert is a big deal! So when I got into third year, the junior cert was pretty much awaiting me. This sounds stupid to say now looking back on it, but at the time this was a really big fear of mine, every night in third year at the beginning I would come home crying realizing how close the exams were and I was terrified that I would fail my exams, and do really badly. This was a re-occuring fear of mine. It would just never go away. I'm not going to lie, I am definitely not the smartest in school.. I struggle with a lot of things and I'm also not good at studying which doesn't help my case. So going into the mocks (a pre- exam, to give you an idea of what the actual exam is like) I didn't study as much as I thought I would, to be honest I did hardly anything. There was some subjects I did really badly on, but these are the subjects I struggled with. After the mocks I began to realize that I badly needed to pull up my socks and study. I did a little bit of study, nothing massive just a tiny bit. Definitely not enough.The week before my exams, I was an anxious mess. I have anxiety and panic attacks anyway ( Blog post on this: http://lookitsfifi.blogspot.ie/2016/02/my-struggle-with-anxiety.html ) so this was nothing new, except for the fact that they were much stronger, the simplest thing would make me fly over the edge and it wasn't pretty.
Someone I really loved died the night before my exams, and that really pushed me over the edge. That night I just had a major breakdown, I couldn't handle it. I think the fact that I was so unprepared mentally and physically for the exams just made me really scared!
I just want to say that my exams were definitely not as bad as I thought they would be. I definitely didn't get any A's or B's or anything! But they were not bad!! So here I am, living AFTER THE EXAMS. I wished for this day for a really long time. I thought my exams were the be all and end all, but they're not, I'm still here.
My Opinion On Exams:
I know that exams are important, they are! In my opinion the education system is so fucked up, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be educated because I know not many people don't get the chance. However I think having exams at such a fragile age, isn't fair. We should be figuring out what kind of people we are, figuring out what we want to do with our lives not stressing and crying over exams. It is so easy for someone to say 'don't worry just do your best', but sometimes when you try your best it still isn't good enough. Like I've said before I find school really difficult, I'm not smart education wise. However there are things I love that are not tested for example, photography in our school we don't have the chance to do this, I know that other schools in other countries do have the opportunity to do this if they wish. They also don't test emotional intelligence which is something I love. There are so many things that are not tested in school, which you could be amazing at. If you're like me and aren't booksmart that is OKAY. It is, everyone has something they are good at. Follow your dreams and do the thing that is your passion! I know that if you want to be a doctor or a nurse or a layer or anything like that you have to pass a serious amount of exams. But if that is the thing you want to spend the rest of your life doing it will be worth it!!Exam months can be really terrifying, and can definitely be anxious times. I know that this is so much easier said than done, but just do the best you can and try not to worry too much! At the end of the day they are just exams, and they don't matter that much. If you fail your exams and can't do the thing you want to do there is other ways of doing that thing! Don't loose hope, there is always other ways! It may take longer, it may take a lot of work but if it's the thing you love it will be worth it!!
I am just so happy to be back blogging again! I may also be doing another exciting thing this Summer, that I may (if I go ahead with it) be telling you guys about soon! I hope this helped you if you're going through exams or if you know someone going through exams! I wish you the best of luck getting your results!
Lots of love,
