Exam Side Effects

location: The Irish Education System

“That'll be 5.60, sir,” the sales assistant informed me. I took out my wallet to pay and produced a five euro note.

“Just 60 cent more sir”. “Oh yes, of course.” I hurriedly tried to calculate how many twenty cents I'd need. Why was this proving so difficult? Once I had worked out such maths trickery I breathed a sigh of relief and headed towards the entrance to the gardens. “Em, sir? I think you'll need your ticket..” “Ah, right, yes” I replied meekly on my way to collect it. I was tempted to explain that I’d only just finished my leaving cert, that I wasn't normally so dismal at counting twenty cents. But then I remembered that this is Ireland and they'd be soon deep in a conversation with me about what subjects I did, where I went to school etc. So I didn't.

Miscounting 60 cents is only one of the side effects of the Leaving Cert. For its duration, my bottle of toothpaste was continuously drenched in water each morning due to my mistaking it for a toothbrush, my Weetabix was almost covered in ketchup because I thought it was honey, and it was a while before I could be trusted to cross the street without the safety of a traffic light.

In case I have a more Global readership which includes more than a few Wicklow farmers just in from planting the spuds, the leaving cert is the final state exam of Irish secondary schools. You do six subjects, each with one or two exams and a practical assignment, and the results of all these are combined into a points system. Because of this system, it could also be considered as the entrance exam for university, so while you are swamped with homework and past papers you must also pick what course you’d like to do as well as keeping up with the millions of deadlines for the CAO, who allocate these courses.

However, the most stressful part lies in those confirmations, family birthday parties and gatherings. Now don’t get me wrong, the promise of cake and a well-earned break is eagerly anticipated, but there is a snag. As a nation, we love to ask and complain about the Leaving Cert system to people undertaking these grave exams. This means that these social gatherings are more fear-inducing than talking to your teachers themselves, for uncles, grandmothers, second cousins twice-removed all love to give advice on what course you should do, remind the student how many points their own children got and recite horror stories of the other children that had to repeat the year (believe me, I’d rather have my toenails plucked). There’s a lot more that I could rant about while we are on this topic, but I’m not Bill Bryson and should really get back to the story I started at the beginning.

My main problem with this workload was that I did not have time to get out anywhere. I greatly dislike having to stay cooped up indoors for too long and studying does not really lend itself to walking in the mountains. So I accepted my fate and made do with some walks around the parks in Dublin city centre. Now, however, I was free to go where I liked.

Following the first morning of my freedom, which was spent in a general state of panic about packing and not quite comprehending that I had no more studying to do, I had been sent by the resident psychiatrist of the family, my mother, to Mount Usher Gardens to relax. Relaxing is not exactly something I’m good at but I thought I’d give it a go. I was surrounded by lush greens, pinks, and purples, flowers and dappled sunlight. This was surely a photographers heaven.

Coming across a pond with a chair beside it, I tried to take a photograph of it. For what seemed like an age I fiddled with the settings but eventually admitted defeat, it just felt too complicated. I had recently discovered the simplicity of phone cameras and it was clearly having a detrimental effect on my camera ability. However, after numerous failed attempts at photographs, it began to dawn on me that, rather than an over-reliance on my phone, I was simply too tired to work out these settings, just like the whole 60 cent fiasco. What I needed was a nice walk, not a self-assigned photo challenge.

So I stuffed the camera in my bag and tried to forget it existed. It was only now that I could really take a look at my surroundings. I walked around me in a child-like trance, drinking in the colours, stopping occasionally to inspect various flowers. Dragonflies zipped through the air and birds sang in the trees. I had not walked in such a relaxed fashion in a long time. I was too tired to care what people thought of my baggy trousers or hairstyle, so it was much easier to enjoy myself.

Following the river led me to a seat looking out to a view of palm and fir trees, standing sentry before the distant Dublin Mountains. The place had a prehistoric feel to it. For once, I ignored the urge I had to capture that scene with a camera and sat looking out at the view instead. A juvenile song thrush sat on a tree above me while a wren skulked in the undergrowth. It was the sort of place where I could finally take a deep breath, safe in the knowledge that I was free to do as much of this as I liked, without having to rush back home and complete a geography past paper.

Over the following months, I did, of course, recover from the side effects of state exams and now, a year later, any time life feels tough I say to myself, “Well, Jonathan, at least you're not doing the Leaving Cert”.