Daydreaming And Forgetting Yourself

It's crazy to believe that it's the month of August already. The summer has passed by with incredible speed, leaving me feeling overwhelmed in its wake. 2015 is steaming by, which consistently shocks me as I mark off another day on the calendar. I believe that I have spent the majority of the summer so far simply waiting for warm, balmy weather to arrive. Which it hasn't achieved so far.

The summer has been, to quote John Montague, a ''drama of unevent.'' In previous years, this would have irritated me yet now, it thrills me. To have the ability to simply rest and read a couple of chapters of my favourite book in the evenings, without the feeling of worry or dread due to pending study is wonderfully peaceful. I am happily content to spend my time going for walks, reading and daydreaming about everything or anything.

Walking in the evenings, with weak sunshine shining on my face, I smile and reflect on the days of summer so far. The weather has been far from perfect. immediately after the exams there was a warm spell which left as abruptly as it arrived. It was a shame in all honesty, I'm looking a little pale as of late.

The Leaving Cert results day is Wednesday August 12th. I turned my calendar onto the month of August, shuddering as I saw my own handwriting with ''Results Day'' written down for a day that has been awaited with baited breath since June 18th. I promise that I'm trying to avoid discussing or thinking about that day, when I receive an extremely important piece of paper. However dwelling on the possibilities of what the future holds isn't an easy activity to avoid. For the time being, I shall just take a deep breath and try prevent the waves of anxiety and fear from sweeping over me as days stretch into new days.

I think I know why they're called ''waves of anxiety.'' Going to bed after scratching another day off on my calendar, leaves me open to wave after wave of fear and nerves hitting my system. Extending from my lungs to my mind, these waves seem to both metaphorically and physically cause unease and fear. Choked breaths and shaking hands seem to fill the room as I search desperately for a book or music to send the waves away. For a little while at least. The closer the day gets, the more frustrated and desperate the distractions become.

For once, one of my frequent distractions isn't blogging. My current distractions are music, reading, Netflix, writing in one of my many notebooks, playing meaningless apps on my phone and walking.
As I shake like a leaf in Autumn, I realise how vital is it for me to keep myself distracted.

There are some days when forgetting ourselves, if only for a little while, is utterly necessary. To be free, breathe fresh air in your lungs. To forget all of those seemingly unsolvable or anxiety fuelled problems, even if it's for an hour or two.

 As the last few days waiting for Results approaches, I can feel my heart rate accelerate and my breathing become ragged and tense. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. In the words of the poet Sylvia Plath, 

''Let be, let be''  

I will be brave and try keep my nerve. I was told something interesting a few weeks ago. To cut a long story short, we must always keep our nerve, as there is always something out there in the future that will make us nervous and terrified, particularly with regards to the next step and direction that our lives take. We must not lose our nerve for surely something just as nervewracking will surely follow suit. 

Aveen 

Struggles And Reality Of Being A Leaving Cert Student.

I thought it was about time to finally post after a fortnight interval.

I feel I should be honest and explain my inactivity on my blog as of late. With the stresses of being a Leaving Cert student, I've found it quite difficult to scrape together some time to sit down and tap away on my laptop like I usually do every week. There seems to be so many other ideas and problems that consume any spare time I do happen to possess and I honestly despise that.

The week before Midterm was quite simply a nightmare. Multiple tests in all my subjects, short deadlines for essays and tonnes of material to be revised, I found it difficult to breathe without feeling anxiety consume my lungs, let alone justify several hours to type on my laptop about things that I felt were so completely insignificant and false in comparison to all the work and study I was doing.

Thankfully all that is behind me. I doubted myself far too much and believed I hadn't done any work since coming back to school. In fact, it was my need and desire to have everything practically word-perfect from my notes that caused me so much stress. I had 10 sets of sraithpictiúr to learn and if they weren't word perfect, well I recited them for hours until they were.

It's officially midterm and so far, I've completed three out of the five essays I was given as part of my week's work. I feel relieved but I won't fully relax until everything is finished. I want to have a few days, an utter luxury, to relax and do NOTHING. I crave mornings where I wake up, with no anxiety or nerves in my stomach, worried about study and work still left to do. I just want a few days just to have fun and live, on my terms.

I'm planning on finishing the rest of my written school work tomorrow and relaxing for the rest of the week. I've had several drafts of incomplete blog posts knocking around my blog for several weeks, either due to a lack of time to add 'polish' to them or I was simply terrified about posting them as they involved real-life incident and my feelings. How terrifying indeed.

I'm also a little annoyed. I had five tests in the space of three short days and studied for all of them. The fourth test, first thing on a Friday was maths. I've double maths on a Friday morning. Maths is quite simply my Achille's heel in comparison to my other subjects.  As a result, I've a huge fear of having maths tests. I mean, a huge fear. As in my other subjects I can learn off the material and regurgitate it in words on paper, I find them much, much easier. Maths, however is a whole different ball game.

However I've made a special effort to not miss any maths tests (or any tests) in either Fifth or Sixth Year. My belief is that you can't skip a day or pretend your sick on the day of your Leaving Cert so why bother do it in school time, instead of learning from your mistakes and owning up to the fact that you aren't comfortable with the topic of the test and should try harder at learning it? I never get A's in maths but I try my best (If you're wondering, I am in Higher Level) and always try scrape an honour in the tests. But it bugs me when people skip the tests out of laziness, yet appear in school later in the day, once the test is over. I honestly find that so cowardly. That sounds horribly blunt but if you want to be in the Higher Level classes you have to do the work, not just sit there and look pretty and brag about being in Honours. School is for doing work and working hard, not to make excuses.

I know that statement will most likely get a negative reaction and probably a few glares and upturned noses when I'm back in school, however, I feel it's the truth. It's better to accept your weaknesses early in play, rather when it's after the mocks and there's little time to rectify your mistakes. I'm not comfortable on certain topics of maths (Trig, ew) so I've brought home my exam papers and book in an effort to try improve  those questions, as well as a general brush up on all the topics.

That goes for all my subjects, not just maths. I read over my notes in various subjects frequently, particularly business and ag science. Soon the information becomes common knowledge to you, not just something crammed into your brain to last for a revision test your teacher sets you.

Being in Leaving Cert isn't great. In all honesty, it's quite awful at times. However, I'm only stuck here doing all this work and study until June. After that, the world is our oyster. We can do whatever we want. You can travel the world, go to college, whatever your heart desires. I find that thought comforting in the midst of writing an essay on the weakness of human judgement as seen in Shakespeare's play Othello. (Ps. I reckon it's how gullible and easily led Othello is that leads him to follow and become ensnared in Iago's Machiavellian scheming and to his ultimate downfall in killing Desdemona, based on his over-reliance on 'honest and just Iago.')

Don't worry, I will be posting frequently this week and will most likely be a lot more positive than this. I found that once I talk about what's playing on my mind, blogging in a light hearted becomes far easier to do.

Stay Strong, Happy & Fearless!

Aveen xx

Ps, I'm going to Penneys/Primark during the week so I will be posting a haul. 

The return of Sprinkles that can be Awkward may be imminent. Watch this space. 

Tick, tock, goes the clock.