Leaving School, Exams and the Future.

The Following Takes Place Between 12:33pm (22nd June 2010)

and 4:17pm (23rd June 2010).

So, our last, official, day of being students of St. Illtyd's High School was May 14th, 2010 –
the same day (for the UK at least) that season four of Chuck was commissioned (so, one
sentence, the first, into this post before I mentioned Chuck). So, as you would expect, it
was an emotional day for everyone in the school – us Year 11's, the students below us and
even the teachers, which I find unbelievable, if I may say so myself. Tears of sorrow, of
pain, of “betrayal” - the “heads”, the role models, of the school, were leaving, “once and for
all”. Tears of joy, of apprehension, of finality – Chuck was coming back in just four, maybe
five, months.

Except that it wasn't our last day, it wasn't “once and for all”. Not for yet another full month,
at least. We'd be coming in to most days for either exams, and after being
actively/continually encouraged to come in for the revision sessions, taking place at and
consisting of what our normal lessons would, those too.
We weren't going anywhere – at the very, extreme, most, we were “stuck” in 'limbo',
between this life (school), and the next (college/work/drug-fuelled life of “benefits” - ok, ok,
I admit, that's not moving on for some of them!).

Going back to our final day for a while, as with our Y11 Prom, back at the end of January
(29th), 2010 – actually the same day that Mass Effect 2 was released = I was “forced” (in
hindsight, I knew I could (/should... … …?) have resisted much more – forcibly, even!)
along, away from my brand new, precious, ME2, and had to “mingle” with the “stinking
chavy despots”, those boys and girls that had done nothing but pester and try to bully me
for the last five years, and, for some of them, seven years before that!

The “only” difference now was that they actually wanted something from me – effort!
Physical effort!
They wanted me to sign their shirts, saying, “Goodbye”, “Good luck”, “I love you”, and “I'm
gonna miss you loads, babes”, in their cute little “notepads” that they'd brought in for the
last week or two. Even worse – they wanted me to (remember that physical effort?)
attempt to pretend to convey some sort of emotion/look on my face that even ever-so-
slightly resembled the “fact” that I was, ever, gonna miss them AND their, to name but a
few, namecalling, tennis ball-stealing/”losing”, and just the ordinary, general, belittling
attempts.

My class”mates” (that must be in the Oxford dictionary soon!) - for the last five years that
I'd know them all, all they've done is (brace yourselves) bitch about each other behind the
others' backs, before “rotating positions”, then repeating the process for their high school
“career”... Now, all of a sudden, just because everyone is “leaving”, and everyone wants
everyone else's “mark” on their school clothes/notepads (that'll probably just go in the skip
the next week along with the rest of the rubbish they've swallowed and “passed through”),
they're best friends with everyone. Even with me. Those evil little pesterers, those ones
that constantly attempted to bring me down to their level, now are being the nicest people
that they know how (apparently Kanye West at some VMA awards or something?), just so
they can add me to their... “collection” - another “notch on the bedpost”. But, watch just
how quickly they turn, they return, when you clearly, plainly, and unemotionally (well,
despite that sly smile you've been trying to contain/restrain to yourself all morning), tell
them that you will not be “illustrating” their shirts, or taking your much-valued, and better-
spent, time to write, “Goodbye”, “Good luck”, “I love you”, and “I'm gonna miss you loads,
babes”, in their cute little “notepads”. Watch... How... They... Turn!

Oh, how I'll miss them!

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Before I go into the exams themselves, I should give you some, short, insight into my past
“mock” exams and my “relationship” with my school subjects over the last two years
especially.
Firstly, at least for the GCSE level syllabus (the last two years), I've been pretty rubbish at
Science (which I also took as an option, meaning I have an extra four hours a week and an
extra, separate, exam) and Maths. Welsh (being in Wales, a core, “necessary” subject),
I've always been terrible at, but, as with Science, both for reasons beyond my
understanding and belief, I took the additional, “full” Welsh course. Subjects I enjoy(ed)
and, if I may say so myself, am/was pretty good at are/were History (well, as enjoyable as
learning about a load of foreign affairs can be), Religious Studies, and English. However,
being, if I may say so myself, pretty good at those subjects, and enjoying them in the first
place (enthusiastic), I can write quite a lot during my answers, sometimes even going off
topic a little. As such, when it came to practising my mocks, I was never able to come
close to finishing my papers. My most embarrassing “experience” was during our
Christmas (2008/2009) Year 10 English “Fiction Paper” mocks, when, in the two hours I
had, I'd only answered the first two questions (10 marks each), and only a few lines into
my third. That was less than half way through the exam, and definitely less than half the
possible marks (literally a few marks over a quarter) – when we had our grades back, I had
one of the lowest grades in the class – an F, and that was not that great, to say the least!

Even with that in mind, though there are many reasons for it, some of which include the
multitude/majority that we'd already practised in school, a want to test my actual ability,
and the fact that I wouldn't be in test conditions all my life, especially not in any
professions that I plan for myself, I didn't/haven't actually revised very much at all (pretty
much nothing at all except for a quick, five minute tops, check of some dates for my
History exams). So, as such, you might think that I was worried about passing my exams,
but perhaps not as much as I should... Yes, I would like to succeed, but revision seriously
doesn't help me as much as it seems to help others/the teachers say, and I've seen many
people, most of whom are awesome, very interesting, people do terrible in any exam or
other test they've took, and are either/both very successful now or/and happy. And that's
what I want to be – happy. I've done exams before, they don't make me happy, and they
certainly don't mean success. Personally, I don't need money, a high-paying job, or even
much respect/admiration from others to be happy. Growing up as an “outcast” - a ginger
nerd that has absolutely no interest in messing around in class or sports – I've been pretty
experienced in what it can feel like to be “alone” (a.k.a. “less 'together' than others”), and it
doesn't bother me not nearly enough than it should, but that's ok for me. I have my video
games, I have Chuck, and I have music and, what with today's “database” on “chores”, I
could probably quite easily/quickly learn to survive quite “humanely”, as such... So, to put
that very simply, as far as I'm concerned, for many reasons, exams aren't that important in
the grand, or less grand, scheme of things. In short, “so long as I'm happy”.

So, with that in mind, my exams started on Monday 24th May, 2010, just ten days after we
officially left the school, and, my exams, also the last one for anyone, I'm pretty sure,
finishes on Monday 28th June, 2010 (next Monday), though most people finished yesterday
(22nd June 2010). This is my time-table of exams.

1. Monday 24/05/10 – 9:00am – 105 minutes – Religious Studies: C (Catholicism).

2. Tuesday 25/05/10 – 9:00am – 150 minutes – English: Literacy (Of Mice & Men,
Blood Brothers, and one poem - “One Summers Day”).
3. Wednesday 26/05/10 – 9:00am – 45 minutes – Chemistry: Unit 2 (Additional
Science).
4. Monday 07/06/10 – 1:10pm – 70 minutes – Maths: Non-Calculator.
5. Tuesday 08/06/10 – 9:00am – 120 minutes – English: Paper 1 (Fiction).
6. Wednesday 09/06/10 – 9:00am – 120 minutes – History: South Africa and Germany
(1919 – 1945) [60 minutes each – actually separate exams].
7. Thursday 10/06/10 – 1:10pm – 120 minutes – English: Paper 2 (Non-Fiction).
8. Friday 11/06/10 – 9:00am – 70 minutes – Maths: Calculator.
9. Tuesday 15/06/10 – 9:00am – 105 minutes – Religious Studies: Paper C
(Christianity).
10. Tuesday 15/06/10 – 1:10pm – 80 minutes – History: USA (1929 - 1990)
11. Wednesday 16/06/10 – 9:00am – 45 minutes – Chemistry: Unit 1 (Science).
12. Friday 18/06/10 – 9:00am – 120 minutes – Welsh (Full Course): Reading and
Writing
13. Monday 21/06/10 – 9:00am – 90 minutes – IT: Paper 1.
14. Tuesday 22/06/10 – 1:10pm (well, turned out to be more like 2:20pm) – 45 minutes
– Welsh (Full-Course): Listening.
15. Friday 25/06/10 – 9:00am – 150 minutes – Media Studies: i.e. make up loads of
****.
16. Monday 28/06/10 – 1:10pm – 90 minutes – IT: Paper 2.

So, that's my exams, and just those last two left for myself now...

Right, before I go into the exams themselves, I'll tell you a bit about my “preparation
process” leading up to the very start of the exams. Both the morning and afternoon
processes are usually the same, but with time differences (usually the things I do after a
morning exam, I'll do before an afternoon one), although I'll be going into that a little more
now, starting with the morning process.

So, if the exam starts at 9am, we have be in the school cafeteria, under heavy guard, by
8:30am, the normal school start time. As such, my mornings start the same way as they
normally would - I usually wake up at about 7am, get changed, have breakfast, and leave
(sometimes quickly checking email or some other internet-based activity), usually about
7:40am, getting to school at about 7:55am. People who know me will be well aware that I
do like to get places early – I once, were it not for Laura Fiteni “saving” us, almost had
Aron Nelson and myself leaving for town one Saturday at about 8:00am, purely as I
wanted to get their early, and my mum would give us a lift in, saving on spending more on
buses. Anyway, since I'm almost always one of the first people in school, I decided to take
it upon myself to take down the seat numbers (and ID “codes”) for a few of my friends –
the initial six or so turning into more like twenty now – then going to my usual spot for
waiting for friends, where we'll sit, “chat” (well, no one is really that interested in Fable III or
many other similar interests of mine), and I'll “hand out” their numbers for the day, until
8:30am when we go to the cafeteria. We are then escorted to the Sports Hall for our actual
exam, under exam conditions, mostly involving no talking and no looking – no nothing
(double negative, I know) unless it's an exam.
This is when it might get a little more unique to myself – before the examiners go through
the rules, hand out the exams, and we start, a prayer is usually said, which sounds a lot to
me like it is saying, “Good luck with your exams, but our results are in God's hands” a.k.a.
“If you don't fail, it's not the (Catholic) school's fault, it's God's”. After wanting some sort of
“quirk”, I decided that, for the time-being, during the exams especially, I would bring much
more equipment (i.e. three/four pens, two pencils (I never go near pencils, ever), two
rulers, a sharpener, and a rubber) than I could possibly ever need, in addition to the one or
two little cards (table number and student/exam info), and I spend some time as soon as I
sit down organising everything on my table exactly as it “should be” - even slightly moving
the pencils after they roll slightly, blown back from the “gush of wind” that passes as the
examiners hand out our exams.
However, once that is done, and the examiners are going through the rules, and handing
out exams, I usually close my eyes, block out the limited noise already (not often I can say
that in school), and recite the Jedi Code. Yes, that same Jedi Code from Star Wars.

“There is no emotion, there is peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
(There is no chaos, there is harmony.)
There is no death, there is the Force.”

It might seem a very strange, a very nerdy, and a very ineffective way to spend my time,
and you'd be right on two of those. It is very strange, and it is very nerdy, but, for myself at
least, in those final few minutes before the exam starts, it is also very effective. Closing my
eyes, shutting out any interruptions, I can recite the code, and it calms me down
completely, and reminds me that, especially if I'm taking the time to recite the code, these
exams aren't the end of the world, and that there's much more to life.
… It also makes me feel like a Jedi, the wisest Jedi in the history of the Jedi order, and that
cannot ever hurt!

After the exam, I usually wait around for either break or (sometimes “and”) dinner-time,
and during that waiting time, I'll usually continue reading my current library rental, “Sacred
Stone”, by Clive Cussler (my introduction to his work), or seeing teachers (that aren't
busy), usually to tell them if I was able to finish their exam, before (at break/dinner), going
to see a teacher, Mr. Matthews, where we can have a nice little chat and I can also
continue reading, if he's a little more busy. After that, I go home.

The afternoon exams follow exactly the same process, but I do the “school exploration”
and “Mr. Matthews visit” before the exam. Then I go home.

Well, I won't go into too much detail, but my exams started off fantastically! I'm sure that's
due to the Jedi Code recitation too! Religious Studies (R.S.) went great, and I finished the
question too, with just two minutes to spare. The second R.S. exam went great too, but I
didn't quite get onto the last question, and if I did, it would have been a sentence or two at
most. English: Literacy also went awesomely, I was able to completely finish everything
with about four or five minutes left. The Fiction and Non-Fiction papers also went very well,
though I knew that, no matter how many times I recited the Jedi Code (as many times as I
can fit in), I was never gonna be able to get anywhere close to finishing, or resembling
something close to being finished, the final task/question – writing a story (can't remember
for the life of me what it was gonna be about, but it involved a traffic jam of some sort, I
think) and writing a newspaper article (I was writing about 3D and other trends in movies).
Unfortunately, if I want the exams back so I could further develop my ideas in both exams,
I would have to, it seems, pay more money than I deem “necessary”, so those ideas might
not come to much fruition (might have the wrong spelling?) in the future, or at least not
nearly as true to the original. History was also a great success, and though I finished,
adequately, the last questions of the Germany and South Africa papers, I did want to
include more, but ran out of time, as I did with the USA paper, but with less work done for
the final question.
Chemistry, both Additional and Core, went pretty badly, and Maths wasn't great, though,
contrary to everyone else, I think I did much better in the Non-Calculator than the
Calculator test. Welsh, very surprisingly, seemed to go much better than I thought, though
I'm still expecting to fail, as I think I got bored and started making up new languages (not
new words of one new language).
IT, or at least my first one, went pretty well, but they seemed to get much easier for myself
as they went on (first three questions consisted of a few unlucky guesses, I'm certain). And
they (our IT teacher, Mr. Regan, and all past IT students) weren't joking when they said
you'd finish very early! Most people finished less than an hour into the hour and a half
exam, and though I was about 70 minutes into it, even I finished long before the end. I
think that was actually the reason I took the subject as an additional, after-school, GCSE...
Media will probably end up being my worse, bar Chemistry and Maths, exam, as I'm pretty
sure that, as normal, I'll read too much into what a footballer (argh! GRRR! Unfortunately,
our Media course focuses on sports! ARGH!) “represents”, his “connotative meaning”, and
will “wrongly” describe exactly what they represent! IT, I'm pretty sure will be exactly the
same as the first one.

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So, my future. This is a very, extremely, short passage, as I don't have much to say on it.
In addition to being a teenager who figures he'll be “great” without any “real” success in
life, the future, as I've seen in RPGs like Fable and Mass Effect, is just that, the future...
And it's likely to change very quickly, suddenly, unexpectedly, and probably for the worse.
Anyway, this is the short insight into a possible future of mine... Where is Theresa and her
new Spire when I need them! Hopefully my fate will involve some sort of great battle with
either the Jedi (ahem, I mean the Sith, really!) Aurora, Halbech, or the Reapers.

Well, I had a letter on Friday saying that a place in St. David's College is available for me,
to start in September of this year, and my GCSE results will determine which subjects I'm
able to take, but I would like to definitely continue English, and, finally, start Psychology,
and Politics. I'd possibly look into Philosophy too, but it's supposed to be extremely hard to
actually pass the exams, and I'd be interested in checking out Media Studies again, as it
appears to be much better and much more “interactive” than currently at GCSE level, and
Film Studies, though I'd want to find out more about it first.

Uh, well, since around Year 4 of my primary school (which would've been 2002-2003), I've
wanted to be a writer, most definitely. Of course, it'd be fantastic to be a full-time writer, not
needing to work, or take/rely on any exams to get myself through life, but that takes
success, and, it seems, to be successful, you do actually need money after all... So, with
that in mind, I'd probably “have” (“have”, as in, “though I'm not saying I wouldn't enjoy
it/want it already”) to be a journalist of some sort. If I was, I'd like to be involved in
either/both politics or/and video games/films/TV programmes reviewing. However, after
“growing up” on the TV sitcom, “Frasier”, and more recently, “Lie to Me”, I'd also very much
be interested in taking up psychology, or possibly psychiatry, though I'd probably need to
become a bit more sensitive/”warm” first...
Especially when watching Peter Molyneux speak, in interviews, and the multitude of
games and movies/TV shows I've played/watched anyway, I'd love to become a writer, or
director, for either/both the TV/movie industry, or the video game industry. I'd do anything
to work with, or even meet, the people behind the scenes at Lionhead and Bioware
Studios!
… And, of course, don't think I've forgotten about those fantasies of being a BuyMore
“Nerd Herder”, a spy, a Jedi, or Sith, or a Fable-styled adventurer – they're still very much,
if not more so, on the cards.

Anyway, hope you've enjoyed this blog post. I still plan on writing up my E3 posts, though
they might not be exactly, or close to, what you actually want or expect, though it will
include lots of links (especially for Fable III) to interviews (both written and video) and/or
gameplay videos, and even possible/probable spoilers, so be very careful. Will be starting
work on those tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

Don't be afraid to comment/talk to me, on methods of improvements, or general “chit-chat”.
Speak to/at you all soon,
Thomas.