exams and all that

well, This is my last exam today for this semester and I am just happy to have survived the whole experience.
Talk about pressure,I have never worried ,fretted and dreaded anything more than I did these exams.
In comparison to last years cert exams ,which in hindsight I can see we were spoon fed,it was really difficult.
Coming from the relatively intimate environment that was VTOS last year into the complete;y impersonal and huge examination rooms in DKIT was a truly terrifying experience.
What really struck home for me was the fact that as a third level student somewhere along the line I basically gave up my identity and became a number!
I am a certain number for college references and a different number for exam seating arrangements I obtained yet another number with the granting of my invalid car sticker the list is endless.
On exam days the strain was obvious on every ones faces but I still came up against that old age barrier thing when I tried to share that it was no different for me with my classmates.
I suppose it was a bit like mammy telling them it was gonna be OK .
All in all I think I did relatively ok January will tell the tale I really did study for theses exams but that old dragon came back to haunt me after nearly 30 yrs I was still physically sick on the morning of the exam,I still had that mad moment of having a total blank and I'm still living in dread of the results!
Oh well now its back to the real stuff and sorting out "Daddy Christmas" for all my gang here and abroad.

"Yeah My Momma Told Me There'd be Days Like This!"

Van the Man sure got it right,some days you wish you'd just stayed in the leaba don't you?
Luke Kelly on the other hand went to great trouble "Thanking everyone for the Days"
I guess the secret is in there ,somewhere between the two.
That's my cryptic thought for today,now for my good news.
Got word in the post that a poem of mine is going to be published albeit in a little obscure anthology somewhere in Oxford ,but they all count.
I'm dead chuffed really, It's nice to do something right for a change.
Let me share it with you,I won't go into any explanations as to what it is about though,That's for a different forum..............so here goes

Passover.

I passed your way tonight and I smiled,and you in your world didn't see me.

We both knew I was close by,as I caught you in my breeze

You don't believe? Why then did you lose time?

You closed your eyes for just a while,and in that while I passed your way

And you in your world could feel my presence

Then, came the smile, the smile that brings

the knowledge that I've just passed by

And brought you with me on the breeze

and in that breeze you heard my name

I passed you by with open eyes

I touched you.Yes,and whispered

and with that whisper came "Your" smile the smile that says I've just passed by.

Marie Mc Crum 2007.