GCSE's, what to make of 'em!

3

    As many of you will be aware it’s almost d-day for GCSE students everywhere, on Thursday 24th August we will receive our GCSE exam results, and oh my gosh I’m bricking it!
    As much as people assure you that you have done fine and that you will have got the grades that have been expected of you, personally you still don't believe them and sense even a slight tone of uncertainty in their voices, which despite their best efforts they cannot disguise, filling you with the cruel reality that even they don't have the confidence in you to do well. It is a fact that the subject of exam results is a conversation topic which usually has the same answers; to prove this I tested it and this is how the conversations went:

Conversation one

Nikki: hey
Izzie: hey how are you m'dear?
Nikki: I'm ok yourself?
Izzie: I'm alright, you been busy?
Nikki: not really you?
Izzie: netball mostly and fitness training lol the joy!
Nikki: so you nervous about results?
Izzie: a little, but I think not knowing is worse, u?
Nikki: yea, I’m really nervous, I’m crapping myself...

Conversation two

Izzie: Heyyyyyyyy!!!!!
Becca: hiiiiiiiiiii, u ok?
Izzie: never better you?
Becca: I’m alright, sooo you nervous bout exam results?
Izzie I’m alright atm you?
Becca: I'm really nervous

…See theory proven, that conversations about exam results are predictable, but it left a pondering question in my head 'is this a reflection on society?' that we are predictable, it could simply suggest that like every other 16 year old, we are crapping ourselves about the prospect of failing everyone around us and ourselves.
    I think the reaction shown by students show the pressure in which they are under, from early schooling it is drummed into us. Like the fact greens are good for us, (which surprisingly is true, I never did believe my parents but it seems all that force feeding of icky green gunk really did do me a world of good) that without qualifications you can't prosper in life. WRONG! And not surprisingly they fail to tell us this, and leave it to the colleges to tell us that in fact even if you failed every exam you could still go to college, a true reflection that teachers are only interested in our results and that our well being is a minor worry in the back of their busy little minds.
    Which brings to light the question 'what makes teachers so conscious and worried about their performance and the grades of their students?' Sure they want us all to-do well, but perhaps the underlying truth is that if they produce depressingly bad results from their classes, they may potentially lose all respect or their jobs if it is a common reoccurrence. 
    Its like being on a running machine, you have to get your pace right at all times or you suffer rubber burns to your legs and hands, as you zoom backwards, down the running machine, finally falling off the end in a lot of pain. Alike teaching and other jobs, you have to get it right at all times, or you will suffer a hard and painful jab to your status with in your job, slowly falling down the ladder of respect, finally finding yourself, abandoned and alone at the bottom, being used as the scape goat, surrounded with petty little jobs which a six year old could do. Which in turn, drives you to find yourself defacing the queen on newspaper scrapings and blaspheming like a drunken hobbit. Not something society likes to encourage these days.
    This is a common occurrence in society today, apparently. Many you will be thinking 'how can a sixteen year old sit and slate society when she has no experience of the working world?' well I’m thinking the same thing. What gives me the right to say these things?
The truth is in fact nothing gives me the right, but from observing my father and my mother and the people around me, whom are in the working world, it’s the conclusion I’ve drawn.
      So D-day is upon us, drawing near like an articulated lorry on the road of life, of which now I’d like to point out that the road is narrow and extremely bumpy and the lorry is carrying gallons of highly flammable substances, inevitably about to explode with fireworks. This image is a depiction of us, the students, when we receive our results. But do not fear, about 95% of the lorry drivers will survive the explosion (sorry to break it to you readers but its impossible for 100% of lorries to survive, British engineer's are not that good, well not since we have had ‘foreign metals forced upon us’; a statement my father is sure to be in agreement with being an engineer himself.) It's nothing personal, just fitted well with the lorry statement.


2

      Three days before D-day and I feel like I’m in a game of count down with the big clock ticking loudly in my ears, and Carol Voderman asking continuously with her irritating voice whether I want a consonant or a vowel, like it will make a difference to the little piece of paper I will soon be receiving. I suppose, like Carol, the teachers are simply doing their jobs, although I figure taking letters out of pigeonholes is easier than teaching quadratic equations to a bunch of hormonal teenagers, high on nicotine and caffeine.

    Tick, tock, tick, tock and yes yet another day has passed bringing the dreaded results day closer. Carol’s voice is still bleating away at the one strand of sanity I have left, causing the words ‘vowel’ and ‘consonant’ to circle around my head like vultures waiting for me give up.
    The nerves are starting to set in, I wasn’t to sure it was nerves, until the subject of examination results cropped up during breakfast conversation and a simple daily task such as making a cup of tea, became more eventful than first expected. As my mother discussed with my father the fact that A-level exams are supposedly getting easier, and that the 6th form college (which was joined onto my secondary school) had a 99% pass rate from A*-E, I began to panic, shaking violently like someone with drug withdrawal symptoms. Consequently, spilling tea all over the kitchen work surface and burning the dog that was sat between my legs. My mother stared at me with an unimpressed expression for about 45 seconds and then turned to my father and continued chatting. That expression, I was sure to grow familiar with after D-day if I didn’t quite get what she expects me to, she says that what I get is what I get and that she will be happy with my results whatever if I tried my hardest, but deep down even you know that she will be disappointed and unimpressed if you don’t beat her rivals daughter, whom I have been in contest with ever since a young age. Healthy competition is what they like to call it, not quite sure what’s so healthy about it, it is a subject that is sure to start an argument and leave our living room looking like a scene out of Freddie vs. Jason.
    I gathered that these outbursts of nerves were to get worse as the results drew closer, with the topic of results becomes more publicised across the news and during my mothers coffee mornings, not something I’m looking forward to.
    In a bid to escape the topic of results, failure and pass rates, I take refuge at the tennis club, to see if I can take my mind off results by playing a few games of fun, hearty tennis. Well, it worked for the first few games, as I concentrated solely on improving my serve, a weakness within my game.
         It was almost too good to be true, no body had mentioned exam results or anything that may lead on to a conversation about exams results, but all good things must come to an end. On my exit from the tennis club I bumped into an old friend from netball, Sarah, lovely girl, bubbly and a lot of fun, but she seemed to have become a little more ‘chavtastic’ than I once remembered her. Uninterested on how I was or how I was doing- which seemed a little out of character- she cut straight to the chase asking what time we had to be at school to pick up the exams results, And pop! Went my bubble of happiness, free of results and exam topics.
    Here I was faced with the pure realisation that in fact I could not escape results and I should just sit back and accept for the next few days I would be a nervous wreck, alike the rest of my friends. It was true I had yet to find one person whom wasn’t panicking about their exam results. Personally I think it’s the pressure put on us by society which causes everyone to be so panicky about results, and it’s obvious that society favours the more intelligent people over those who struggle academically (which is strange because to do a beauty therapy course they require no grades which mean many on the course will have few creditable grades, and many go on to own salons to feed the vanity of society, aiding them more than most).
    I suppose I won’t really understand this until I enter the world of work, something I’m not looking forward to, with the evil Tax men snatching your hard earned cash and everyone out to get your money. I have had experience of this, I worked for a play scheme, coaching netball, and I worked 19 sessions at £5 each.  The majority of popular people had always happily ignored me at my netball club but I now find myself surrounded by them, all wanting to be my friend; so it’s true cash makes you ‘popular’ and that everyone is out to your money. I feel like a celebrity or dog crap, both attract things towards them and usually the attention is unwanted, it reminds me of the saying ‘like flies around dog s**t’, very fitting.
    And again my head has stumbled back onto the subject of results, and it has dawned on me that where I’ve been writing this I’ve wasted almost 45 minutes of my time, which has taken me into the early hours of Wednesday morning, so now there is really, in theory, only one day left until I get those results.

1

    Well I seem surprisingly calm seeing as it’s less than twenty-four hours before D-day dawns on me, and so far I’ve managed to make breakfast and a cup of tea, without breaking, spilling or burning anyone or anything. It also seemed that Carol was taking a tea break, as the constant ticking and nagging about whether I wanted a vowel or consonant seems to have stopped. BONUS! At this point I hadn’t really thought in depth about exam results or future prospects, and had been lucky enough to miss my mother and father this morning talking about it. So far so good!
    I was extremely pleased when I logged online to messenger this morning to find I had seven new emails. It made me feel that extra bit special. It was a shame that five of the emails were junk mail but even so seven people or systems emailed me. Surprise, surprise, it was pretty obvious whom the emails would be from but deep down I was hoping it would be someone unexpected, but unfortunately not. They were from Becca and Nikki, the problem was they hadn’t entered a subject that meant there was no indication to what they were emailing me about, therefore I didn’t have the choice of avoiding the email if it was abut something I didn’t want to approach. It is most probably obvious to you what they were emailing me about, and subconsciously I knew too, but was praying it wasn’t.

Email from Nikki (no subject)

Heya hunnie, just seeing how you are and things. Are you going into school to get your results? If so could you meet me outside school or something like near the bus stop because I don’t want to go on my own. Please. Thank hunnie I’ll ring you once I’m on the bus. Nikki xxxxx

Email from Becca (no subject)

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, =) you ok? Right me and Megs are going into school at 9.30 tomorrow do you want to walk with us? If you can’t then we can meet you outside if you want. I’m really nervous, and I’ve got to get to bloody work by 12pm, idiots! I’m going to be such a state. Ok I’m going now babe email me when you get this or phone me thanks xxxx

By now I’m feeling just a bit deflated, like a little child who has just lost its favourite toy. I did think about sending arsy emails back, having a rant about how I asked them not to email me with anything to do with exams but I figured that I don’t think it would received particularly well.
Now completely in the dump, I had a browse through the junk mail. Its amazing the sort of things they advertise you at the ages of sixteen. I had one advertising Viagra and another offering 50% off the newest cots at Mother care, which is truly saying something about the opinion society has of us teenagers, dyer.
    They say that music is good therapy, so out of ideas I thought I’d give it a try, what did I have lose, apart from my mind! This was already on its way out. So on with the house music, and away with bad mood. Or so I thought. Instead every other word seemed to scream exams or results at me; it was like coming off a cannabis rush, except I hadn’t become increasingly paranoid and wasn’t bingeing on all sorts of crap, which made a change. Bingeing was my second best sport after Netball, although I seemed to have lost my appetite recently. I’m always being informed bingeing is bad for you but then so is smoking but people still do it, even more so when you tell them not to, typical reverse psychology supposedly.
I never did understand reverse psychology and I didn’t ever believe it worked, as a child the most common example of reverse psychology was ‘yes=no’ and ‘no=yes’, something every child on a school playground would be using if you wanted to be cool. By now you would have realised I wasn’t cool, I like to think I was ‘uncool before uncool was cool’, which in theory made me cool in my mind. I’m assuming that has some psychological meaning, perhaps that I was cracking up, even at that young age.
    Another psychological question is’ whether the glass is half full or half empty’, when asked this I usually say half full, which apparently means I have a better outlook on life, personally its just because half empty sounds weird. I did adapt to saying half empty, just to be different once but it caused everyone to think I was manically depressed and privacy went flying out the window, like a brownie that had just burnt her arse on a camp fire, it was that painful.
    So less than twenty-four hours to go and what started out to be good last twenty-four hours soon became like every other day before it. I suppose you could draw the conclusion that at least my life is consistent and predictable. This brings me back to the point about society being predictable; I don’t like to think I’m predictable. I always thought that predictable people were safe, and a little boring, something I didn’t want to be labelled, but one thing about predictable people is that you can always guarantee they will be there if you need them, the most reliable people I know are stupidly predictable so much so you can tell what’s going to come out their mouths before they even open them. So really being that little bit predictable has its plus points.
      The reaction to the GCSE results on D-day, which I’d like to remind you, is only approximately 16 hours away, will be predictable. The emotional spectrum will most definitely include screaming, tears, and laughter, more tears. It’s going to be a roller coaster of a day.

D-Day
         It’s 2:30am and I’m wide-awake. I tried reading a book, having some hot cocoa and a warm bath but nothing will suppress these nerves. Time appears to have stopped not even the sound of the clock can be depicted from the silence and darkness with engulfs me.
         It’s rather nice, this silence. Finally, I can think straight and rationally. Rational thought isn’t something that comes naturally when you’re in a bit of panic, trust me I know. It’s not everyday you meet someone who when trying to deal with a flood, decided to turn the bathroom taps on!
         So here it is, the big day, D-Day! I decided to walk to get my results, clear my head and prepare myself for potential bad news. I spent the whole 45-minute journey rehearsing what I’m going to say to my parents if I indeed do badly. On arriving at school, the atmosphere was tense; there were queues of people, anxiously awaiting their envelope. It reminded me of Auntie Agnes’s funeral, a morbid comparison I know, but it was similar. The scene was like an old photograph, all in shade of grey, black and white. It rather looked like someone from the art department had become possessed and tipped tins of paint over nerve-stricken students.
         Ding, Ding, Ding…the beginning of the nine chimes that mark the beginning of the fiasco and chaos, which is about to follow. Silence. The bellowing voice of our Head of Year reached out over the silence crowd, the reassurance in his voice put me at ease. Perhaps we haven’t done depressingly.
         I approach the table and THE envelope; the one that decides the rest of my life effectively was placed in my hands. It was daunting.
         In the background, there’s the sound of envelopes being carelessly torn open with anticipation…then came the sobbing, screaming, congratulations being shared and laughter. Becca and Nikki were smiling, they obviously did themselves proud and I’m glad. Yet my envelope stays unopened and untouched. 
            Now, the time had come to open the envelope and join my peers in whatever awaited me on the pearly white paper and soot black ink. This could be the end of a perfectionist, the A-grade wonder child, and the teachers’ pet.
            I fumble with the envelope and the seal is broken. Now the future begins.