It feels like our whole journey through school is all in preparation for our final HSC exams. The words I heard the most throughout the six years of school were “you’ll need to know this for your HSC”. After all the years of lessons, study and preparations, the HSC exams flew by and now I’m left in limbo awaiting my results.
Before I started my last year of the HSC, I had convinced myself that it wasn’t important and it didn’t define my future. I breezed through all my lessons only half paying attention and didn’t bother to do any extra study. I became a little cocky and figured that it wouldn’t be too hard as I had generally received pretty good marks. But this way of thinking came crashing down. My end of year exams for year 11 made the HSC became all too real. I still believed it doesn’t define my future but it had definitely become more important. I was suddenly determined to receive a good mark. Whilst I didn’t necessarily do any extra study, I did begin to pay more attention.
I am absolutely thrilled that I have finished my exams. Walking out of that last exam felt like walking towards freedom. I could finally go home and throw out all my study notes and textbooks. There would be no more late night cramming sessions and stress over assignments (at least until I begin university) and I could ultimately spend the next few weeks doing whatever I wanted to do. However, all these exciting and hopeful thoughts have quickly vanished. I soon came to the realisation that I didn’t like not knowing what I’m going to do in a few months or if I’ve received the marks I worked so hard for or if I was even accepted into uni. These few weeks post exams are now the longest weeks of my life.
Talking to my friends who also just finished, I’ve realised that so many others feel the same nervousness and stress that I’ve been feeling. We have all been trying to play it cool, but at 18 and 19 years of age, none of us really know what we want to do with the rest of our lives. But not knowing what the next few years holds for us is also terrifying. How are we supposed to prepare?
I know I should just be enjoying these last few relaxing weeks of freedom. Spend the time with friends or travel or visit family. Embrace the freedom that I have earned and go out and enjoy it. Gosh, I could even start a bonfire and burn all those pesky textbooks and notes that I spent weeks bent over. But instead I am floating through these few weeks in a bubble completely focused on the December 14, the day we receive our results.
There may be others out there that are taking advantage of the few weeks of freedom and I envy them for letting go and embracing this time. But I just can’t do that. And I know for sure that there are others that feel the same as I do. Others that just NEED to know their marks as badly as I do. Others anticipating that day as much as I am. However my peers are feeling, the day we receive our marks could not come any sooner.
