Day 220 – Great expectations
Today was a bit of a difficult day for me as I feel so stressed at work that I thought I would implode any minute. We are short of staff but the stories keep coming at an unnecessarily rapid rate and my head is spinning. To spare you the stresses then I shall focus on one part of my day which was actually good fun. Today the country’s sweet sixteen school leavers are biting their nails and waiting to open envelopes which their teachers and indeed the educational system itself has led them to believe will determine the course of their future. Though I do not dispute the importance of getting decent grades ten years later I can safely say that in no interview ever has the subject of what I got in these exams been raised. I can say this now but ten years ago when I opened my own envelope it felt as though my whole fate was contained within.
I am covering the results for the paper and though it is those who have done well who are most willing to talk there are so many whose faces fall a little when they see what’s inside. A lovely girl who joined us this week for work experience is helping me out and speaks to one poor soul who is ever hopeful until he sees his grades and becomes too depressed to say any more.
It amazes me when people say that the exams are getting easier every year as I remember when I took them they were really hard. Many of the teenagers I meet today, even the ones who seem dissatisfied with their results come across as confident, articulate and informed. One girl speaks to three media outlets in ten minutes and keeps her cool throughout. When I was 16 though I enjoyed speaking out I imagine a microphone would have freaked me out and left me in a fit of giggles.
I feel for them because there will no doubt be those that thought they would be taking one path and now after a stray D or E are no longer so sure. One of the girls I speak to today is already considering a career in medicine and I am shocked by the use of the word career by a 16-year-old. I wish I could sit for a few moments with those who look fed up and let them know that this is not as big a deal as it feels but this is their moment and they do not want the “wisdom” of an old woman.
I know though that they will all be fine and in ten years time when they read the paper and see it is results day they will think of this time and wonder at the way they felt today. Hopefully happy in themselves and in their work or whatever they do they will recall the tears or the beers of celebration or commiseration and smile at how much things have changed and how they really didn’t need those 13 As after all.
The day is rather alien to me as I was away on holiday with the lovely Katharine Ryland when our results came through. We made calls home a couple of times that holiday, one for Katharine’s results and one to find out the result of the first ever Big Brother. We were in Lanzarote when we made the call to the school in a crowded little box with a cardboard credit phone voucher, no mobiles remember. As we were away with her parents I decided to wait till we were home but we went together to get hers while her folks waited nearby.
Kat’s results were pretty near flawless, a string of As, the occasional B and a lovely few stars to set the sheet alight. We danced around like kids and celebrated that night with a fancy meal and some orange fanta before being given a liberal curfew which we took full advantage of. I still have a picture of Kat sipping on a cocktail in a bar above the sea. She looks so young and is grinning away as intoxicated on the buzz of the grades as much as the Sex on the Beach which we ordered while sniggering. How we were served I do not know.
Afterwards we went on to have Sangria and sat looking out to sea speaking seriously about what the future held. We had so many dreams and so many hopes and it was the same night she asked me to be her maid of honour a promise a duty I took up eight years after.
When we got home her parents drove me back to my house. It was late in the night but Kat came along to say goodbye and support me as I opened my own. As we got closer to the hill, sensing my nerves she reached out for my hand and gave it a little squeeze reminding me she was there. I was so scared when we arrived that my father and I went upstairs away from them all to open the results.
It was hard for us both as my sister who sat her exams two years before had opened them after being diagnosed. It was bitter-sweet as we both knew there was someone missing and opening them away from everyone felt like a little acknowledgement that though it was an important day there was something so big missing that a celebration seemed too much to hope for. I was pleased with my results, getting the As in the things I cared about most and even scraping a C where there should have been a D.
We went downstairs and told them all and there was champagne and toasts and as I drank from the glass our darling Catherine had made I held back the tears and tried to be happy and think to the future.
The past was with us all that night and though everyone made an effort to be excited and merry the hole was so big that sleep came easily to me that night. My body and my mind did not want to think of the future but to dream of the day two years before when a girl who sat through her exams in pain because of an illness we did not know she had, opened her results to find she could pick and choose between the Ox and the Bridge.
I wanted to dream of that day when we had no need to understand clinical terms or the side effects of chemotherapy. A day when we all thought the cancer was just a blip and the thought that we would lose her to it had not even crossed our minds. It’s been 12 years now and I still dream of that day and would swap everything to have that hope and to have her back in our lives.
- Today’s dress was a gift to the cause from my Fairy godmother who I believe was also there that night ten years ago. We went for lunch yesterday and she was as confused as no doubt you were that the posts being uploaded while I was away were not about the beauty of Cornwall but of weekday woes. The dress is very pretty and was chosen as I wanted to get the balance right between work and a little bit “down with the kids”. I failed miserably as many of them were wearing Uggs or jeans or leggings and the kind of dresses and tops one can only wear at an age when a fast metabolism still allows one to eat three breakfasts and endless candy. I miss those days but I prefer working for pay rather than studying for good grades.
