Results

The leaving cert results are out and people are seeing if they got what they were expecting. I was working with a woman who was expecting when her results came out. She said she had a big bolg(stomach ) on herwhen she went in for the results and had her daughter in January when the official cert came out. She got married before her seventeenth birthday and is still married to the same man forty years later. She thought the world was her oyster and  still does. Her daughter is a teacher now ironically teaching leaving cert maths. I didn't know what I wanted to do and ended up doing Language and Cultural Studies as advised by a Guidance Counsellor. I ended up on Erasmus in Germany in an Irish Pub. The first night I worked I said 'Who are you, I don't know you?' to the man who turned out to be the father of my child. She's thirteen now , he isn't in the the picture and I never went back to UL.She got to spend time with my Dad since she was two up until he died this year.

I was talking to a man who said he and his brothers had being trying to go into a dance. It was late so they reckoned they shouldn't have to pay full price. They woman taking the money was their side , the bouncers were not. A fight broke out, banging into cars etc . The Guards were called and the boys went home. The following monday one of the brothers was heading off for his first proper job on building site.He asked for the foreman, as he approached he said to himself 'I recognise this man' . It was one of the bouncers from the weekend. They both carried on as if nothing had happened. Today he and one of his brothers own a successfull New York construction company. I.m not sure did either of them do the leaving cert.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I'm not attacking those who did well. I'm just saying there's life outside of points . Just because you didn't take the conventional path and don't end up in something thats considered a prestigious 'career' doesn't mean you shoudl be written off. Results are measured in many other ways . Happiness( the majority of the time anyway) is the result we should be aiming for.