“SOOO, what are you doing tomorrow?” my 18 year old son asked me in a particularly perky sort of way. Normally, if he EVER asks that question it is with low to moderate interest and by the time I’ve answered he’s not actually listening anyway…..thus I am a little suspicious.
Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn parents will be driving their worried offspring into their schools to get their A level results. He wants me to get up at the crack of dawn and find them on the internet and then text them to him upstairs because he can’t bear to look at them himself. I’m not sure about this because when I did it last year for his AS levels the results made no sense whatsoever. They’re all a little jittery and a group of them have taken themselves off to see “The Inbetweeners” movie which they are expecting to make them laugh from start to finish and distract them for a minute….
But it’s after that I’m a little worried about. I suspect they will all go on a pub crawl where celebrations and the drowning of sorrows will slowly merge into one big blurry mess, followed by a “gathering” at my house. He’s mentioned “CONGRATULATIONS” banners and beer so far and I think he might even have already mentioned it to people on Facebook – he’s mumbled something about that in a couldn’t quite hear what he said sort of way. He’s good at that – being VAGUE in the way that only teenagers can be. Still. I guess I don’t mind really because they’ve all worked SOOOO hard.
It seems that lots of the parents are majorly anxious about the results tomorrow and ready to assume the brace position. I’m not sure why. If my son isn’t, why should I be. There’s nothing either of us can do if he doesn’t get the grades he wants, well we just have to deal with it – as a great believer in fate, if he doesn’t get into where he wants to go then perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. As Quentin Crisp said “If at first you don’t succeed then failure might be your style”.
SO FINGERS CROSSED for all of you with results coming out tomorrow. I hope you ALL get what you want and don’t be TOO disappointed if you don’t follow the path you had planned – there are many paths to take that aren’t always obvious – some need a little more hacking through jungle. As one door shuts, others open and all that. You are all so young and gorgeous and have many opportunities ahead and we should all remember that “if we are never sad, uncomfortable, never tested, never fail then we will never be motivated to change”.
In the meantime, please don’t all come to my house tomorrow night. I CAN’T COPE.
Nicky Hale
August 18, 2011My daughter didn’t get the grades she needed for Uni and she is glad she didn’t, because she is now sure fate had a big hand in it, she has followed her passion. She works full time in a call centre but when she’s not working she does photography. She is just starting out and has recently done some glamour photography which she loved so currently is building up her portfolio and also her equipment,(photography is expensive). Her contacts have expanded and she was recently offered two last minute opportunities for shoots in Asia, unfortunately she was unable to take either of them up but is so appreciative and glad that she is taken seriously, in her words, “life can only get better”. I am glad I am not the only mum with the attitude that Uni is not the be all and end all. My son gets his GCSE results soon and he is touch and go for a college place, purely because he finds academia hard and basically hated school anyway but I am not stressing he will find his way too, I am sure. Nicky x
Expat Mum
August 18, 2011Oh poo. It might be worth having it re-marked. How very disappointing for him.
Jaz
August 19, 2011Can’t leave comment on todays post for some reason, but agree definately worth remarking if the uni will wait, terribly stressful. Really hope that you get some good answers soon.
Family Affairs
August 19, 2011Thanks x