My Inner Country Girl - Part Two

Every year at presentation night I would sit at the announcement assembly secretly hoping that my name would be called out for one of the prizes. I wasn't sporty, arty or musical, and while I was good academically, there were girls who were ahead of me, so I had no reason to get an award, but I still hoped. In Year 12 it was my last chance. In our first assembly the principal gave the speech she gives every year for the first assembly and that was to set some goals, write them down, work hard etc. I never listened, but this time I did, and that afternoon when I came home I wrote down what I wanted to achieve that year and on that list included "To receive an award at Presentation Night."

In Year 12 they give all the generic awards, but also give awards to each person who comes first in each subject. I knew my best shot at getting an award was to come first in Agriculture. I was very confident in my ability to do this, I loved it and had no issues working hard at it. I was doing both the 2Unit and the 3Unit as well. For our first assessment I got 15/15, however, so did another girl, and it was suddenly apparent that she wanted that prize too. Clearly I had some competition. The next assessment was 14/15, she scored the same, this was not going to be easy.

I did have one advantage over her though, I was doing 3Unit and she wasn't. All 3Unit involved was the exam (50%) and a research project (50%). This was essentially a 6-9 month experiment. Mine was titled "The Nitrogen Levels in the Reproductive and Vegetative Stage of a Forage Wheat, Using An Artificial Fertiliser and An Organic Fertiliser". Basically I grew wheat in plastic containers in the backyard for 18weeks using two different fertilisers and then had the various components tested at the end. My parents loved that, having a massive patch in the backyard of dead grass from where all the pots were.

My competitor and I continued to battle it out, staying even the whole way through, even our trials didn't put one over the other. I could only hope that my 3Unit advantage would secure me the prize.

For the HSC itself, 3Unit Agriculture was my last exam. There was only about 7 of us doing the course and as we waited for the clock to hit 2:00pm, one of the supervisors smiled and asked if this was anybodies last exam. A few of us said yes. I was one of them. She smiled and said "Just think, after this exam, you will have finished school". Not the wisest thing to say to a bunch of girls just before an exam is to commence. I hadn't thought about that, I was about to finish school. I kept thinking about it, and thinking about it. It was 2pm, reading time, and thinking about it. 2:05pm commence writing, and freakin thinking about it. Can't breathe, about to finish school, freakin out, need to do exam, clock ticking, HELP!

I was sitting in my chair making nosies she looked at me and whispered;

"Are you Ok?"

"I can't breathe."

"Let's take you outside"

She walked over and escorted me outside. It was my first ever panic attack.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm about to finish school, but I have to do this exam, I worked so hard for this, I have to do it."

"Just take some deep breathes, just calm down, take your time."

"No, I cannot I have to do this exam."

I looked at her, took one breath and walked in, I was suddenly on auto pilot, I sat in my chair and just started writing, pushing all other thoughts out of my head. I had wasted at least 10 minutes, and these exams left no room for error. My saving grace was the fact that throughout the year I did every single past exam paper for 3Unit and my teacher marked every single one and gave me very thorough feedback. Because of that I was able to answer the questions, because I already had answered them. As she called "Pens down" I had just finished all the questions. But I had not put my student number on any of the pages. She very graciously let me do that then and there without saying a word, (probably because she knew if she kept her mouth shut I wouldn't have been in that situation). It was over, I had finished school. I should have been jumping for joy, but instead, I was devastated. Mum was picking me up from school to celebrate and I got in the car and burst into tears telling her what happened and I had no idea what I wrote and it was all a big mess and I was going to screw up the HSC and not get the UAI I wanted and my life was over.

A few weeks later we all gathered a few days before presentation night to find out who was getting an award. I sat with my friends, hoping.

"Agriculture, Elissa"

I did it.

When the HSC results came out I was trembling, so afraid of what my UAI would be and how my poor effort in 3Unit would have effected it. Turns out it was my best subject, 47/50. Couldn't ask for anything better.

Now all I had to do was finalise my uni preferences....

Conclusion to come.