Hi everyone!
As I promised, I'm writing to tell you about what I have been doing throughout the summer! Hope you are going to enjoy reading this - feel free to comment and to suggest what you'd like to read next!
For us A2 students the Summer Term finished relatively late - we had exams until the end of June and we were extremely jealous of our AS and Foundation friends, who had gone back home to relax by mid-June! However, the end of exams came eventually (it is impossible to describe how great it felt when me and my friends were leaving the exam hall after our last Economics exam) and the summer began! For me it was really difficult to say goodbye to Brighton - after all, it had been my home for nearly two years and I've grown very attached to it. I must admit that as my friends were seeing me off at the train station, I actually cried. Luckily, it only took a very short time for me to get back to Prague, and once I was at home, I felt very happy and almost forgot about how sad I was when leaving Brighton.
Once at home, I spent the first few days just resting - during the exam period I had a significant sleep deficit, so I needed to catch up! We went to see my grandparents at their country house in Moravia, where we had a very nice time - my brother was helping out in the garden while I was mostly reading and enjoying the feeling of being able to read books other than coursebooks for a while! It was amazing to be able to catch up with my family!
Having spent most of July in Prague, I was very excited when we went to Croatia - me, my brother and our parents. Apart from the car journey (which took 12 hours and was simply exhausting) I had an awesome time. Swimming in the sea, eating Croatian food (which is, by the way, extremely delicious - I can never have enough of it) and in general just relaxing was very nice and comforting.
I really like Croatian nature, although you have to be an early bird to be able to see some of it on the mainland - from 9 am the coast starts to be packed with tourists and it's not very beautiful at all. One day I took the time to wake up early (and by early I mean 5:30 am) and I saw the very beautiful sunrise, and I also went to take a few pictures of the coast. Here is a little example of what it looked like:-)
It was a harsh return back to reality in the middle of August. When I came back from Croatia, it was only 3 days until the very dreaded A Level results day. I couldn't sleep very well the night before, I was waking up every hour or so and checking the time, hoping that it would be 7 am already and I could check the results and UCAS Track to see if I had got into university. It was really a very stressful time, especially as UCAS created a very unpleasant surprise for me when I logged in - my insurance university turned into unconditional, but there was no sign of change at Oxford University's decision. I thought that that was it - I didn't get in.
Luckily, in an hour or so after I checked Track, I got an email from Bellerbys with my results, and once I had them, I was so happy that I met the conditions that I did not worry about Track anymore! I went to tell my parents and my friends and I was just so happy that it's difficult for me to find words to describe this. It really is a very nice feeling to know that you have accomplished something you had worked so hard for.
Right now I am still very excited about going to Oxford University in October, although I am kept busy by the reading list that I was sent by my subject tutors. I have to read several books for each of Philosophy, Politics and Economics, so I am in a bit of a rush to try to finish them all by the time I go to Oxford! Cross fingers for me!
Other than reading, I also started going to a driving school here - it is kind of fun to learn to drive, but it also is difficult at times when you realise the huge responsibility you have when driving a car. I've also been preparing for the driving theory tests, which is a nice way of getting my brain back into the studying mindset which I had lost completely over the summer.
This is it then for today. I hope you are all enjoying the rest of the holidays (or the first days of school for some of you)!
I will come back very soon and talk about all the preparations I had been doing for university - again, if you'd be interested in anything specific, let me know!
Till then!
Zuzana
Zuzana studied A Levels at Bellerbys College and achieved three A* grades (Economics, History & Maths) and two A grades (French and Government & Politics), confirming her place at Oxford University.
Croatia is beautiful and I love it too. You deserved a nice break after the amount of work you put into your studies and final exams!
Good luck with your readings for uni (and the driving test!) and I will be looking forward to your next blog entry! Maybe you could let us know how your first couple of weeks panned out in Oxford?
Posted by: Agnes Vinkler | September 27, 2011 at 05:06 PM