GCSE results day

At 8:00am today, most of my jitters from last night had subsided, and I only had one hour to wait to discover my GCSE destiny. The minutes passed swiftly; before I knew it, I was at school, nervously approaching the results desk. Overhearing somebody say that the documents were organised in alphabetical order, I slowly gravitated towards the left-hand side, and landed directly in front of my name. That was all I noticed as I snatched the stapled sheets and held them closely to my chest. Eventually, I summoned the courage to look, and was flabbergasted to find this:

• History: A*
• Religious Studies (full course): A*
• Biology: A*
• Chemistry: A*
• Physics: A*
• D&T Graphics Products: A* (I didn't expect this at all; a B would have been great)
• German: A*
• English Language: A*
• English Literature: A*
• ICT: Distinction
• (and Mathematics A* from March)

In total, that's 10 A*s and 1 Distinction, which is the highest grade attainable on the OCR national course and has the point equivalent to halfway between A and A*. I am absolutely delighted with these results; when I began Key Stage 4, over 23 months ago, and even as recently as May, I was rather frustrated by my high target grades, but now I have actually achieved them! My friends did very well too, getting lots of As and A*s between them. I'm especially happy for Jasmine, who has overcome a lot to become one of only 1.6% of students in the country [x] to achieve an A* in Health and Social Care. Now I have A levels to look forward to.

Pre-results day jitters

Tomorrow, in roughly ten-and-a-half hours time, my fingers will be grasping a crisp, freshly sealed envelope and battling against the shaking that will most likely overcome me, to tear the seal and discover my destiny. I'm feeling very weird at the moment, a bit light-headed, chatty (very unusual), energetic and shaky. It's reminding me of the night before Em's operation; I think being over-nervous manifests itself in this way with me. I'm sort of giddy, it's really weird. I'm looking forward to being on the other side, but I don't want to go through the difficulty (or discovery) to get there. It feels too soon, too big, too scary, too imminent. But it must happen. It's got to happen, and it will happen.

I will find out my GCSE results tomorrow, once and for all.

EDITED 2012-08-23 12:43PM: There was no envelope.