Your last day of school

Lots of people I never liked anyway wrote amusing comments on my shirt in biro. Then I went and had dinner at my best friend's house and we made a bonfire and burned my school tie on it. It stank.

water pistols.

Walked out of last exam, picked up rucksack, got on train to Glastonbury.

Whoa I can only imagine how much fun that was Ricky.

I can't remember what I did. I do remember leaving my exam after about an hour, whatever the minimum was, and meeting the teacher on the way out. I do look at it as a kind of milestone, in fact that entire few months after finishing aswell, optimism.

No recollection whatsoever. I remember picking up my A-level results at school, does that count? I got a B in Italian. Cunts.

High School - kind of flat; attempts to put potatoes up teachers' cars exhausts.

Sixth Form - Got very drunk celebrating end of exams. Told lots of people I lived them, only one of whom I am now in contact with still.

Uni - walked out of last exam having managed to mention the words 'female onanism' as per a bet, and then got drunk in relief. Remembered thinking that I would never ever again have to take an exam or write lots of stuff really quickly.

Can't remember high school. last day of sixth form was fun, got very drunk on home made wine and set fire to my clothes.

don't remember exams whatsoever.

sixth form = this was the day England played Holland in Euro '96. i wore an England away shirt during my final exam in History which I failed because I gave up writing after half an hour due to suffering the most incredible boredom I think I've ever experienced. Shame really. I think we'd already done a fair bit of drinking before the final exams anyway. May have gone to local golf club to play pool for a bit but more likely I just peddled home, moped and listened to 'Morning Glory' and for about 3 hours and then watched the match, which was the only great thing about that day really (Results day was far worse as I got turned away from the door of Kudos in Watford for wearing both dark jeans and black trainers, hahaha). That was the last exam I ever took anyway (100% coursework at Polyversity course thank you Gilian Shepherd or something)

At school, they basically sprung study leave on us without anyone expecting it, probably to avoid massive egg and flower fights in the end. Can't really remember the GCSE exam, but I think I just walked home and thought "wow, that's it, school over. Forever."

6th form = all of us bundled down the pub straight away, at about 11.30, and proceeded to stay there for about nine hours straight. I missed results day due to being in France.

Aww...Steve's a baby! I was avoiding doing my masters' dissertation that night, though I was avoiding it really, since it was a Lacanian study of watching international football in pubs. Ahem.

Is sixth form like, a year after school where you actually finish school and then go to university?

we just have 6 years and then it's off to college, 5 years if you like, the 4th year is a sort of organised year of faffing around.

Results day I remember well, my mum drove me in, I waited around until it got to F and the vice-headmaster read me my results in a painstakingly slow manner. He said at first "not sure if you'll be happy or not Ronan", the bastard, I was very pleased.

I then went to the pub where we'd been going for a few years and John the barman/landlord gave the 6 of us a free pint. My boss at the job I was at rang to ask how I got on, which was nice of him.

It was a good day, that night I went out locally and went to the awful local club and did a few things I was ashamed of later. Everyone my age in the entire town was there, so it was good/terrible.

It's that "wow, that's it, school over, forever" feeling I started the thread because of. I'm not sure I've ever felt any change so sudden and obvious since, it's sort of sad in a way, not cos I'd like to go back but I'd like to go back to that day. It seems in hindsight that there was a real sense of momentum that summer, which I guess gradually fizzled out but not until college was relegated to the dull world of routine.

It was 2001 by the way. Seems like so much further back than 3 years though.

I iz younger than Stevem.

GCSE (1996): went to lamer indie club
A-Level (1998): finished about 3 times (end of school in May, end of a-levels in June, results day in August [day of Al-Quada attacks in E Africa]), but prolly all "

A lot of nailbiting. I'd worked really, really hard for my final exam and picked books I liked but also knew others would avoid because of distasteful subject matter (authors = Bataille and Antelme) and because I hoped our tutor would up my mark a bit in gratitude that I hadn't done the same old essays as everyone else (as it turned out I was the only one who did the Bataille question, so my ploy may have worked). However, the day before the exam, I met a friend in the library who asked which THREE books I was doing. Help help help! The day of the exam came and I did kick-ass essays on the books I knew, then did a fairly detailed plan for a question on Camus, wrote an introductory paragraph and scrawled 'Ran out of time! Please see plan.' and tried to look studious for the remaining half hour. After the exam I went to the pub and stayed there.

Postscript
I got 63% for that exam - I never found out if it was two terrific high marks and one really, really low one averaged out or if he gave me the benefit of the doubt over Camus and I've been kidding myself all these years about the kick-assness of the other two essays. Now and again I feel a pang of guilt for the whole deception because he was probably the best tutor I had.

last day of Primary school was a happier one - and GCSEs was okay, about 30 of us went to the park...and gave a rousing ensemble rendition of Sly & The Family Stone's 'Hot Fun In The Summertime' - that last bit is a lie

Actually, I remember the summers after GCSEs and A-Levels being two of the best of my life... Ronan OTM about that feeling of optimism, the excitement of knowing your life was about to change forever and not knowing what or who it was going to involve.

And then the comedown : (

arfarfarf. I'd like to say my last day was like 'Dazed and Confused' but it wasn't that good. Ditto my last day at uni. Those summers were golden though.

Last day at secondary school would have been June 1999... seems more than an age away now. Yes, I did feel very oddly liberated; as if a prolongued holiday was on the way... of course, I was to continue in education, but that seemed miles off. And when I did, sixth-form college was a *much* more congenial atmosphere. So, no, I don't as such look back and say I'd like to feel how I did when I finished school; I think I've gradually moved on ever since [and even leading up to] I left it, and am a rather more confident, settled person.

It was all quite a variation really though, between things being over once 'study leave' was called, and when the exams were over. It almost seemed the more telling once lessons did cease, I must say. The lessons I liked I was largely likely to take up in college, so in general, I was just pleased to be saying goodbye to things like Physics, Chemistry... I was in a Science Set 2 which seemed more like a lower-band set - full of some of the more irritating people in my year. A dispiriting process over 2 years, though it was the complete opposite, as I felt in my element in History and English, and had teachers with a bit of empathy there.
I think my final GCSE exam was a maths one... I remember being entirely perplexed by some algebraic question, but then I was always far weaker on that than mental arithmetic and straightforward maths. Got a B in the end for that. I was more pleased when coming out of the Science exams, feeling that I'd managed to remember enough of my rather worried revision, to get the C [i.e. doing the Foundation Paper].

I guess overall the influence of those years continues, as I retain a very loyal, close group of friends who all went to that school; we went through college - had really a lot of fun there - and have been known out of University term times, to enjoy the odd drink. It strikes me, now going to Cambridge University, just how there are different levels of communication between people educated at a state school and at private schools; the divisions are still there, though it's also North-South...

I can agree with Ronan that the summer of '99 was very optimistic in general; I got far more deeply interested in films, for one thing. There was a lot of football - and even an occasional game of cricket - that summer played by our group, ironically much of it on the old school's playing field! ;-) A really good thing to get involved in during summer, sport... [though thirsty work...] I feel somehow it's wrong in a way that we've tended away from this completely, now that we're all 20-21.
I'd have to check my diary [kept intermittently a 5 year diary, 95-99] to find out specifics of music or film or TV I liked in that summer.
I don't feel college (1999-2001) really was a let down at all; I have some very fond memories of the place.

i went to a very dull school
last day of school before gcse study leave (1999): played silly games on the school playing fields, and played with water pistols
last day of school before a-level study leave (2001): some sort of silly fancy dress thing based on books (I went as the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy, a friend went as a postbox.. can't remember why) then down to the pub when school was over, all still in our costumes.

Where did all these young people spring from? Some of them will soon never have known what it's like to live under a Tory government etc.

Missed the last two lessons, went and drank, took very long slow walk home realising that the past 14 years were over.

You called that living, Dave?

Definitely optimism and excitement. It was quite philosophical really, and sad. Results day was sad because some people couldn't go to 6th form for whatever reasons and you kind of fully appreciated that you would never see certain people in those happy circumstances again. I just remember it as being one of those summer days that are kind of dark and calm, humid, very hot; a year previously perhaps the thought of having nothing to do, a kind of justifiable laziness, would've been welcomed but on that day there was an over-bearing feeling of 'what now?'. But then i had a smoke and got drunk with everyone from school, even the kids who had never really drunk before, and all was fine. Felt like an adult.

Well you're all talking UK here -- my last day I did any sort of formal part of the system stuff was when I wrapped up a quarter teaching an English class and did a job interview to make the switch out of grad school. Exactly what the day was like is sorta blank.

On the last day of primary school, we all were given autograph books and went around signing each others. Kirsty wrote "Don't make love by the garden gate, love is blind but the neighbours ain't" in mine.

I remember the last day of secondary school vividly as my friend Tim left a shit in one of the Geography Room's fossil draws where it festered all summer.

High school: our last two days were always exam days where each one-hour class became a two-hour exam class. We also had a Senior Class Party which involved being locked in the school overnight with no alcohol and one of those really bad dance bands like Limited Warranty or Sussman Lawrence to play for us (80s Mpls to thread).

College: Bacchanalia was the name of the party given each year. It's basically a drug orgy: you paid $10 for a bag of shrooms, acid and pot. Food and drink laid on by the college. My first time on the wee guys and all the flowers turned bright pink.

Primary : shirt-writing, remember distinctly a friend of mine deciding that everyone now had to call her 'Charlie', especially when we got to high school. She was quite serious.

Secondary (1998): huge game of football on the local park with about thirty a side, with the girls looking on and hanging off the swings. I remember thinking that this was what 'simple pleasures' felt like. Then went around Southport, trying to get into clubs. Results: the friend who'd failed dismally to change her name to 'Charlie' dragged me to church in the morning because she thought it would help.

Sixth form (2000): results: woke up the day before the day before the results, about two hours from Adelaide. Travelled for nearly two days with no sleep. Remember looking down at India and thinking 'this is what what worryig about your future is like'. Couple of hours stop in Amsterdam airport on the morning of the results. Mortal fear of failing dismally. Arrived an Manchester airport, drove straight to my sixth form college to pick them up. By some freak chance, I had managed to travel thousands of miles across the globe to be able to arrive at college just as the results were released. As I hadn't slept for two days, was seriously jet-lagged and had a deadly mixture of airline food and two days worth of adrenalin, I was shaking like a cocktail. When I opened the envelope, I was so messed up I couldn't read the results. I looked up, to find someone to make it better. A teacher of mine walked past and smiled, saying 'well done'. This made me focus. Then proceed to stay up for a further day and get more dazed and confused than drunk.

Uni (2003): I'd worked out I was gonna get a 2:1, it would have taken superhuman failure to get a 2:2. Went into the corridor, about two hundred students in about six feet of spce, all trying to look at an A4 sheet of paper. I looked at the list of 2:1's. My name wasn't there. I looked at the few people who got a first. I started screaming and remember thinking 'this is what hyperventilating feels like, remarkably similar to what getting your A level results feels like'. Then, went home and went to bed. Stayed in and watched television. I was ill and in shock. Got a number of phone calls during the evening, mostly from drunken relatives (toasting my success). One, at about 11pm, included my mum saying 'your Dad's dancing round the garden with a bottle of champagne in his fist, singin 'my boy's got a first'.

High School: Went through the usual final exam period. Felt like I had a headache after it all because I had some fairly difficult finals waiting for me then. Felt exhilirated and thrilled afterward. Came home -- proceeded to spend a couple of days laying about doing little more than watching TV and picking at food. Went to Baccalaureate Mass -- collected National Honor Society sash. Whoo. Night after next was graduation. Picked up my final packet after graduation, including my final report card and transcript. Just barely made it into regular honor roll (wouldn't have had one of my grades been two points lower). Went to something similar to suzy's Senior Class Party, which was held in a building that housed both a skating rink and bowling alley. Fun fun fun.

College (first time around): Went through the usual final exam period. Felt like I had an even BIGGER headache after it all than when I was in HS because I had some hellish finals waiting for me then. Was too wiped out to feel anything. Came home -- spent the next two days in an almost catatonic state, just sleeping and sleeping and sleeping some more. No Baccalaureate Mass then -- just graduation a few days later. Picked up yet another final packet after graduation, including a diploma and transcript (whoo). Was happy to have graduated with any kind of cum laude, really. I think I would've been content with just cum barely. Went to a small family celebration. The rest of the time was strangely a blur.

And now I'm back. Whee.

All I remember is last day of classes, getting together with friends from freshman hall, drinking a little, getting vaguely tipsy and then quickly sobering up, and spending the rest of the day tending to a very drunk, throwing up, passing out friend.

last day of primary school is a vivid memory, i hope images of it runs through my head the last few moments before i die. i was living near the school and would always walk home with a few friends. it was sunny, hot, we were skipping and doing jump rope tricks and i felt so free. we threw school stuff in a garbage bin. it was the summer's solstice, soon my parents would go on holidays so i would stay home and watch my older brother hosting parties. i wanted to try lots of new things, as it would be high school next. in the following months and years i started wondering about more complex, darker thoughts, and whenever i worried about what it meant to be happy and if i could truly feel it, i always came back to how i felt that last day of school

Last day of high school was a whirlwind of activity. I came very close to failing Grade XII English (the only mandatory credit) but it turned out that there was a test I'd missed while away with mono earlier that year so my teacher let me take it with only an hour to study. I passed with something like an 85% and managed to bring my grade up to 53%. Then I had to sit down with a girl and write a speech (we were the class historians). We did a good job and everyone enjoyed it. I should get the picture of us delivering the speech and post it somewhere on here. Anyway, we wrote the speech and then we all raced home and got ready for the graduation ceremony. My tux didn't fit because I lost 20 lbs from the mono. I weighed 100 lbs less on that day than I do now and I'm only about an inch taller now. We went to the dinner and dance and it was fine. Then we had something called a Safe Grad where you could (technically only if you were 18 which is the drinking age in Manitoba) drink in a safe environment. Really there weren't any other parties going on so we all just stayed there. I had 24 screwdrivers and didn't puke. Got home at 5:30 in the morning safe and sound.

had a senior "skip day" in which everyone in my class had a BBQ at a friend's place (all 22 of us). We drank beer, listened to tunes, etc. My favorite memory from that is of my friend Dan sitting in a lawn chair, so blasted out of his mind that all he could do was lie there and move his feet in rhythmic unison to a live Allman Brothers CD. Then he stood up drooling and pinched my friend Amanda in the stomach.

High School: got wasted.
I honestly can't remember what I did for university, or after my last grad school course. I probably did nothing. I'd look forward to the end of school for months, thinking about how great it would be when it was finally over, and then the day would come and it was like "huh, it's over, I think I'll go home and watch TV now".

University (April 2000):

Left my final exam without paying much attention to the last page having already calculated that I'd answered enough questions correctly to assure myself of a "B" in the course. Met 3 friends at the graduate pub and proceeded to annoy everyone by shouting: "Everyone who has to come back here next September take one step forward", then gesturing to our table saying: "not so fast guys." (it seemed funny at the time).

Left the pub several pitchers later and went to the campus bar for what was to be the last time. The rest of the evening is a little hazy but I remember talking to a cute girl who had been in several of my classes for the better part of 4 years but whom I'd never formally met. I think I told her that it may have been better if we'd never met because the timing was just cruel. I then confessed to having admired her for 3 years. Her response was simple and to the point: "why didn't you ever say hi?". That was too much to bear. I wished her good luck in grad school, excused myself and joined some other friends at the bar. They were drinking Tequila which always seems like a good idea at the time.

I woke up the next morning in my roomate's bed with my shoes still on. Pictures which were developed later revealed that we tried to steal a motorcycle and went to Subway on the way home but my friend was asked to leave for being too rowdy before we had a chance to order our food.

I just remember the sense of futility I saw in my physics teacher's eyes as he gave us the last test during the last period of the last day of high school (for the class). I heard the class average was a D on it.

As for college, I can't remember. I think I was more sentimental about the end of my cafeteria days. I actually still get kind of teary-eyed when I think about the cafeterias (they were one the main reason I stayed in the dorms all four years - plus I had a single for the last two and the cafeteria in the basement of my dorm served pizza WITH EVERY MEAL. every single one...). A friend of mine actually works at one and has offered to let me get in but...I just have to let it go.

high school (2000)

Skipped my last exam (creative writing), because it would have been impossible to pass the class anyway (95 first report card, 32 second, 20 third - the dangers of having only one class after lunch). Ate lunch with a bunch of friends at the BBQ place we'd eaten at every Friday for two or three years, went to Dan's house and sat around getting stoned for a couple of hours, went to Sara's house and played Goldeneye for a couple of hours, went to a Bowling For Soup show in Ft. Worth (not my choice).

college - was drunk, + i mean drunk, by 10:30 am.

Yes, we had a party at the moon tower and then we all went and bought tickets for an Aerosmith concert the next day.

Primary school - we all had little books and wrote 'keep in touch! don't forget me!' in each others'. I've not kept in touch with a single one of 'em. Haha fux0rz.

Year eleven we got stoned on Hampstead Heath and defaced each others' school shirts, and I had about three hours of heart-to-heart with some girl whose ex-girlfriend I'd fancied for years. One of my friends spent the day crying because her History teacher was leaving that year. Sixth-form I think we just went to the pub with our English teacher, which we used to do all the time anyway. A couple of my mates dressed up as pirates, but it was all pretty low-key.

high school: i turned 18 on our last day of school (seniors finished like 2 weeks early, for some reason). the day before, i'd cut classes to go to a concert in detroit, and saw duran duran and the ramones, and the band 'letters to cleo' made me a birthday card. i had flowers delivered from my best friend at school the last day, and basically it was just people running around and taking pictures and signing yearbooks. we also had a 'grad bash' a few weeks later where we went bowling and had an alcohol-free lock in. the whole graduation thing was so much fun because we just had tons of parties and concerts and big fun.

college: i can't remember the last actual day of classes, but cheered on friends running the naked mile, graduated with the other thousands of students in the stadium, had a nice dinner with my parents and my best friend.

MSc: i was on the last course to do a 9-month MSc, so my three exams (which counted as the entire grade for the course) and my dissertation were all due in one week. i, of course, stayed up until 6 or 7 each morning to 'study' while i watched the detroit redwings win the stanley cup. after our last exam we went for dinner at pollo, and then several of us went to crush, the school disco, and hit on boys that were way too young for us.

On our second to last day of secondary school, most of us didn't bother going to any lessons but we all went over to a nearby park to get stoned. We were just lazing & signing each others books, writing little quirky messages. Then we found out that there was an assembly that we had to attend, so we all trapsed back to school, only to find out that we were allowed to leave a day early, 'an extra days study leave'. Fuxors robbed us of our last day of school!

When I dropped out of high school, my friends presented me with an enormous card full of weird photos of us doing really stupid teenagery things, like toilet papering (why we took photos of ourselves doing that I'm not really sure but I'm sure it's my fault), and gave me a huge amount of spices. The spices were only funny if you were in our 9th grade social studies class.

Now I'm back in college and i can't fucking wait to get out of it.