The walls are coming down. I stand up from my desk and rip down the notes from above it. Irish: done. I gleefully tear at the Sellotape, scrunch the paper up and fling it in the bin. Business: over. Grab, tear. Fire? Hmm, maybe that’s a step too far.

It’s au revoir French. It’s the end of history. Those notes are coming down too. Day by day, I’ve been seeing more of my wallpaper again. This little ritual has been the dawning revelation of my impending freedom.

Later today, I’ll sit my last exam. I will, for the last time, feel that sense of sitting in the exam hall, taking in the smells: fear, heat, sweat and mugginess, and the lino floor mixed with the damp stoniness of the prefabs.

That combination will never be replicated again but will always linger in my mind and bring back memories of this time.

In the exam hall, I will wait for the paper. I’ll smile nervously at my friends. We will wish each other luck, although we know it is too late for that. Sitting, I will hope that the stranger controlling my fate has set questions that suit me.

It’s been a long, hard, six days. The exams started off okay, but the pressure just starts to build and build.

Yesterday’s papers could have gone worse, but they could have gone better too.

A lot of what I had studied cropped up. At two hours and 50 minutes, history is a long paper and most students feel very distant from their tired hand by the end of it. French went well, with a lot of topical subjects.

Increasingly, it’s impossible to predict what will come up, so you need to be well prepared.

After business today, I’ll head to the shopping centre with my boyfriend and then I’ll go home and get the best night’s sleep I have ever had – because I don’t really remember sleeping for the past nine months.

Normal life will resume.

I'll have a chance to focus on raising funds for my trip to India with the Meath branch of the Girl Guides, which takes place next January and which I've been living for all year. We will spend two weeks working with abused women and children, and hopefully we will have the money to make an impact on their lives.

Thinking about it makes me very grateful for what I have, including the chance of a good education. I know that I will be even more grateful when I come back.

Linda McCormack is one of six Leaving Cert students from Dunshaughlin Community College contributing diaries to ExamWatch 2013. Series concluded.