TY Reflection

TY has come to an end! Not just saying this but it has honestly been one of the best years ever:) All the trips, days out, activities and work experience of course have all been great. I have made so many new friends this year it's crazy, I have talked to everyone in my year ,people I didn't talk to much from first to third year. 

I think I've matured a lot since the start of the year also, like this time last year I would never have been ready to go straight into fifth year but now I feel im ready for it, and have a better attitude towards it.  I have found myself to be quite punctual during the year as I've always handed in projects and homework on the due date , which is something you have a lot in TY , dealing with deadlines teachers give you. 

TY has thought me that I can work really well in a team and can work well under pressure (mini company county finals ahhh!) It has given me skills I can take on with me into fifth and sixth year like communication, participation and confidence. Im really sad to be leaving TY ,Fódla and all the memories behind :( I know this cheesy but im so grateful to be given the opportunity to do TY because It has been an amazing experience , i'll never forget it!  

One more week left in TY..Whaaat?D:

We have one more week til TY night then after that Summer holidays, crazy!  so much preparation for it though, We're doing Zumba and Charleston dancing and to be honest it's not very good, it looks really messy so everyone needs to perfect the dances and keep in time with each other so it looks good :) Im excited for it though hopefully it's a good night. 
There is a lot on this week. We have a 'Drive For Life' workshop on Tuesday and it's also sports day that day too, so it will be real busy! On Wednesday then we're off to Trinity College in Dublin to a science exhibition. Im looking forward to that aswell! That just leaves Thursday and Friday for practicing and the likes for Monday! ahhh did I mention we have 2 english essays due for Friday tooo?,oh the stress of it all ! Haha just messing , im gonna make the most of our last week in TY:( 

Sci Fest :)

Yesterday Ty's and first years competed in the annual Sci-Fest competition in Tallaght IT in Dublin. It was a great day out and the school came home with five winners! this was a wonderful achievement  for the students and the school:)  My project on Ithcyothereapy  which was originally entered in the young scientist competition was on display for the judges , they came around and asked us lots of questions about it , it went really well I felt!  Sadly , it didn't win a prize, but it was really great to see my friends get awards for theirs so its all good. 
There was also a number of talks available to us on the day given by lecturers in the college. I went to one about cool chemistry, basically it was a man blowing up stuff and setting things things on fire. It was actually so fun to watch ,  I really enjoyed it! I also went to a talk  on fighting crime with science. This was so interesting and was all about how criminals get convicted from small traces of DNA evidence left behind at a crime scene. 
Overall It was a great day out :) Thabks to the science teachers for organising it ! 

GAISCE :D

On Friday all the people in TY doing Gaisce went on a 25km hike in the Wicklow Mountains! We stayed in a place called the Kippure Lodge. There was 3 houses that had around 10 people in each one. The house was lovely and had an oven,microwave,fridge and a dishwasher!! They came in handy for the food afterwards! yum:)  On the friday we arrived in Wicklow at 4 and started the first 13km of the hike. There was a lot of uphill walking that day which was really hard because every time you walked up you thought you were at the top of the mountain but when you got there you just had to look up and see there was loads more to go! :( not good! but it was good to have a challenge and set yourself a goal to reach the top:) After that everyone was soo tired and HUNGRY! so when we got back to the house everyone cooked their food , we all had bought a ridiculous amount of pizza , chicken, noodles, crisps, chocolate, sweets, popcorn basically an endless amount of foood! 
After a pretty sleepless night if im honest we were up and dressed and ready to do the rest of the hike the next morning :) I didn't find Saturday as hard as the last day probably cos most if it was just straight walking and wasen't really uphill !  It was a great feeling after we finished it because you really feel like you achieved something :) Before we got the bus home on Saturday we did the high ropes activity which I didn't take part in because I HATE heights! :( But it was good to watch the other girls do them. I was so nervous for them doing the leap of faith and the balance beam! Ahh so scary!!
Overall It was a fantastic two days and im so glad I did Gaisce because its so worth it :) Another thing was the rain stayed off for the weekend , that was great! :D AMEN haha 

Retreat :)

On Tuesday Last my class Fódla went on our retreat to Glendalough in Co.Wicklow. It was a good day to take time out of the normal school schedule and focus on life and reflect on yourself. We were lead around by Fr.Michael and he showed us St Kevin's house that he lived in thousands of years ago and the old cathedral he built. We also got to go down by the river where St.Kevin used to pray. There we were told to pick up some water in our hands and let it fall through , letting go all anger and pain inside us , this was a nice relaxing exercise we were shown and I really liked it :) After lunch we went out walking again but unfortunately it rained very heavily and we all got very wet :( Despite all that though I did enjoy the rest of the day and found it interesting and relaxing. We got the bus back for four at the end of the day :) Thanks to Mr Kerrigan for organising the retreat :)  
Ms L asked us to long onto http://www.bighugelabs.com/motivator.php and create a motivational picture on something we remembered and took with us from the retreat I have done 'life isn't about finding yourself ,it's about creating yourself' because I think i think its really true and  motivating :D enjoy.. 

Swim a Mile :)

On Friday April 20th all ty's went to the NAC in Blancharstown for the Ian Daly Swim a Mile with a Smile:) This is an annual charity event which I have been taking part in myself for the past six years now and its always something I look forward to every year :) Its in honor of Ian Daly, a close neighbor of mine who died of an aggressive brain tumor in 2003. The Swim is to raise money for child cancer care and Barrettstown Camp for children who are very sick. I swam a whole mile which I was extremely pleased with as we only had a certain time limit in the pool ! Some girls did the mile themselves and others did it in a team :)  Altogether ty's swam a total of 40 miles, which is a new record for St Wolstans!! This was such a great achievement , well done girls!:D 


To find out more about this wonderful cause please click here :) 
http://swimamile.webnode.com/

Freee class

We have a free IT class cos Ms L is not in. I don't really know what to blog about !
Last night was the annual music night. It is a night organised by the music department in the school . There is performances from music students in each year. Everyone was great! Our class Fódla did Wake me up before you go go.. one word.. FAIL! it was so bad and emabressing oh god, cringiest night ever!
Suppose it's the taking part that counts.....
I can't wait for EASTER! Two weeks off woooo :) We get our holidays tommorow, Hopefully the weather stays sunny , it has been amazing all week, like 21 degrees :O We had french class outside the other day it was actually soo much fun, Think I even got sunburnt on my cheeks! In March? who would've thought..
Ahhh I actually have so much work to do for tommorow ! I have to do finish creative writing essay, english homework, geography project , and do mini company stuff , arggggh. Ty has made me so lazy !
I wanna start reading the hunger games over easter ! everyone says it's amazing, plus we're suppposed to be reading it in english sooo maybe I should get a move on.. the nI can see the movie once ive read it haha!
Well anyways that's pretty much all I have to say really.. Slaaaan ( it's bye in irish ;)  )

Blog Challange :)

Here is a blog post written in french. This is one of Ms.L's blog challanges! Its not right, there is probably alot of mistakes but here it is.. !
Je m'appelle Rebekah. J'ai seize ans et demi. Je suis en année de transition et c'est une blog challange! Je viens de Celbridge et J'habite á Celbridge aussi. Mon anniversaire est le vingt -quatre de Mai. Je serai dix-sept ans.
J'adore année de transition. C'est trés bien. Je Fais beaucoup de choses. Nous allons allés au Carlingford dans le Septembre et c'etait fantistique! la semaine dernière je suis allés au mon stage un enterprise. Je suis allés une école primaire. Je me suis trés bien amusé. Je travaille avec les enfants.
Merci, Au revoir!!!

Practise makes perfect!

This week we have been practising for our irish drama called 'Padraicin is ainm dom' It is a play about drugs and is not coming together very well because its soo confusing and the other tys we are showing are not gonna understand ! I am playing a part of a boy called Johno who is supposed to be a 'hardman' from Dublin along with emma who is playing Tomasin,my cousin from the country ! haha
We are also rehearsing for the music night which will take place next wednesday night. Our class will be doing a song called 'Wake Me Up' by Wham. It is a fun , energetic song and we even have a dance to go with it, hopefully its not a diaster!
Have a listen here ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIgZ7gMze7A&ob=av3n

Braveforcee

Yesterday Ty's went to the braveforce assault course in Ashbourne co. Meath. It was exhausting, tough , fun and exciting.. It really challanged me if im honest. It was basically a big field with many obstacles around it like mucky rivers, ditches and things you had to climb up , under and over! The water was absaloutley freezing, i couldent feel anything from my waist down!
some things I coulden't do and it was terrifying!, but I did it anyway even if it meant a few cuts and bruises.. :L I had never ever been so cold and mucky in my life!! Overall it was a great day out with the rest of ty and I actually really enjoyed it, It wa something I never thought ide be able to do and I feel I really achieved something anyway :)

 

I can hear the drums..

Last week, Ty's took part in a percussion workshop in the library with a man called Dave:) Fódla did theirs on Tuesday for the whole day, it was good fun!

Drum and percussion workshops are designed to give people more insight into the cultural back ground of the instruments and there use in Traditional music. The aim is to teach rhythms and drumming skills in a similar way to learning it from a traditional drum teacher. I found this really interesting as I didn't really know anything about that type of music.

We learned different traditional tunes on all the drums from big ones to little ones all of them making different sounds, loud but really entertaining at the same time! We also got try out other instruments like the tambourine and the cowbells, I really enjoyed this!

here is a picture of the drums that we got to use!:)

Work Experience Week 2 :)

Last week Ty's were on work experience. This was our second week of it, the first one was in November. I was in Scoil Mochua. It is a primary school in Celbridge. It is my old school so it was good to go back to work there! For the week I was given a timetable by my superviser with a variety of different things to do with junior infants up to 6th class :) It was really good to see some of the teachers I had when I was younger! The main things I did with the kids were art,pe,science, maths and english. The children were all so cute and co-operated well and made me feel so welcome in the school!
I also was helping the vice principal in her office by sorting out books in the library and distributing them to different classes, counting money for their annual Readathon for charity, putting up and taking down posters in the corriders and supervising the younger kids in the yard at lunchtime :) The week flew in and before I knew it my last day had come!:(  It was so sad to leave everyone as you get so attached to them! haha. Overall I really enjoyed the week!

Success!

On Wednesday we had our mini company judging:) All Ty's  had to set up a display stand and and talk and answer questions to the judges which was really nerve racking! Everyone put so much work into their display and I felt sorry for the judges who had to pick a winner because they were all fab! Myself and the rest of my mini company, Illuminate was so excited when we were told we were the only company out of all TY's through to represent St Wolstan's in the county final!:D Just to remind you our product is a soft pvc key cover with an led light attached so you can see your keyhole in the dark:) They are on sale for three euro each so please buy one!  Im super excited for the county final now but its on March 5th which doesn't give us a lot of time to perfect our report and display stand! We are on a weeks work experience next week which doesent make things any easier either:( So little time so much to do! 

St Brigid

On Tuesday we went to Kildare to visit famous historic sites associated with St Brigid, the patron saint of county Kildare. We set off on the bus at 9.05 and went to the heritage centre. There we watched a short film about St Brigid and her life in Kildare, I found this very interesting and It felt weird to be in the exact town Brigid herself lived in thousands of years ago.
From there we walked to the cathedral where we looked around and everyone got a chance to ring the church bell, which could be heard all over Kildare town! We also saw St Brigids kitchen which was basically just an underground cave with a little light inside, It didn't help to know that it was actually haunted! haha.
We also saw the round tower which is the one of the highest in Ireland today.
Next we went to Kildare Village which was real exciting!:) we got starbucks which was so nice cos I was freezing at this stage! It was nice to look around and have a break from walking there.
We then walked which seemed like years, up to the first of the two St Brigids we saw. Most people sat around and blessed themselves with holy water from the well and said a little prayer to themselves. After that we then walked more through the countryside and came to another St Brigids well, there we had a small prayer service and said a decade of the roseary while walking in a circle around the well. I found this really interesting and relaxing and it was nice to take time out to do things like that as you never get the oppurtunity to.
Finally we walked back to the bus and had a very tiring bus jourbey home, overall I really enjoyed the day out :)






this is picture of the St Brigid statue in Kildare

Day full of drama

Last Tuesday ,January 24th 2012 All Transition Year students went to Mullingar in Co.Westmeath to see our fellow TY's perform in a drama competition. 

Since our class Fodla was not taking part we had the stress free, relaxing job of being the audience. Before classes Banba and Eiru started their dramas we had to point out any flaws they had, which was a little bit hard as I found it really hard to fault any of them but with a bit of constructive criticism from us they perfected their plays. I found alot of the characters needed to project their voices more to the audience as we found it difficult to hear them. 

First up was class Eiriu with their adaptation of the famous Seamus Heaney poem 'Midterm Break'. I found this interesting because I studied this poem for my junior cert. This poem was fantastically acted out by the girls on stage and they really brought the poem to life. it is a truly heartbreaking ,sad poem which deals with death so it was very emotional acting going on. 

Another drama in class Eiriu was based on the song 'Concrete Angel' which is in my opinion is one of the saddest songs ever! It is about a little girl who is being abused and eventually dies as a result of being beaten to death by her mother. Isabelle did an amazing job of playing the part of the father. She did a monologue towards the end of the play at the little girls funeral which really pulled at my heart strings and there was no doubt that there weren't many dry eyes in the house! Background music was also added into this play which made it a million times more effective. The lighting in both plays were also used very well and really made them professional. All I can say is well done girls!

Next up was class Banba. Again they took on quite depressing , emotional issues in their dramas which shocked me as I wasen't aware of the abilty of acting in our year! My favourite one was 'Tich Miller' inspired by the poem by Wendy Cope. This dealt with the topic of bullying which is always a very sad storyline in my opinion. Tich who was played by Vicky did an amazing job portaying the main character , Tich Miller. Her costume was exactly as described in the poem , It was almost as if she had jumped out of the poem and onto the stage! The poem describes the everyday life Tich faced in school from the bullies. It was brilliantly re-anacted by the girls in Banba and by the last line of the poem I could almost feel myself welling up.. Emilys a witness! "Tich died when she was twelve" I have to say this line of the poem got me. Again the lighting and music used in this play was very effective here and added to my enjoyment of the production, even if I was an emotional mess!

After that we went to MACDONALDS! This was the highlight of my day..  speaking on behalf of all TY's here! We stuffed our faces and headed out to wonder the streets of Mullingar (litrially). Emily then spotted the Joe Dolan statue and got a tad to over excited! She took a picture of it and certainly embraced the moment alright.. Oh well at least it cheered us up about not going to One Direction that night!

Overall A great ty outing was had by all. Well done girls, you were all fabulous ,Hollywood watch out! 

Zumbaa

On Thursdays from now on we are doing massaging classes instead of photography which are really relaxing and so different from any other class we do:)We also do zumba instead of pilates! It's so much fun and the teacher really gets you in the dancing mood:D
Im so excited for next week already!

Back 2 Schooool (stolen from Dunnes..)

So were back to school after a great Christmas break! Just before Christmas our class organised a a party for all of TY, It was so fun and everyone enjoyed it. After that we went bowling which was also real fun and such a good way to finish up for the Christmas holidays, especially knowing that the rest of the school are stuck in school doing exams!
On Friday All TY's are going to the BT Young Scientist Exhibition in the RDS:)Im really looking forward to seeing all the projects especially the girls that got through from our school:) good luck to to everyone involved! Yous will do great!:D In science we have to prepare a slideshow presentation for our rejected young scientist entry *tear* and we are also working on our visual display this week aswell for the sci-fest competition later in the year:) In Religion we are going to connect with a school in Austrailia about St Bridgits Day in Ireland. Our class are breaking up into groups to work on different things like acting out a video , researching Co.Kildare and the use of the famous st.bridgits cross. It sounds like alot of fun and should be interesting to do! Just like to take this time out to say Happy New Year to all you bloggers out there! Hope 2012's a good one:)
Bye xo-R

desert flower

In religion we watched a film called 'Desert Flower' about the famous model Waris Dirie. The film is based around the life of Waris and the struggles she faced throughout her life. She was living in Somalia with her family up until the age of about 8 or 9 mostly minding the camels and we see her just being treated very unfairly just because of her gender.Her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in another part of the country so she didn't have to face marraige to a much older man. Her marraige was arranged and at the age of three she got female genital mutilation performed on her which is a practise that happens to many women in Somalia and deprives women of basically being women. However Waris runs away to the streets of London and makes a friend there who eventually discovers what has happened to Waris back in Somalia, Waris thinks this practise happens to every woman and doesn't understand why the people in the UK are not like her. She then gets discovered by a famous photographer from a top class model agency and becomes a famous model. She uses her fame to campaign against the rights of women and to stop female mutilation all over the world. This film has thought me alot about the rights of women and how unfair and unequal the world is. It really opened by eyes to what happens to women and girls of my own age in other countries and made me feel lucky to be treated fairly and equally in Ireland today. Thanks Ms. L for that:)