Breakfast is good!.. In school, with all your TY heads, tis even better! :D

On Wednesday the 15th of December, our fellow TY heads from class Emnet organised a lovely Christmas breakfast for our class, Amina.
They set up the tables in the 2nd year mall with delicious breakfast food like, brioche toast, tea, coffee etc. They put in a huge effort to this event. The girls in Emnet wanted to do this as a little gesture of kindness at Christmas time.
We took loads of pictures and we had a great time dancing away to our favourite Christmas songs. Our TY coordinator even joined in on the fun. We ended the breakfast with a big train of all the TY girls and our coordinator swinging the around the mall.
To show our appreciation of what the girls in Emnet did for us, we made them a nice card. We made it using the Christmas colours of red and green. The girls in Emnet were thrilled with the card that we gave to them.
It was a great way to finish up for the Christmas holidays.

Niamh! :D

Put the eggs and bread on top! :)

Last weekend, the Irish Cancer Society had a bag-packing session in our local Tesco supermarket. Two girls in our year organised a list and timetable for anybody in the year who wanted to volunteer on one or two of the days. I volunteered on Saturday morning for three hours. There were plenty of volunteers on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon aswell.
We had to cover whatever tills were open and we also had a table at the entrance of the supermarket for selling raffle tickets and badges and candles. We took turns in selling at the table and packing the bags.
It was a very good, worthwhile cause. We ended up collecting a fabulous total of 2,600 euro.
There is another list for this Sunday in the same supermarket. Hopefully we will be as successful with the money that we raise and with the number of volunteers that we get.

The best packers!!! :D

Niamh! :D

Strutt your shtuff!!! :D

On Friday the 10th of December, we had our home economics fashion show. The show was on from two o'clock until the end of the school day. It was a really good, fun and enjoying afternoon in school. We were modelling the outfits that we made in our groups before the snow holidays.
There are three home ec classes in TY. In each class there were four or five smaller groups. There were fourteen different outfits to be modelled. I was the model for my group in my class. Each outfit was fabulous in its own, unique way. My outfit resembled a love bug or ladybug.
Even though it was good fun modelling the outfit, it was still rather embarrassing! There were fifth years watching us, a lot of who did their Junior Cert with me and who I knew pretty well. There were also first years watching us but it wasn't as embarrassing to model for them. The judges were Ms L and Ms O'H. They were really impressed with the different styles in each group. Our home ec teacher Ms McA, our year coordinator Ms L, the P.E teacher Mr L and the chaplain Mr K were all aslo watching us the fashion show. 
I walked to the song "firework" by Katy Perry. The judges were impressed with our outfit and mood board. In the end, there were six winners. My group was one of those winners. There was no overall winner as the two judges couldn't come to a decision as to whose outfit and presentation was the best. The six winners won a big tin of roses.. They were delicious! :)
Even though at times the making of the outfit was quite stressful, in the end it was all worth it.



The fourteen stunning models.. and Stepho!!! :L

 Niamh! :D

Christmas dress-up day!

Yesterday was our annual Christmas themed dress-up day in school. This time round we weren’t given specific themes for each year group. We just had an overall theme of Christmas. A good few people in our year made a great effort.

There were presents, santas, sheppards, kings, elves, a Mary and we even had a Coca-cola truck! I wanted to dress up as a reindeer but unfortunately I didn’t find a costume in time. Instead, I pinned a stocking to my jumper. I filled the stocking with sweets and gave them out to everyone throughout the day.

The winners in TY were Chloe and Ruth. They were the Coca-cola truck. Chloe was the driver dressed as Santa Claus and Ruth was in the back dressed as Rudolf, with a red flashing nose!

Overall, it was a great day with lots of Christmas Spirit throughout the school!

Niamh! :D

Pilates- Lets tighten those ‘not-so-tight’ muscles!

On Wednesday for double PE we had a lesson in Pilates. A lady, called Angela, came into us to give us this class. It was a relaxing class. We learned how to tighten our core muscles in a proper way. We also learned how to breathe properly whilst doing exercise.

Some of the exercises were difficult to achieve at first but I think everybody grasped it after a few trials and errors!

Pilates class seems to be really worthwhile and is great for preventing injuries and bad postures. It is a great opportunity and experience for us in TY.

Niamh! :D

Meditation! (A.K.A: Falling asleep!)

In pastoral care on Tuesday, Ms K.B did a meditation with us. It was really really good. I think most of the class actually fell asleep! It was enjoyable and very relaxing. It helped me to get rid of any stress I had. We should meditate more often in school!

Niamh! :D

Cookies... Delicious!

On Tuesday for our double home economics class period, we baked chocolate chip cookies. They were absolutely delicious! I baked with C-Dog (Chloe!). We started off well and we ended with a great result. The cookies were really simple to make. We only needed some margarine, some sugar, some flour and some chocolate.

For some strange reason, the mixture didn’t turn into a dough. We had to use our hands to squeeze the mixture together and then into small balls.

We were able to tell which balls of the mixture belonged to who because my hands are small so I had really small cookies!!! Ha!

Me and C-Dog worked really well together as a team!

Niamh! :D

Snow School! :)

On Monday, the 29^th of November, we all got off school 10 minutes early. This was due to the snow that was pelting down from the sky. 10 minutes may seem like a pointless time frame. But when you’ve been in school all day long, looking out at the snow, not being allowed to go out in it, 10 minutes means everything!

When our principal announced that we were getting off early, everyone went wild! It was great. We all ran outside the school and started throwing snowballs at each other. Snow was coming at me from every direction.

For the rest of that week we were off school. It snowed heavily most of the days. The heaviest snowfall was on Wednesday night and into Thursday. We had about 8 to 10 inches of soft, powdery snow on the ground outside. Even though it was cold outside, the snow made everything look so beautiful.

During our snow holidays, I spent a while every morning working on the different projects that I have due in the next week or two. I made really good progress on these projects, which allowed me then to go and enjoy the snow without feeling guilty or without the thoughts of projects hanging over my shoulders!

Niamh! :D

Podcasting! :)

On Friday we had two men come in to our class for half of the day. They are involved in podcasting. We had a workshop, a really good one at that, on how to create podcasts. It was soo much fun! A great start to the weekend.
They put us into groups of five or six girls. Three of the groups went off to a different classroom and the other two groups stayed in Mrs L's room.
We were told to pick a random topic that could be discussed or made into something like an ad. our group chose the topic of new Irish Takeaways being opened. We began our script with two radio show hosts talking about Irish takeaways. I played the role of one of these show hosts. We then had an AD prepared for a new Irish takeaway which was called "Paddy's Potatoes". We made the ad humorous as this is what generally catches people's attention.
when our script was written and we had it rehearsed, we had to go up to the computer that was set up and record it as a podcast. Our first recording was really good, so we didn't have to keep recording it! ooh yeah! Then we started making it sound really good by adding in background music to the ad and radio show hosts.
When everyone was finished making their podcast, we all got to listen to one anothers. They were all really different but really good.
The podcasting was a really good and worthwhile experience. We also learned that the word podcast comes from both ipod and broadcast.!

Niamh! :D

Back from our world trip.. So Soon!!! :)

Today, I presented my geography trip to my class along with Chloe and Ruth. Ruth gave a presentation on Jamaica, Chloe presented on Australia and I presented on Madagascar.
We were the first group out of the class to present our projects so we really didnt know what was to be expected of us!
So, we just went for it and we got through it smoothly enough! I feel that i presented my project reasonably well enough! I just hope Mrs L thinks so too.. (wink,wink!)
I thoroughly enjoyed completing this project and i feel I learned a lot about other countried from doing this project!
As well as being educational and enjoyable, the project was also a lot of fun, having to pretend that we actually went to these countries and that we had actually seen the things in the pictures that we were showing.

Niamh! :D

Hitting the dance floor! :D

On Wednesday we had another exciting double P.E class of dancing. Sharon came in to us and showed us another great dance routine for banging out on the dance floor! We danced to a few different songs. The dance routine best suited the beat of Usher-Dj got us falling in love again.
This was our second class double P.E class of dancing. We will have one more dancing class before we move onto three weeks of pilates.
The dancing is a really good, fun and enjoyable experience!

Niamh! :D

Get off the pitch!!! :L

On Tuesday, Aoife, Leah, Ruth, Lauren and myself headed down to the GAA club in Naas to take part in a refereeing course. There were others there aswell. They were from Naas, Maynooth, Cappagh, Johnstownbridge and a club in Dublin. We were really lucky to have been given the chance by the school to do this course. The cost was €15 per person, but our school covered these costs for us. Unfortunatley there was a misunderstanding in communications along the way, as myself and Leah were of the understanding that the course was going to cover any GAA sport. We weren't the only ones who thought this as there were six lads there too who were told the same thing. The course ended up being just for camogie. In the end it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. For the most part of the day we spoke about referees in general and the characteristics that go along with referees. For the last forty minutes to an hour we discussed the rules of camogie.
I did benefit from listening to these rules as i didn't already know all of the rules of camogie.
Niamh! :D

Mini Company Workshop! :)

On Monday we went to Naas for our third mini company workshop. Usually our two mini company teachers, Mrs L and Ms E come with us. This time round, however, Mrs L our TY coordinator and Mrs E came with us. We were joined in the workshop by CBS in Naas. The workshop was mainly focused on how we relate to people in our businesses. We were shown two video clips about addressing people in the right and wrong ways. I feel that we will benefit a lot from these two videos in our Mini company competition.
Our mini company beauty tips  book/download is, in my opinion, piecing tether really well. All six of us are putting in the work that is needed. The positions in our group have also been finalised.
They are as follows:

C.E.O: Orlaigh
Finance: ME
Web design, marketing and advertising: Niamh Mc and Niamh C
Editing and product design: Karen
Communications: Oriana

Our product and website should be on their way and ready to be sold in the coming weeks!

Niamh! :D

Back to school! :)

Well Friday was my last day of work experience. I really didn't want to leave when half three came around on the clock.
The week was so enjoyable and I did learned quite a lot about pharmacy. When I was leaving the pharmacy, my supervisor gave me a lovely bottle of perfume and a make-up palette! I was thrilled with this. He also asked me for my contact details in case they are ever in need of help over Christmas. It was a great way to end the week.
Believe it or not, I'm really looking forward to returning to school. I did miss seeing everyone throughout the week. I especially missed having lunch time with everyone everyday!
The whole experience of the working world was really really worthwhile and a great opportunity for us at such a young age.
Talk soon, Niamh! :D

Closer to the end than I thought! :(

Four days have come and gone..still almost feels like I'm on my first though!!! ''Time flies by when you're having fun!'' :D
Today, once again, was really good fun, enjoyable and interesting. I learned a little bit more about pharmacy, I enjoyed learning about it and I had fun doing my jobs. The employees are extremely nice. I met a few new faces today because some of the employees job share.
Today for lunch I met up with Chloe. For some really strange and idiotic reason, instead of finding somewhere indoors to sit down and eat, we decided to buy our lunch in a shop and we sat down in the freezing cold and gale force winds eating our lunch!
Tomorrow is my last day of working in the pharmacy. I hope it goes just as well, if not better, than the past four days have gone for me.
I shall write again tomorrow to fill you in on the ''buzz'' from the last day!

Niamh! :D

Wednesday!.. Already?! :)

Oh my gosh! I cant believe that it is Wednesday already. Ive only got two more days left of my first work experience. The past three days have just flew by.
Today was, yet again, another really good, interesting day. I got down to work first thing this morning and I kept going until lunch time at one o 'clock. The pharmacy got a massive order in this morning of "over-the-counter" medicines. E.g, Nurofen, Gaviscon Benylin etc. I was given the job of counting up all of the orders and making sure that they matched the quantities on the invoice. When that was done, the medicines had to be put onto the computer. They then had to be priced, using the price gun. When they were all priced I had to put them out on the shelves or else store them in the storage room.
It may sound like a pretty uninteresting and boring job but I certainly found it to be good fun. Before I knew it, it was time for me to go for my lunch.
When I came back after lunch, I continued with this job and soon enough my work for the day had been complete.
Tomorrow, I am going to be setting up a display on the front window for cold and flu remedies like lemsip and strepsils. I also have to design a poster for the shop which will have the details of their Christmas raffle on it.
Talk again soon, Niamh! :D

Tuesday..a boring day?! :-/

Tuesday, probably the most boring of days! The day after Monday, day before Wednesday which feels forever AND a day away. Well that wasnt the case for me today, however!!!
I had another interesting, fun and exciting day working in the chemist. I did quite similar jobs to yesterday but I didnt mind because I loved it. I did spend a bit more time working on prescriptions today than I did yesterday.
For lunch I toddled in next door and got myself a lovely, warm bowl of homemade veggie soup from Halo Cafe along with two slices of freshly cut brownbread. That filled me up for the rest of the afternoon so when I went back to the pharmacy after lunch I was all set for more jobs.
The afternoon was quiet enough, which gave me extra time to find out a little bit more about pharmacy and different drugs etc.

Niamh! :D

The working world! First experience! :)

Well what can I say, only, I cannot wait to get a job!
I walked into Walsh's pharmacy this morning at half nine on the dot, with a big smile plastered across my face as I walked up to the counter to introduce myself to the staff members. You know what they say, first impressions are lasting impressions! My supervisor is a really pleasant man and the four other employees are helpful and friendly too.
I got cracking on a task straight away. My first job was to "spring clean" the shelves that had all of the health supplements stocked on them. I know what you're probably thinking, cleaning and re-stocking shelves?! Hate that! But you're soo wrong! It was really good fun. I got to use the really tall step ladder and I learned a little about health and the different supplements for different parts of the body as I scanned through all of the boxes. I also learned the valuable lesson of "the lazy man's load!" At times, I tried to pretend that I had bigger hands than I really do, so I took more boxes than my hands could cater for and a few of the boxes took flying trips here, there and everywhere! I'm putting it all down to the learning process though!
Throughout the morning, I was assigned other small jobs so that I could get a taste of everything "for the first time"
My lunch break was from one o'clock to two o'clock. For that hour I went home to grab a bite to eat.
When I got back at two, my supervisor assigned me more small jobs to do like check the afternoon stock, order the receipts numerically and sort out some prescriptions (under the supervision of the pharmacist of course!)
Even though, I was floating around the place, doing small things throughout the day, I still really enjoyed myself.
As the saying goes, "it's the small things in life that count!"
Here's hoping that tomorrow will be as successful, if not even more! ;)

Niamh! :D

History- Local history project

We have been assigned a project on local history. This project will be graded, which will then be used for the result on our Christmas reports. We have been asked to choose a town which is associated with history and has historical significance. We have the option of choosing our own town, Celbridge, or else a town in which we have relatives or from which our parents are from.
I am going to research either Celbridge or Foxford, a town in the County of Mayo. My mam comes from this town. I have books on the history for both of these towns which makes the decision all the harder for me but the researching all the easier for me! It would be nice to really understand the origin of your own local town but it would also be interesting to learn about the origin of the town from which a lot of my relatives are from.
Either way, I feel this will be an enjoyable project because I like local history and learning about how things were in Ireland in the past.

Young Scientists!

On Tuesday afternoon we were informed that our project unfortunately was not accepted into the young Scientists exhibtion for 2011. The judges felt that our project wasnt original so they decided to leave it out, seeing as it had been done before. There was only one project in our school that made it through to the exhibition in the RDS which will be on in January. This project is based on the different quantities of anti-oxidants there are in different substances. I feel the girls who are doing this project will do really well with it.
Even though our project didnt make it through to the exhibition in the RDS, we will still get the chance to complete it and put it on display at the end of the year for all of the students in the school.

Double Dancing!!!

On Wednesday, we began our first dancing session for double P.E. A girl from outside the school came in to teach us how to move with the groove! Her name is Sharon. She is a really friendly and out going person. She is amazing at dance herself. We began with a simple warm up routine. When we were feeling the heat, Sharon began to get down with the hot and heavy moves. Some of the moves were simple enough, others were not so simple and it took some of us a while to catch on! We danced to quite a few different songs, like, Flo-Rida Club can't handle me, Taio Cruz Dynamite and Rhianna Only girl.
We will have dancing for our double P.E on a Wednesday for the next two weeks.
Overall I found the session to be very good and a lot of fun. We plan to dance the night away for T.Y night in May with some of the moves we are learning!

Niamh :D

Halloween Dress Up Day! :P

On Friday the 22nd of October, we had a dress up day in school. Our theme was obviously the halloween theme. The halloween theme was then further broken down into three other themes. First, second and third years were to dress up as something that you would find in a haunted house. T.Y and fifth years were given the theme of scary movies. Sixth years dressed up as the theme of Harry Potter.
A lot of the T.Y's made a great effort to dress up. Orlaigh Kennard and Ciara Mitchell represented class Amina in the parade at lunch time.
The day was really good fun and was a great end to the first half of the first term this year.

Class Amina!!! :)

Aaaaahhhhh!!! :L



Creeepy!!! :O

Accord talk!

Yesterday, we did a programme revolving around relationships and sexuality. A catholic group, called Accord, came in to run the programme with us.
I must say that the programme was really interesting and informed me of a lot that I didn't already know about at all. The woman's name was Margaret and she was very friendly. She made us all feel really comfortable about what we would have been talking about and she allowed us to leave the room if the topics got too much for us. Some of the topics and issues that we talked about and the stories that we shared were pretty funny! Other issues, on the other hand, were more serious and we had to understand how careful we have to be with relationships and sexuality.
I hope that all transition year students get this  talk from accord every year as I have certainly benefited from it.

Niamh :D

Mini company! :)

Yesterday, we headed off to Naas at nine o'clock in the morning. We went to the moate theatre for a mini company workshop. Scoil Mhuire from Clane and another school, St. Paul's, Monasterevin near County Laois were also in attendance of the workshop.
This is the second trip that we've had for our mini company. During this workshop we talked a lot about market research and different ways to market our products. The woman that spoke to us from the Kildare Enterprise Bord picked a few different C.E.O's to stand up and speak about their team and their product. She then asked some marketing managers from other groups to stand up and talk about the ideas that their group had for marketing their product. At the end of the workshop, she explained a little bit about finance and asked the finance managers to have a finance plan drawn up for the next time that we go to naas, which will be Monday the 15th of November.
When the workshop was complete, all of us headed to McDonald's for our lunch. However, myself and Kate decided to go to Superquinn and look for cheap, healthier food in there. Lucky for us, the baker had just put out freshly cut breads, both sweet and savory as tasters. So, as you can imagine we fed ourselves on those before buying our lunch from the hot deli! It was really worth the trip to Superquinn!!! :D

Colour me beautiful!!! :)

On Friday morning we went to the demo room for the first three classes. During this time we were entertained by two women who came in to teach us a little bit about the different tones of the body and which colours of clothing are most suited to them. The women talked about the six different colour groupings and what kind of people are in each group. After they talked to us they went around to each girl and told her which group she was in. The judged the colour of the skin, hair and eyes.
I was put into the warm group. This group is for people who have fair skin, some freckles, blue/grey eyes and either red, strawberry blonde hair. Even though i don't have either of those two hair colourings, i was still put into that colour group because my hair supposedly has a 'warm colouring'!!! :)
After we were put into our groups a volunteer from each group was asked to go to the top of the room and the two ladies matched colours up to them. They showed us how different colours suit different people.
When we were finished with the colour testing, we moved on to talk about different style personalities and body shapes. We were given a questionnaire to complete which determined which style personality we were. I was classed as a natural. This is somebody who generally likes to be comfortable in what they wear and doesn't take long to get ready to go out.. Unlike the romantics who could take up to a week to get ready for a night out!!! :L The women talked to us about different body shapes and how everybody can be shaped differently.
I found this event really interesting and extremely useful. I feel I have benefited a lot from it.

Niamh is warm

Davina is light

Friday feeling!!! :L

Wahaay!!! It's Friday once again! Isn't it just such a great feeling?!?!?. On a Friday we seem to do soo much during the day. Art is last class for me and we shall be painting with ink! I can already see the fun that we'll have there! :L
The first junior camogie match is away today. A good few of the girls from Ty are gone along to play. Unfortunately I'm too old for that team. 
I have a busy weekend ahead with all of the projects that I have to work on at home!
Enjoy your weekend... ;)

MOGADISHU!!! :P

Niamh :D

Transition year projects!

At the moment we have a project to complete in most of the subjects we are doing.
In English we are taking part in a drama competition. There are two different groups in the class. One of the groups are doing a play on ''Noughts and Crosses'' and the other group are doing a drama on the poem ''But you Didn't'' by Merrill Glass.
In Irish we have been given the task to design the front cover of a newspaper. The cover must contain two different stories.
In home economics we are in the process of designing an outfit. We are in groups of either four or five. My group got the colour red. We are doing the theme of love and our inspiration is Cheryl Cole.
In technology we will be entering a competition to design a formula one car and race against other formula one cars designed by pupils in other schools. My team' name is ''Turbo Speed''. I am the team manager. 
We have entered the BT Young Scientists exhibition. We will get confirmation of whether or not we've made it through, by Christmas.
In mini company we have just gotten permission from our principal to go ahead with our idea. We now have to carry out market research in the school.
In history we have to present a power point to the class on one of the events during the cold war or the period just after the cold war. I am doing the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In music we are in different groups creating a music video and a song based on a theme. I am in the African group.
In religion, we have to create a prayer space every month. I have been assigned the month of May.
In art we are trying out different methods and techniques each week. Today we drew a picture of an object and then we painted it using ink.
In P.E each week for our double class we are getting two instructors from Barn hall R.F.C to come and teach us different skills in rugby.
In Spanish we have to do a project on a Spanish topic of our choice. We have to research the topic and then give a power point presentation.
Even though we are really busy with all of our projects, we are still enjoying every bit of it!

Niamh :D

Geography - Travelling around the world!

At the moment in geography we are doing a project on a trip around the world. The project involves choosing two countries form each of the three worlds and finding out interesting palces and things to see and do in these countries. One of the countries that I have chosen to travel to in the third world is Madagascar.
Madagascar is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the south eastern coast of Africa. Malagasy is one of the official languages. One interesting fact that I have found out about Madagascar is that 5% of the world's plant and animal species live on the island.



Niamh :D

Fun Walk! :P

On Friday the 24th of September our annual school fun walk took place. We had great craic that day. Our class group, amina, won the best Ty class. Our tutor won the best tutor. Our year group colour was yellow. We spend a lot of time in the week leading up to the fun walk, practising and rehersing our dance. In the end the dance went really really well. We danced to the song ''Reach'' by S Club 7.
Some of the transition year students volunteered to help out with the traffic management etc on the day. I was one of the volunteers. I was in a group with Chloe, Ruth and jessica. We were managing the traffic at the junction at Scoil na Mainistreach.
When everybody had gone by us, we headed back to the school where we were given a bar of chocolate and a drink. The prefects were cranking up the tunes and we had a great afternoon dancing around the tennis courts!                                          



Niamh :D

Mini company! :)

About two weeks ago we went down to naas to a mini company wrokshop. The workshop took place in the Moate Theatre in Naas town centre. It was a really good experience. the woman who gave the presentation was very friendly and welcoming. Her name is Orla. She showed us different video clips and powerpoints regarding etting up your own business. After the presentation we were allowed to go down the town to McDonalds. We all sat there for about twenty minutes eating and chatting!  We then headed back home on the bus to the school.
This morning, Orla came to our school to see how our mini company ideas were coming along.  She went through each of the eight groups individually. She helped us to expand on our ideas and told us whether or not she felt oyur ideas would feature well in the competition.

Niamh :D

Junior Cert Results! ..what a blast!!!

The day after Carlingford, we received our junior cert results. After a long wait the day had finally come around. I was soo nervous that morning. What made it worse was I had to go to the dentist that day aswell. My appointment got delayed and so I was really tight for time trying to get back to the school on time. I got back to the school and I was shaking because the results were out. Everybody was outside screaming and cheering with joy and excitement. I jumped out of the car and literally sprinted inside to where I met my deputy principal holding the envelope with my results. I took the envelope and I froze to the spot! I didn’t know what to do. One of my friends came up to me and opened the envelope for me. Then I just whipped out the piece of paper. When I looked I think my mouth hit the floor. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was absolutely thrilled. All the hard, long, boring days of study had really payed off.

That night we all headed down to Time in Naas. We went to my house before hand to get ready and have something to eat. The night was amazing. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Niamh :D

Carlingford Bonding Trip!!! :)

On Monday morning, 13^th of September, we all headed off to Carlingford. We met up at the Esso station at a quarter to seven in the morning. Two teachers came with us. Ms O’C and Ms R. There were two buses, a big bus and a mini bus. I travelled on the mini bus with eleven other girls in the year. Ms R travelled on our bus as well. The bus journey was good buzz. We sang and talked the whole way there. When we got to Carlingford we had to walk a little bit to get to the hostel. We were greeted by some of the staff members. We were separated into different rooms. The twelve of us that were on the minibus together got a room together. We had the biggest room in the hostel. Seeing as we arrived at the centre so early we got to go out on activities straight away. We got divided into two big groups. Those two groups were further divided into three smaller groups.

We headed out to activities as soon as we were ready. They were great craic altogether. When we got back to the adventure centre we had food. We were given chicken nuggets, chips and beans. After the food we went out on the water. That was the most enjoyable part of the whole trip. Some of us went Canadian canoeing and the rest went kayaking. The wind was REALLY strong out on the water so we had to be careful. After the boating activities we all went peer jumping...that was great! We returned to the centre and had stew for dinner. After we had eaten we went out in our two groups again and we walked up the mountains. It was tiring but yet again good fun! On our way back the leaders brought us to a tunnel through which the river flowed. If we wanted to, we were allowed to walk through it onto the other side. Most of us crawled through it. It was really scary. I couldn’t see a thing. We slowly but surely made our way back to the centre in the rain for the night. When we got changed Ms O’ C brought us down to the Chinese take away. We all got 3 in 1’s.

At 11 o’clock we all had to head up to bed. Obviously sharing a room with 12 other girls didn’t make it easy to settle down to sleep for a good few hours! We had a mountain of sweets to eat ad lots of stories to tell.

The next morning, we had to be up early, pack up our bags, strip the beds and clean the rooms before we made our way down for breakfast. After all that was done we went out in our groups again. After the first activity we went for lunch back at the centre. Then we went orienteering with two different leaders. In the beginning it was good fun but then we all started getting hungry and tired.

We had to be back at the centre for half four because our bus was leaving at half five or so. The bus journey back was really good fun and we talked and laughed about the different things that had happened to us over the two days.

We arrived back at the Esso station at around seven o’ clock. Everyone was exhausted. We all had to head home and get ready for the following day because we were receiving our Junior Cert results…Eeek!!!

Id like to thank the two teachers who brought us on our bonding trip to Carlingford and to all of the other girls who made it a very worthwhile experience! ;)

Niamh :D

TY - Social development day! :)

On Monday 6^th of September 2010, class Amina had a social development day. There were quite a lot of activities involved. It was a very worthwhile day, in my opinion! We had a guest speaker, Austin Dunne. He was really good fun. Our overall goal was to have gained MEGA-confidence! I think everybody left the library on Monday having gained MEGA-confidence! In order to achieve that goal we had to take part in lots of activities and communicate a lot. The first activity involved pairing up with another girl in the class, finding out some things about that girl and then introducing her to the rest of the class. That was good fun. I was paired off with Ruth. We had good craic finding out things about each other. The best was the question of ‘your most embarrassing moment’! Later in the day, we did an activity on different personalities. We used colours to differentiate between the four personality types. The colours that we used were red, yellow, green and blue. The reds are the ‘Hot directors’, the yellows are the ‘Bubbly Entertainers’, the greens are the ‘Mediators’ and the blues are the ‘Observers’. I was categorised into the yellow group. The bubbly entertainers are represented by mad cows! Overall the day was very enjoyable. I feel it was a very worthwhile day as we all got to know each other a lot better! By the end of our social development day I think every one of us had gained MEGA confidence. This showed us that all goals can be achieved with determination.

Niamh! :D

Ty - The First Week!

We started in TY on the last day in august. We got off to a really good start, being put into classes with most of our friends. There are two classes for TY, Emnet and Amina. I am in class Amina. This is the Spanish class. Emnet are in the French class. The names came from an African language. Amina means truth and honesty. Emnet means belief and faith.

We had tutor time first thing on Tuesday morning. Ms O’ Callaghan is our tutor. During tutor time we discussed the general overview of TY and all of the things that we would be doing during the school year. Our TY co-ordinator, Mrs Leahy, came to talk to us as well. We got our journals and our locker keys in this class. My locker is outside in the courtyard… seemingly these lockers leak during the wet weather. It’s a good job that I don’t need to use my locker for any books!

This year, we get a chance to do all of the subject options available in the school. This means that we have a lot of subjects on our timetables. Class Amina is together for most of the subjects that we have. However, we are split up for three of our option classes and for science. We are split up with some of the other class, Emnet, for these classes. We will be taking part in and completing many tasks/activities this year.

In home economics we get the chance to create an outfit. Each group of four or five is assigned a colour. My group got the colour red. One girl in the group will have to model the completed outfit in fashion show. We also get to accessorise the outfit in whatever way we like. In science we are all taking part in the BT young scientist and technology exhibition. This takes place in the RDS after Christmas every year. I’m doing my project on sport and exercise. In technology we talked about health and safety. It was kind of boring. In art I drew my first ever proper picture, but it was still pretty bad!!!

So far, everything has gone really well for me and for my class and the other class.

Talk soon, Niamh!!! :D