Imagination is the key! :)

Yesterday, Wednesday, our first two classes were spent with a story writer and illustrator in the library. Oisin McGann was the name of the writer/illustrator that came in to talk to us.
He was a really nice and upbeat man. He talked to us about how to become a good writer. He gave us tips on how to start off writing. He started off by telling us that the most important thing when writing is to write every idea that you have down on a piece of paper. Oisin told us that he always has a notebook and pen in his pocket. He also told us that he leaves a notebook and pen beside his bed every night because sometimes he wakes up with an amazing writing idea during the night, but if he doesn't write it down, he will have forgotten it the next morning.
He began to tell us about how he comes up with ideas. He told us that sometimes you can look at something so simple but by using your imagination you can turn it in to something amazing. He used the example of looking at a shoe! He came up with a fabulous story about how a small shoe used to cover your feet during the day turns into a blood-sucking creature at night time. Now come on, is that good use of imagination or what?! :L
After that wild story, he showed us some of his already published books. He gave us a little insight into what some of the are about. In my opinion, Oisin McGann has a great sense of imagination but his style of writing s a tad weird for my liking. That's not to say that he isn't good, however. He really is good a grabbing peoples' attention.
When we were coming near the end of the workshop, Oisin took a slightly different route from writing and he began to draw us a picture based on one of his books that he had just explained to us. It was absolutely amazing to watch the drawing appear on the blank piece of paper. When he had finished drawing the picture, Oisin signed it and presented it to our class for a keepsake. We all jumped into a picture with him holding up the illustration.
Oisin's workshop was really good fun and I liked how it was a different way of learning about journalism/writing/illustrating.

Niamh! :D

To Croke Park we go! :D

Today, 14th February, all of TY went on a history trip to the GAA museum in Croke Park. I was really looking forward to this outing seeing as I am a big fan of the GAA.
We left the school at around twelve o'clock mid-day. There were two buses to take us to Croke Park. There was a big 52 seater and then a smaller 18 seater. I went on the 18 seater. Ms McG and Ms McH were the two accompanying teachers on the trip. Ms McG came on the mini bus with us.
When we got to the museum we were greeted by our tour guide. He was a really friendly man. By the sounds of things he has been working there for quite some years now. We went into a meeting room first of all. We were shown a twenty minute video on how the staff, stewards and gardai prepare for match days, especially All-Ireland Sundays in September.
The video was really good, it showed everything that goes on behind the scenes and in front of the scenes on match days. After the video, we followed the guide out to the bus tunnel. He explained everything to us about where the team buses drive in with the teams. We went into the players lounge to see where the teams go after a match for food and drinks. We then walked across to the dressing rooms. We sat in the dressing room that Tipperary used for the 2010 All-Ireland hurling final. The jerseys from each of the thirty two counties plus the London and New York jerseys were all hung around the dressing rooms on display. At a higher level to the rest of the jerseys, were the four All-Ireland Champion jerseys. Cork-Football, Tipperary-Hurling, Wexford-Camogie and Dublin-Ladies' Football.
After the dressing rooms, we headed out and around the stadium. I even stood on the edge of the grass! Myself and Stephanie, Leah, Chloe and Jessica headed up to the Ard Chomhairle stand to see what it was like to be the All-Ireland winners! Everyone then came up to join us! We sat down along the most important row of seats. The tour guide talked us through each stand and explained the historical significance of each one. We then went up to the very top of the upper tier - not a good idea for people who are afraid of heights!!! :L After that trip, we went back down to the middle level of the stadium and we were shown the premium boxes.
When the tour of the stadium was complete, the guide took us down to the museum and showed us around there. He then took us upstairs to where we could play different games associated with the GAA. They were so much fun! :D
A few of us grabbed a bite to eat in the coffee shop before we headed back home on the bus!
I had a really great day out and I think everybody else did too.

Niamh! :D

Trip to Poland.. Maybe! :D

On Thursday, we were informed about a religion trip that has been organised for the students who will be in 5th and 6th year in October. The trip will be to Poland, for four days during the Hallowe'en mid-term break.

Mrs L and Mrs K B are the two religion teachers that have

organised this trip. Even though it is religion based, there is still a really, good fun aspect attached aswell. We were given an application form, an page with information on the cost of the trip etc and an itinerary of the trip.

After an early morning flight to Poland, we will have a guided tour of Krakow including the old Town Square, University Distrtict, Wawel Hill, Kazimierz and the Jewish Quarter, Shinders factory. We will have an evening meal and then we will be given some free time to explore the old town square.

The following day we will have breakfast before going on an excursion to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp with on-site guide. We will return from the concentration camp via Wadowice, the birth place of Pope John Paul the second. We will have a meal again. Then we will be given time to go shopping at Krakow Plaza.

On the third day after breakfast, we will visit the Wieliczka Salt Mines. In the afternoon we will visit the Galicja Museum. Here, we may possibly get the chance to meet with some of the Holocaust survivors. Later, we will eat and then we will have a three hour session at Park Wodny waterpark.

On the fourth day if we have time before our flight, we will do some last minute shopping after our breakfast. We will then head to the airport and head back home.

This sounds like a really adventurous and fun trip.. let's not forget educational! I would absolutely love to go on the trip. There are so many others who would love to go aswell. Unfortunately though, there are only spaces available for forty students to go on this trip. The names of all applicants will have to be put in a hat and chosen at random if there is a huge demand, which I'm sure there will be.

In a way, some of us have an advantage. This is because quite a lot of the Leaving Certificate students will probably not put there names forward. Also, any of the girls who were lucky enough to go on the trip to Paris in second year, will not get first preference. If their names' are pulled out, they will go straight onto a waiting list.

My fingers a crossed on the double in the hope that my name will be picked to go on the trip!

Niamh! :D

Minco trip to town! :D

Yesterday, Wednesday 9th of February, myself and the other five girls in my TY mini company group took a trip into Dublin. It wasn't just any old trip to get off school though. We had a busy schedule ahead of us. We had to get the photographs taken that are needed for our hair and beauty book.
On Tuesday evening, we went through all that had to be done. We made out a checklist to make sure we wouldn't forget anything for the photographs being taken.
We set off on the bus into town at half nine in the morning. It took a while for us to get in there with all of the morning traffic. We got off the bus at heuston station and we headed for the NCAD on Thomas Street. We walked from the bus stop up onto James' Street. It was a straight walk down from James' Street to Thomas Street. We stopped off in a shop to get some food to keep us going until lunch time. Before we knew it, we were at the college.
We went inside to the college and we waited in reception for the student photographer who was going to help us with our mini company assignment. Katie was the name of the girl. She was such a lovely and friendly person. She had the photography studio booked for us from eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon. Katie brought us upstairs to the studio where we got ourselves organised and got cracking on the pictures straight away.
We had a list of running order set out for ourselves so we knew what was going on the whole time. We were working really hard and busily right up until one o'clock. We went for lunch then, We had an hour for lunch.
For the hour, we took off out of the college and we went to an amazing restaurant with delicious food called "The Food Gallery". Some of us had soup with brown bread, including myself. Some of the other girls had ham and cheese sandwiches.
After lunch, we got back to the studio in the college and we got everything finished that was on our list. At the very end of our studio session with Katie, we had a good laugh taking group pictures for our cover page of the book. We made them as casual and as fun looking as possible. For the very last photograph, Katie got her lecturer to take a picture of the six of us, herself and her friend, who had been helping her out for the day with us.
We gave Katie a card with a little token in it for herself, to show our appreciation for the time she gave up to help us. She told us that she would get them emailed out to us by this weekend.
We left the studios at around a quarter past four to catch the bus that was leaving Merrion Square at twenty three minutes past four. We got the bus from along the quays.
While we were walking to the bus stop, we came across a blind man trying to cross the road. We helped him across and then we got talking to him. He was going to the bus stop aswell to get a bus. We waited with him and chatted to him until his bus came.He was really thankful towards us for our help.
It was a really worthwhile and beneficial day out in town for Minco.

Niamh! :D

Lasagne for lunch?! ..YES please! :D

Today was a our second cookery class for the international cuisine project we're doing in home economics. Myself and Chloe made an absolutely AMAZING lasagna. I've never tasted anything so delicious before!
We had our double home economics class just before lunch, so we were able to have freshly cooked lasagna for lunch. The lasagna we made was not the typical "mince meat, white sauce, lasagna sheets and cheese" lasagna we make in Ireland. We made our lasagna using meatballs, a delicious tomato sauce, white sauce, mozzarella and lasagna sheets.
We had already prepared the tomato sauce because otherwise we would not have had it finished on time at all. We ended up running over time by about ten minutes but it was well worth. I ended up having a gorgeous lunch!
We have now made our two savoury dishes. Next, we have to make a sweet dish, which we don't have clue will be. We have a good bit of time to choose a sweet dish though because we won't be cooking again until after the mid-term break. We cannot cook next Tuesday because the mock examinations are on in our school for 3rd years and 6th years. When the mocks are on in our school our lunch time changes which will affect our double home economics class.
Looks like I wont be having another deliciously, warm lunch until after mid-term. :( Ahh well, sure I can look forward to that now!

Niamh! :D

2x + 3x = ?!?!

On Friday for our maths class we went to the hall with Ms K's maths class to have a fun maths quiz. The quiz was all about algebra and all the different forms using algebra. We did the quiz like you'd play Bingo.

We were spilt into groups of five or six girls. Ms K handed each group two cards full of answers to the questions she would ask us and a handful of counters. She began to read out each question. We then had to work out what the answer was and if it was on our card we marked it off with a counter.

In the end, the group who had the most counters on their card were the winners. They got to choose a bar from a selection of deliciously looking chocolate.

Chocolate always seems nicer when somebody else is eating it RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE! :L

It wasn't the chocolate that mattered though, it was the fact that we made a maths class into a good bit of craic, while still doing maths! :D

Niamh! :D

Damhsa Gaelach! Diddlyi! :)

On Fridays we have Irish straight after lunch. We tend to be quite chirpy in this class because it's on a Friday afternoon and it's straight after lunch. Our Friday Irish class is usually a fun class. We might watch Irish clips on the internet or play quizzes or listen to music in Irish etc.
However, the Friday just past was different. Our Irish teacher, Mr S, decided to bring us down to the hall with the other Irish class to do some Irish dancing.
I myself, am an Irish dancer and have been doing Irish dancing for the past twelve and a half years. I love seeing others enjoy the aul Irish reel or jig every now and again. The atmosphere in the hall on Friday was fantastic. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely, including myself.
We danced the "Walls of Limerick" and the "Siege of Ennis". These two figure dances are probably the most well known of all figure dances. We did these two dances over and over again until we had danced with every group of four or group of two.
At the very end, when MR S and Ms NC asked us to get organised for our last class, some of my friends who know that I do Irish dancing, started cheering me on to do a step or two for them. I don't mind that kind of thing because I enjoy dancing. I actually prefer dancing for the fun in front of a group like that, than dancing in the Championships at a Feis. This is because, when you're dancing for fun in front of a group of people like my fellow TY heads, there is no pressure and you feel so much more relaxed.
It was unfortunate that I was in my school kilt and that the music wasn't suited to my steps. I couldn't lift my legs up very high because otherwise my skirt would have ripped!!! Mr S didn't have any reel music, he just had music for ceili dancing and set dancing which was way to fast for my steps. However, I tried my best and I think everyone enjoyed my little performance! My friend, Karen, who used to do Irish dancing also performed a step. It took me to dance first though before she would!
It was such a good, fun and enjoyable Irish class. I only hope that there will be plenty more to come before the school year is out. I hope we do loads of fun things like that for Seachtain na Gaeilge in March!

Niamh! :D

Blitz in the rain.. :/

Yesterday, Saturday, we had the Lucan Sarsfields School Camogie Blitz. It was such a horrible day for a blitz. The rain was torrential and it was really cold for the whole day. We thought that it would be called off when we got to to the club. To our disappointment, however, it was still going to go ahead.
We were unable to play on the pitches as they would have gotten destroyed with us playing on them in that rain. We had to play on the astro-turf pitch. We're not used to playing camogie on astro-turf so that made the blitz even more difficult.Nobody was enthusiastic about playing because of the weather conditions.
In order to get the blitz over as quickly as possible on one pitch, each match only lasted seven minutes. There was no time for fluting around for the first few minutes of the matches. You had to get stuck in right from the very first whistle. The seven minutes was up before we knew it. We played four matches. We won one match. We drew one match. We lost two matches.
Unfortunately, because we lost two matches, we didn't get to the final. If the day was in anyway better, we probably would have done so much better than we did.
Regardless of not doing well in the blitz, we are still preparing, working hard and training well for our semi-final which will be held the week after our mid-term break.

Niamh! :D

Let's MOVE!

On Thursday morning we had a movement workshop for English drama. This workshop was organised by Ms C. The two classes were together in the hall for the workshop. Class Emnet have a double English period every Thursday after break time. We have a single English class at the same time as their second half of the double class. Before our single English class we have Geography class with Mrs L. Mrs L allowed us to use her geography class to participate in the workshop for English drama.
A man from outside of the school came in to do the workshop with us. His name was Ian. He was a really nice guy.
For the whole hour and twenty minutes we did loads and loads of different exercises. Everything we did involved some sort of movement. A lot of the time Ian performed some kind of routine using his arms and legs and we had to copy his movements. In the beginning we did a name game, using our hands. We had to point at somebody in the circle and say our names, then that person had to point at somebody else and say their own name. The next exercise we did involved walking around a marked out space. If Ian shouted "Blue" we had to stand on the blue lines that are painted all around the perimeter of the hall floor. If Ian shouted "floor" we had to crouch down and touch the floor with our two hands. If Ian shouted "Jump" we had to jump up and clap our two hands together. There were loads of exercises in between the beginning and the end. The last exercise involved quite a lot of moving. We had to get into pairs. My partner was Ailbhe. We had to make interesting shapes using our bodies. It was quite funny a lot of the time.
When our time was up with Ian, he got us to form a really big circle, like he had in the beginning, and he explained to us that all of the moving exercises we did were to help us perform on stage for dramas and plays.
It was a really worthwhile workshop.

Niamh! :D

Italiaaaaa!.. Delicious!

In Home Ec at the moment, we are doing a project on "International Cuisine". For this project we have to choose a country that we would like to research about and cook food that is well-known in this country. We have to do this project in pairs. My partner is Chloe. We make a great cooking team!
We have chosen the country of Italy for our International Cuisine project. We chose Italy, because we both love Italian food and Chloe also has Italian connections. We were also both interested in finding out more about the country itself. From our Junior Cert geography course, we know about the different regions in Italy and why they are different. We thought it would be interesting to find out more and learn new things about Italy.

The project we are doing, involves making three dishes from our chosen country. One of the dishes has to be a savoury dish. One of the dishes has to be a sweet dish. The third dish can be either sweet or savoury. We have to take pictures of each completed dish for our project presentation.

Last Tuesday was our first cooking class for the international cuisine project. We cooked a very simple pasta dish; Luxury Tagliatelle. I cooked this dish for my Junior Cert practical in home economics, so I was quite familiar with how to make the dish. It was really easy to make and result was DELICIOUS! I ate the pasta dish for my lunch that day as our double home ec class is the last two classes before lunch!

Next Tuesday we will be making a traditional Italian Lasagna.

Niamh! :D

"Romeo, Romeo.." Drama Competition! :)

On Tuesday the 25th of January, the two TY classes took off for Mullingar first thing in the morning. We went there to take part in an All-Ireland drama competition. Everyone was so excited for the day that was ahead of us all. Our english teachers, Ms B and MS G, both accompanied us to Mullingar.
We had been working on our plays since the very beginning of the school year. A lot of hard work, time and effort went into each play. We had four plays in total from our school. Two plays were performed by class Amina and the other two plays were performed by class Emnet.
In my class, class Amina, we had a play based on the book "Noughts and Crosses". It has a fantastic storyline. The book is based on a world where black people are classed higher than white people. The girls who performed this play made an excellent job of it. On the day of the competition, this play was the first to perform. It was a really wonderful performance. The second play from class Amina was a play based on the poem "But you Didn't" by Merrill Glass. I was part of this play. I felt that we performed it really really well on the day. Most of the other girls told us that it looked really good on stage. In the play I was one of the main characters, along with Orlaigh and Beibhinn. Our play was very sad and moving, but at the same time funny, humorous and entertaining.
The two plays from the other class were performed well also. One of the plays from class Emnet was about a young girl being killed as a result of a dominating relationship and domestic violence. The other play was based on a young girl being killed on Leaving Cert results night as a result of one of her friends drink-driving.
The stage in the Mullingar theatre was a really nice, big stage. There were no microphones so we had to project our voices really well. The lighting and the background music worked well for all four of our plays. Not one character in any of the four plays hesitated with their lines, which made the performances all the more interesting. The adjudicator was a young lady from the television series, "The Clinic". She was a lovely lady and gave really good, helpful criticisms for each of our plays. She thought all four of the plays from St. Wolstan's were extremely good.
We were the first school to perform our plays that day so we were all finished by half twelve in the afternoon. Our bus wasn't taking us back home until around three o'clock so we had loads of time to get lunch and watch the other schools perform their plays.
When everyone had gathered up their belongings and had gotten changed, we all headed off down the town to find somewhere to get lunch. Of course, Mcdonald's was a huge attraction so I think nearly every girl went in their to buy lunch. Me, being a non-McDonald's fan, went in search of a nice coffee shop to find a nice lunch. I ended up getting a take-out soup with brown bread from a lovely little coffee shop on the corner of a street.
When everyone was finished their lunch, we all headed back to the theatre to get a glimpse of the rest of the competition. There were two other schools performing on that day. one of the schools had travelled all the way down from Donegal. The other school was also from Leinster, like ourselves. The other schools' plays were really good aswell.
At about half two, we headed for the bus with all of our bags and props. Everyone was tired after the long, exciting day we had had. The bus journey home was good fun aswell, with everyone singing along to the radio.
We are still waiting to hear whether or not any of the plays have made it through to the final, which will be held in Cork.
Seeing as we had four plays from our school, there is a good chance that at least one of the plays have made it through to the final. Fingers crossed! ;)

Niamh! :D

Camogie! :)

The senior camogie team have a semi-final upcoming in the next week or two. We are training hard every Tuesday and Thursday after school. The Tuesday training session is suppose to be first years only, but it gives us a chance for an extra bit of a puk-around and by us going out to this training, also helps the first years to improve on their skills.
We're killing two birds with the one stone in doing this! :L
In order to help us prepare for our upcoming semi-final, we have a blitz against a few other schools organised for us, on Saturday the 5th of February, in Lucan Sarsfields GAA club. The blitz is on from 3 o'clock to 5.30 pm. There will be refreshments provided for us after the blitz.
Hopefully things will go well for us, which will give us a good headstart for our semi-final.

Niamh! :D

B.O.D.. Watch your back! :L

Before Christmas, us TY heads spent many weeks of P.E training for a tag rugby tournament. In the beginning we were doing it for fun and as something different from all of the usual things we do in PE class on a regular basis.
When we began the rugby training, we were told that we would have rugby for a total of six weeks. However, that changed quickly enough when we found out that we were being entered into a tournament with some other schools. Our training for tag rugby continued every week for our Wednesday's double PE class right up until the week of the tournament.
The only one negative point about the rugby tournament was that not everybody was able to participate because one team consists of seven players.
Our PE teachers, Mr L and Ms O'C, along with the rugby coaches kept a close eye on all of the people they felt would be best for taking part in the tag rugby tournament. They chose two teams, each having 12 players. This allowed fr five subs on each team.
On Thursday, 20th of January, we piled on the layers of clothes before piling ourselves onto the bus with Mr L who was accompanying us! The tournament was taking place in St Mark's Community School out in Tallaght Co. Dublin.
There were six teams altogether in the tournament, two from our own school, two from Scoil Bride and two from St Mark's. Each team played five matches, meaning every team played against the other five teams. That meant we even had to play against the other team from our own school, which was quite funny!
The two teams from St. Wolstan's were team one and team two. Team one wore red bibs and Team two wore blue bibs. Team one, the team that I was part of, won all five matches that we played. Team two, won, drew and lost some of their matches. At the end of the day we each got a Canterbury t-shirt and boot bag.
Regardless of who won, lost or drew, every single girl had a great day out. The weather was gorgeous for the whole day and there were no complaints from everyone. One thing that would have made the experience a lot better would have been if the rest of the TY girls had been allowed to come and watch.
We have been informed though, that near Easter time, there is another tournament even bigger than the last one. Hopefully more girls will get to participate in this one.

Niamh! :D

Cross Country Races! :)

Since we have returned to school after the Christmas holidays, we have had to very successful days at cross country races. One of the days was spent in DCU and the other was spent in the Phoenix park.
On Wednesday morning, the 19th of January, we headed off to DCU on the bus with our cross country trainers, Mr L and Ms McH. It was a really nice morning, with the sun shining in the sky, but it was quite fresh and cold, with some frost on the ground.
However, this didn't stop us from running and doing very well for the school. We had a junior team, a minor team, an inter team and a senior team. The races took place alternatively with the girls' age groups and the boy's age groups.
Our school got three individual prizes and three team prizes. I was running on the senior team along with Chloe, Caoimhe and Niamh, who are all in fifth year. Our race was 2km in distance. Unfortunately when I was on my second lap I hurt my leg and I had to slow down. Our team still came third because i finished the race.. AND, I received a free t-shirt for getting injured! :L

Last Thursday, the West-Leinsters took place in the Phoeinx Park. Again, we had four teams. The the distances were the same for everyone as the week before. The weather wasn't the best as there were random, heavy showers of rain every couple of minutes. It was also absolutely freezing! Myself, and Caoimhe didn't take part in this race as we had both taken part in a lot of training that week so we needed to rest for a day or two. We had one individual prize for the school and three team prizes. Also, the top fifteen girls in each race qualified for the Leinsters in Santry on the 16th of February.

Cross country takes place after school every Monday evening and Wednesday evening. It would be great to have some more girls from TY to come out and take part in cross country.

Niamh! :D

Gaelic Matches - Home and Away! :)

On Tuesday, the 18th of January, our U/16 GAA team headed off to Maynooth to play the girls team from Maynooth post-primary school. This was our first match of both the school year and our first match of 2011.

Not an awful lot of people had been turning out to training so the expectations were quite low. We got to the dressing rooms in Maynooth GAA club and we got togged out with our jerseys, shorts, socks and boots. We had to walk then from the club dressing rooms about a mile up the road to their other pitch. We had to play on this pitch because it was in the best condition of all of their pitches.
The match got off to an okay start with both teams scoring a point in the first three or four minutes. Maynooth began to dominate the match then, winning all of our kickouts and their own kickouts. We needed to pull our heads together in order to reverse the situation. At half time we were a good bit down to Maynooth. We discussed where we needed to do better and what we needed to keep doing.
The second half got off to a much better start for us. We had much more mid-field advantage and we took our chances, getting a lot of scores for ourselves. The end result was still to our disadvantage, but we tried our best in the second half which was enough to keep our coaches Mr K and Mr W content!
We walked back up to the dressing rooms, and we got ready to go back to school. We pleaded the teachers to stop at the shop on the way home, but unfortunately Mr K had to be back to teach the last class as it was a group of sixth years!
Despite losing the match, we still had a good day out!

On Wednesday, February 2nd, we had a home match against Kilcock. This was a much better match than the Maynooth match. However, before the match started we were almost having to pull out as we didn't have full team! We weren't long recruiting people to play for us! We had to make a few quick, last minute, position changes. We then ran out onto the pitch-that was basically our warm-up! We quickly did a few stretches while we waited on our captain, Leah, to go over to the referee.
Like the Maynooth game, both teams were off to a good start. For the first 10 to 15 minutes, the two teams were pretty level. For the last half of the first half, we pushed forward and got a good few scores in. Kilcock, did the same after! At half time, the two teams were very close. We were down by only a couple of points. For the second we really pulled our heads together, taking and getting score after score. We had possession of the ball for most of the second half. In the end we won by a goal.

Our coaches were delighted with us. Unfortunately though, Maynooth had also beaten Kilcock so they were the team that got through to the next round in our group

Hopefully next year will be better luck for us with GAA and maybe, just maybe, more girls will come out and join the team!

Niamh! :D

Back to Sports! :D

Before Christmas, the snow was really really bad which prevented us from participating in any outdoor sports inside and outside of school. As soon as we came back after the holidays in January, all sports got underway once again.
I am involved in a number of sports in our school this year. The reason for this is because I felt it would be good for my TY year to be more involved with extra curricular activities. I am part of the senior cross-country team, I am on the u/16 Gaelic football team and I am on the senior camogie team. In TY we also have a lot of PE classes each week. We have a single class on Tuesdays and a double class on Wednesdays. Some Tuesdays we end up having a double class aswell.
Cross country races, GAA matches, camogie matches and our PE rugby blitz were all postponed before Christmas due to the weather we had. However, most of them have been played and the some are coming up in the next number of weeks.
St. Wolstan's has a great atmosphere for sports and always does very well when participating in sports.

Niamh! :D

Fa la la la laaaaa.. Carol Service! :D

On Friday the 17th of December, before our Christmas holidays, we had our annual carol service in school. In was such a great event, as is always in our school. The Christmas spirit was very high in our school hall.
Seeing as we are in TY, we were invited to sing with the choir for the carol service. I found this to be very enjoyable and lots of fun.
At the carol service there were some awards given out to sports students who did exceptionally well in the past year and to students who got really good Junior Certificate results in 2010. I wasn't expecting to receive an award, but I did and I was really appreciative of this award from the school.
At the end of the carol service there was a little surprise in store, that the choir had rehearsed. We performed the song "Band Aid". It was a great performance. We had a few sixth year solo singers for the verses and then everybody joined in for the chorus. Some of the male teachers in the school even got up in front of the choir group and performed a little dance!
It was a great way to officially end our classes before the holidays and it gave a little boost for the Christmas exams!

Niamh! :D

Pilates! :)

On the Wednesday after our Christmas holidays, for PE, we had our final session of Pilates with Angela, the pilates instructor. We went through all of the pilate exercises. Angela was very impressed that we were all able to do them so well after the two-week Christmas break.
After our three weeks of Pilates, I was able to feel a huge difference in my core strength!
The pilates classes were really beneficial to a lot of the girls, including me. They were also good classes for relaxing a little bit, a break from busily doing projects etc!

Niamh! :D