"Sometimes in April"-The Rwandan Genocide.

On Friday, 18th of February, the last day before mid-term, we watched the movie "Sometimes in April". This is a movie about the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. There are two words I can think of to describe this movie. Those two words are horrifically devastating.
As I watched this movie, the feelings that went through me are indescribable. The movie makes you both sad and angry.
Unfortunately we only had three class periods to watch the movie so we didn't get to watch it to the very end. We finished it off in religion class when we came back after mid-term.
As a follow on from the movie and as a case study on genocide, we are doing interviews, taking notes and writing blogs. The interviews are with the characters from the movie who survived the genocide.
Watching this movie has made be reflect hugely on war and conflict, especially in the developing world, where they really cannot afford it. I would loved to have been there, in 1994, to try and help stop the genocide. I would have done anything to prevent such devastating scenes. Unfortunately though, I am only one person. However, I would like to do some campaign in an effort to prevent genocides happening today. It may not happen with the click of a finger, but hopefully, someday, I'll get around to doing it.
I would recommend the movie strongly, just so you too can see what happened in Rwanda in April 1994.



Niamh! :D

Picture Source: en.wikipedia.org

Minco Competition! :)

On Thursday, 3rd March, we took part in our first mini company. The competition took place in the Clane Gaa Club hall. The competition was only inclusive of schools in the North Kildare district. There are nine mini company groups in our school.

We left the school first thing on Thursday morning. The bus journey was not long at all. When we got to Clane we only had a short amount of time to set our stands up, as the judges were starting at ten o' clock. It took us a while to get our board set up as our board was one of the older ones, which aren't as straight forward as the new ones. Luckily though, we had some of it prepared from the day before in school, so it was just a matter of clicking all the boards together and designing it with our posters, pictures, information etc.

The teachers had to leave the hall when the judges came in to the hall. Each group had an interview with one judge. It was quite nerve wracking when we were waiting for the judge to come around to our stand. A female judge interviewed us. When she came around, we each introduced ourselves and explained what our mini company was, before she started asking us questions. We had a good interview with her. We were able to answer all of the questions well with no hesitations.

At the very end of the judging, we were asked to start packing up our stands and equipment before they announced the companies that had been short listed for the kildare Final. We got everything packed up and put back on the bus in matter of minutes. We came back in to hear that six groups from our school had been short listed. The final decision was going to be made later that afternoon and an email would be sent to our teachers informing them of the judges final decisions. My group wasn't one of the groups that was shortlisted from our school but we were still happy with how well we had progressed with the company.

We got back to school just before lunch. Lucky for us, the school was off at lunchtime for a staff development day, so we got to go home after a few minutes.

Later on Thursday evening, the message was passed on from one girl to the next about the groups that got through to the final. We had four groups from our school; The Spoover, Knot a Problem, Baby Cakes and The Just Desserts.

I am really delighted for these groups as they are all four amazing set-ups. I wish them the very best of luck in the Kildare Final on the 14th of March.

Niamh! :D

Dress Rehearsal! :)

On Wednesday, we had a full dress rehearsal of our plays. We got the last two classes off lunch to do this.
We have been entered into the Margaret Aylward drama competition. Sr S came back to the school to take a look at all of our plays to see if they were suitable for the competition. I think she was quite happy to let all four plays go forward into the competition. We ran through each play quite briefly just so that we had enough time for Sr S to get a taste of each one.
I feel we performed our play "But You Didn't" very well, considering we havent been practicing it since the Briary Gap competition in Mullingar.
The Margaret Aylward competition is taking place on Tuesday 15th March in the evening time. Hopefully we will do well in this competition.

Niamh! :D

Italian Desserts! Delicious! :)

On Tuesday, myself and Chloe cooked our final dish of the Italian cuisine project. We had already made our two savoury dishes before the mid-term. We had to make a sweet dish. The dish we chose to make was quite quick and easy to make so we were able to make another dish along with it.
We made a Tiramisu and Struffoli. They were both so simple and easy to make. Struffoli are basically fried balls of dough covered in a honey and sugar syrup. We didn't like the honey and sugar combination as it was way too sweet. Instead, we melted chocolate and pour that over the struffoli.
The tiramisu was made in about ten minutes. We dipped sponge fingers into espresso, combined the ingredients for the cream topping, put it on top of the espresso sponge fingers, sprinkled it with chocolate and minstrels and let it set in the fridge.
The two dishes were delicious!

Niamh! :D

Poland, here I come! :)

On Tuesday, 1st March, the draw for Poland took place in the hall at lunchtime. Ms K.B, Ms L and Mr K were all present.
Forty names were pulled out of the draw for going to Poland. Along with these forty names were another fifteen to go onto the waiting list. My name got picked out of the draw as one of the forty people who definitely got a place. I was in shock when I realised my name had been pulled out. At first, I didn't even hear my name being called because I never get picked for anything! I'll never be able to say that again! :L
A good few of my friends have been chosen to go on the trip as well. There are also some of my friends on the waiting list, which will hopefully mean that they will get to come along too.
The deposits have been paid.. so, next stop, Poland!

Niamh! :D

John F. Kennedy!

On Monday, 28th of February, we had to make our final decision on the topic we are going to research for our end-of-year history project.
I was finding it really hard to decided what to do because there is such a wide range of historical topics that are really interesting. In the beginning I was going to do something about the GAA. I then changed my mind to studying a person in history. I narrowed my options down to Micheal Collins, Eamon De Valera and John. F. Kennedy. I struggled big time in trying to choose one out of the three. I was interested in studying each of them. There is so much to write about each one of them.
I eventually went to my history teacher Ms. McH to ask her for some help in picking. She told me that she has read books on all three of them and if it was her, she would choose to write about J.F.K. I decided to go on her decision, giving that she is a leaving cert history teacher!
So, now I am researching all about J.F.K and I am really happy with this decision. He had a very interesting childhood and a more interesting life as soon as he was inaugrated as President of the United States.

Niamh! :D

Picture sources:

De Valera-irish-family.net, Michael Collins-irish-family.net, JFK-showbiznewsblog.com

Cross Country - Leinsters!

On Thursday, 17th of February, the Cross Country Leinster Championships took place in Santry, Co. Dublin. We had three teams running from the school. The maximum number of girls on each team was six. We needed three girls to score for points-first three home. The first three teams in each race qualified for the All-Ireland Chaampionships. Also, the first fifteen individuals to cross the finish line, qualified for the All-Ireland Championships.
none of our three teams qualified but we had a great achievement with one of our second year girls qualifying for the All-Irelands as an individual.
The weather was nice but it was freezing cold out. The track wasn't in great condition because of the rain we had had a few days beforehand. This made all of the races very difficult.
It was a great day overall, each team and all of the individual runners had plenty of support from the other girls along the side of the track.
This was the last cross country race of the year for most of us, apart from our All-Ireland qualifier. The Santry schools competition will begin the week before Easter. Training for all events in Santry is ongoing at the moment after school everyday. Our school always does very well in Santry, so fingers crossed that we do just as well or better this year!

Niamh! :D