Thursday 9 May 2013

Fairytale Take Me Out!

At the moment we are all busy preparing for TY night at the end of the year. TY night is when we display all that we have done over the year to our parents. We also do some performances for example all TYs are going to sing Bastile's "Pompeii". We are also doing a snipett from our Irish play "Deirdre agus Naoise". In english class we were in groups during the year and we had to come up with alternative endings. So lately we have been trying hard to come up with a way to showcase them in a play and involve everyone. So we decided as a class that the second scene of mine and Alana's play was going to be used. So Alana and I volunteered to write the script and direct the play. We brought loads of princesses into the scene so that as many people as possible would be involoved in the play. So we wrote the script and we are busy practicing it at the moment. It is really funny and we just hope it goes well on the night.!!

Thursday 2 May 2013

Gaisce Hike!

Last Friday we left school early and headed to Wicklow to do our 25 km hike for the Gaisce Presidents Award. Once we arrived in Wicklow we unpacked the bus and got started straight away. We did 10km on Friday night. It was fine for the most part however some of it was uphill and it was quite slippy. The mountain seemed to keep going on. However we finally reached the top and there was what looked like a large pile of rocks but was really an ancient burial site. We got to go in but it was very small and pitch black so we were crawling through in the dark. We then walked back down the mountain was very slippy and a lot of people fell. I hurt my ankle earlier that day so throughout the hike my foot was quite sore making the hike a lot more difficult for me. When we got back to the houses we made pizza and ate a lot of sweets. Unfortunately when we got back I checked my ankle which was badly bruised and badly swollen so I couldn't go on the rest of the hike on Saturday. I went home the next morning with one of our teachers. However we had loads of fun on Friday night it was just very unfortunate that I couldn't walk and finish the hike.

Swim a Mile, with a Smile!

On Friday 19th April, we participated in the charity event Swim a Mile with a Smile. The weeks coming up to the swim we got a sponsorship card. We raised money for the charity and all the money is going towards Barretstown and Crumlin Hospital. On the Friday we got the bus to the National Aquatic Centre where we were going to swim a mile. Some girls got into teams and they swam a mile together. I and other girls swam the mile on our own. A mile is 64 lengths of the Aquatic centre pool. It wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be and it was good fun. After this we went to Blanchardstown where we had lunch. It was a really fun day and we raised a lot of money for a worthwhile cause.

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Tuesday 2 April 2013

Irish Play!

For what seems like a very long time we have been learning a play in Irish. We have been given parts, learning lines, making costumes, swords, windows and practicing our acting skills ( as well as our dancing skills ).
  We learned an old Irish play. I was the narrator so I had a good few lines to learn but they weren't very long or difficult so I didn't mind. Also I liked my role because others didn't have to witness my very bad acting.....
   I was also the dance coordinator. I had to teach the class a celili dance which was in one of the scenes in the play.
  We performed the play on our schools annual dress up day for St. Patrick's Day. We also did it then as it was "Seachtain na Gaeilge". We performed the play twice that day. At the start of the day in front of 5th years and at the end of the day in front of 2nd years and our fellow TY classes. It was really fun and we all had a good time dressing up and having fun. It went well and the experience was definitely something new for a lot of us. I really enjoyed working with the girls in my class to produce a play together. I am just glad I didn't have to act!

Sci fest Competition.

After we held the first round of the Sci fest competition in our school we were really excited when we heard we were through to the next round. So on Friday we headed to D.I.T for a day of science. 
     We were very nervous when we heard that only one project out of 75 gets through to the national final. But we did our best and we are proud of how things went. There were many impressive and interesting projects there so we weren't expecting miracles. Sadly we didn't get through. 
   The interviews an questions went well at first it was a little scary but soon we built up our confidence and  we could clearly get our message across. ( Something we seem to have to do a lot of in TY ). 
    It was a fun experience and we learned lots. And we want to thank our teachers for helping us throughout the project. We learned so much from our topic, more than we thought! 

Music Night!

On Thursday night the school had its annual music night where all music classes in the school have to do a performance and some students do separate performances. As part of Transition Year we had to take part in every subject so we have music class once a week ( even though I think we should have it more than once ).
    I did music in first year like everyone else and I really liked it but I didn't keep it on because I didn't think I  would enjoy studying it and taking music seriously because I like to think that music is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. 
    Which is exactly what it is in TY. We have the time to enjoy music and expand our musical tastes. We have even learned some new instruments and songs.
   So we had been rehearsing our performance for a few weeks before the music night. But because we only had one class a week and we seemed to be constantly missing music class, as music night came nearer we were all thinking that our performance of an Ed Sheeran Medley wasn't going to be good enough to perform in front of people. We really began to doubt our performance.
    But with the help of three of the music teachers, one of which is our tutor and English teacher who we are very grateful to as she gave up countless English classes to help us practice, the songs came up to scratch and we were feeling confident that it sounded really good.
    And on the night it went really well. There was two piano players, two guitars( one of which I did my best to play ) and percussion. We really enjoyed ourselves and we think that all of the hard work paid off!

Thursday 21 March 2013

A Day Out in Kildare!

Yesterday we took the bus to Kildare Town where we learned a lot about the history of Kildare and St.Brigid. First we went to the Heritage Centre in the middle of Kildare Town where we watched a video about the history of Kildare and St.Brigid. After that we walked up to St.Brigid's Cathedral. We walked around and learned a lot about the history and we learned a lot about the Church of Ireland.
     After this we visited the well of St. Brigid, it was very peaceful there. When we arrived we said prayers at the prayer stones. Then we walked to another well, where we walked around it and got the water and blessed ourselves. Thankfully no one fell into the water.
    After this we headed to Whitewater shopping centre where we had a yummy lunch. And then we drove to  Naas where we played bowling. We had loads of fun and we were really tired at the end of our eventful day.
    We had a lot of fun and learned new things. And we were all very hopeful that after walking around the round tower backwards 7 times backwards that we would dream about our future husbands! What an eventful day!

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