Religion Drama

Since the beginning of the year our class have been working on two separate dramas in Religion. Half of the class made a play based on homelessness. Our drama was based on war. Roisin wrote our drama from scratch with help from all of the group. Today we went to Mullingar to preform our drama in the Briary Gap competition. We arrived early at the venue. Luckily we had time to practise in our dressing room before we got on stage. When we arrived at the venue some boys from another school brought out props to our dressing room for us , whilst a member of staff showed us around. He showed us the stage and our dressing room. We were all so nervous before the performance. We went to McDonalds and visited the Joe Dolan's memorial statue. I loved seeing the statue because my Granny loved Joe Dolan and never stopped talking about him! She still does! After we visited the statue we went back to the dressing rooms and rehearsed one more time before the show! When it was our time to shine I felt knots in my stomach but once I was on stage I loved it! Our dramas were such fun to preform and we all thoroughly enjoyed the day. On the way home we stopped off in the sweet shop and got tons of sweets! A week later Mrs.G had received the results unfortunately our drama didn't get through but as luck would have it the homelessness play got through. We were delighted to have gotten one our dramas through to the next round and I wish them all the best! Good luck girls!

Young Scientist

On the 10th of January all TY's went to the BT Young Scientist Exhibition. Our school was lucky as to get one group into the Young Scientist. Corrie , Lauren and Aisling qualified to have their project displayed at Young Scientist. Their project was '"The Effects of Schoolbags on your Back, Neck and Spine". At the YS I saw so many different projects each was so different but so good. You could tell that a lot of effort went into each and every one.

Christmas Time

On the 17th of December we had a carol service in school. I was in the choir so I got to sing all of the wonderful hymns and songs. I really enjoyed this as it was my first time singing with the school choir. The day after the carol service we had exams. TY's had Spanish/french, religion, English, maths and irish exams. On the last day of exams TY's had none and Mrs.L decided to arrange for us to go to bowling. On Thursday morning class Cinealtas organised a Christmas party. We all went to the library and sang and danced. One of the girls in Cinealtas dressed up as Santa and gave everyone Kris-Kindle presents. After the party we went bowling at K-Bowl. I wasn't the best at bowling but got better as the game proceeded. After K-Bowl Mrs.L had a surprise for us , she brought us to WhiteWater Shopping Centre where I got KFC.

Irish National Youth Ballet

On Friday the 14th of December all TY's went to the Irish National Youth Ballet preformance of the Nutcracker. Here is a taste of what we saw!

WhiteWater Shopping Centre-Newbridge

This week we went to White Water Shopping Centre in Newbridge. Here we went to the cinema for a talk about mini company. This time we weren't as lucky as to watch another Skyfall screening but we did have fun! Orla gave us a talk about the type of person you have to be in business.
              
Firstly we started the day by each managing director telling us about their product and how they have marketed it so far. The ideas some people came up with were amazing! Each idea was unique. 
              
After this Orla told us what we would have to do for the report and then we watched a video on how to be assertive. The video high lighted four different personalities clashing at work. The four personalities were 1. Aggressive 2. Passive 3. Passive-Aggressive and 4.Assertive . Sadly I cannot find the video she showed us but it was very informative and it gave me a huge insight into the personalities in business.

I learned what each personality means:
1. Aggressive- making an all-out effort to win or succeed
2.Passive- Accepting or submitting without objection or resistance
3.Passive-Aggressive- a person who seems to agree to people around them on face, but is actually responding with passive resistance.
3.Assertive-  confident and direct in claiming one's rights or putting forward one's views

       

Skyfall Surprise!

On the 8th of November our TY year went to the Odeon cinema again in Naas for a mini company talk. When we arrived there was a lot of hustle and bustle. After a half hour of settling down and chatting with our friends we were informed that the meeting was cancelled due to an emergency that occurred that morning. We all fell silent as we thought we were going to have to go back to school but to our surprise the cinema allowed us have a free screening of the new James Bond movie - Skyfall ! The cinema filled with cheering and everyone was so excited! We watched the film which was amazing! I love action movies and James Bond is a classic! After the screening we got free gift bags (with popcorn , sweets and fizzy drinks) Overall the day was phenomenal! 

The names Bond , James Bond.

Camogie

Well so far in camogie we have had three matches. We train  every Thursday for an hour after school with Mr.L.Training is really fun because all girls from different G.A.A. clubs get to play together , for example most of the girls are from Celbridge but there are some from Ardclough , Straffan etc. Last week we had a match in UCD , the college was so big and it was fun to see 'college life'. We went to DCU for an open day. The open day was for TY's- 6th years. Firstly we went to the dressing rooms and got changed for sports. We went out to the astro then and did skills with some of the members of the DCU camogie team. We played 7-a-side matches against other schools after that. At 12:30 we got a packed lunch and relaxed for a while. To our surprise Michael Murphy (Captain of Donegal) and Paul Flynn (Dublin Player) were there. They were former DCU members. They came over to us and we got photos and autographs! After the skills and meet and greet we got a tour of the college , it was so unusual seeing the college life. The college was huge and it seemed so daunting at first! Overall we had a great day!

Mini Company

Odeon Naas:

On the 21st of September all TY classes from St.Wolstans went to the Odeon cinema in Naas. We went to the cinema to receive a talk from Orla about mini company. There were three other schools at this talk too. We learnt all about what mini company is and how to go about finalising our groups and our ideas. Some groups shared their ideas and even showed us a sample of a wooden plaque they were going to sell. Seeing how far ahead the other groups from other schools were gave me motivation to get to work. We made a group consisting of Alanna , Katie , Lauren , Orla , Orlaith , Sarah , Corrie and Myself. I was voted the managing director for my group. Brainstorming ideas was pretty difficult , it must be hard to believe but for a group of 8 we didn't have much ideas. We spent a week brainstorming ideas. At the end of the week we met up as a group and came up with the main ideas we were going to focus on , these involved toys for kids with ADHD , waterproof iPod speakers and a wireless phone charger. The task at hand seems quite daunting but I cannot wait to get stuck into it.

 

C a r l i n g f o r d 2 0 1 2 - Best two days of my life

TY Bonding session - Carlingford, Louth

Where to begin? My trip to Carlingford was simply the BEST.It is an understatement to say it was amazing , it was so much more than that! I woke up at 6 o clock to be ready for the bus at 7. We met at the local garage and all went up to Louth on the bus. Excitement was at an all time high , as tired as we were , we were still able to belt out the tunes on the bus. Time on the bus flew and we were there within no time.

            We all scurried out of the bus to get our suitcases and go to the adventure centre . As we walked through the village I felt as though I had entered a fictional village , like 'Harry Potter'. We went to the 'mint' (volleyball court) and were assigned our rooms and groups , told the rules and about the fun activities  we would be taking part in and met the instructors. Everyone was obsessed with the instructors from the moment we saw them! There was Chris , Andrew , Erin , Leslie , Luke to name only a few. 

            We ran to our rooms to check them out , they were like dorms with bunk beds. First of all we went to the beach to go kayaking , I was so excited , I'd never been before. We got set and put on our wet suits, helmets and got our paddles. We set out to sea haha and met at a tunnel , all the kayaks were dragged onto the shore line and we climbed in the tunnel into the waterfall. At the waterfall we had to put our head under the water for 10 seconds and we would all live one day longer , so the myth says anyway. It was so cold it gave my brain freeze! We then headed back to the shore line and played games. Afterwards we went pier jumping and I was so happy with myself when I jumped off the big pier because I'm afraid of heights! 

high ropes

              When we finished with the beach we got changed and went to the high ropes these were also a challenge for me because I had to overcome my fear of heights once again. The task was for four people to climb a telephone pole like structure and stand on a pizza box size platform, that was the scariest thing ever. When I came back to earth and stood on the ground I was the happiest I had ever been haha! We then went Zorbin , this was so fun we got attached to a huge orb and rolled down the hill.

Chris- Zorbin'

                Later that evening we went on a blindfolded forest walk then we all hung out in our rooms for a while and around the centre in the lounges. We listened to music and socialised with everyone , it brought our TY year so much closer together! Mr K brought us to the Chinese down the road and I bought a 3in1 it tasted delicious , we had already been given chicken and chips for lunch and chicken and rice for dinner but I still got stuck into the 3in1. We had to go to our rooms at 11 and we chatted for a while and then fell fast asleep after our eventful day and we had a busy day ahead of us.

Leslie - Challenge Course

                 We all woke to the sound of Mrs.L's voice saying it's morning girls time to get up. I hoped up out of bed and got dressed , packed my bag and had brushed my teeth by the time the others had just about managed to sit up in their beds! We packed out bags and put them in the storage room , then went to breakfast. When breakfast was finished we broke up into our groups and our group went on the challenge course. We had to do as many tasks as we could in the given time to collect gems and which ever group had the most tasks at the end won , our group tied with another and got 25 gems. The instructors said that was a new record! woo!

               Our last activity to do was to go to the forest and do laser combat. This was the best craic ever we were all dressed up in our suits with head pieces and a gun and had to shoot the other team without getting killed. We were all running around the forest shooting one another hiding under forts in huts. When this ended we knew it was time to go home and we were all down in the dumps. We said our 'thank you' and 'goodbyes' and left the centre , some of the instructors followed us out and waved goodbye as we left. none of us wanted to leave we wanted to stay forever! 

          The road trip home was literally everybody talking about how amazing and wonderful Carlingford was , we all just moaned at how we wanted to go back and never wanted to leave. We arrived home and everyone went back to their houses straight to bed we were so exhausted!

Overall Carlingford was the best two days of my life.

http://www.carlingfordadventure.com/