It's all coming to an end...

It seems like only a few days ago we were put into our classes and beginning in TY and now its nearly the end with only 3 days left! Its been a crazy few days because I've been trying to get all the projects finished but I've finally finished them! :) happy days!

On Monday night we have TY Night, this is our graduation from ty. At the moment we still have to perfect our Zumba dance and our charleston dance but I'm sure it'll be good on the night, fingers crossed! 

Looking back on TY it's been a great year. I'm finding it hard to pick the highlight so i'll list a good few: 

BANK! - this has been such a great thing about TY. I'm so happy I was chosen to be on the team, I've made 5 new really close friends and we had such great times. The bank launch was one of the highlights of the year! The Original Rudeboys and Johnny Doyle ahhh :) And of course meeting Bressie... ;)

Gaisce :) : If theres any third years who are going in TY reading this: Do gaisce!! Its worth it, our hike was two of the best days of TY. So much fun :D

Swim a mile : I had so much fun swimming 4 miles in total with my friends, we did so much more than we expected which was great!

These are probably my top 3 highlights but there was a few others aswell :)

Overall its been a great year! Theres been times where I've complained but I'm glad I did TY! I've made so many new friends thanks to Ty :D
This is my last blog of the year I think, so thanks to all the teachers who've helped us this year and thanks to class BANBA for being great! :D Gonna miss this class a lot in 5th year! and Eriu and Fodla of course ;)

Byeeeee :) SUMMER IS HERE :D

Super€uros in the National Final..

One of the main things I took part in this year was The Build A Bank Challenge. I was happy to be chosen but I never expected to get as much out of it as I did!

After winning the regional finals Super€uros bank headed off to the National Finals in the RDS on Wednesday 25th April. We were all pretty nervous as we had no idea what to expect. Once we arrived we got into our costumes and the plan for the day was told to us. First we had time in the 'Chill Out Zone.' This consisted of a silent disco (fun fun fun!) , GAA skills challenge, air hockey, giant chess boards and loads of other games :) Spin 1038 were also there so we got chatting to the spini's.
Then...it was time for our judging. We had a 20 minute interview with two judges in our own 'pod.' We all agreed it went pretty well and we were happy with it! Once the judging was over we could relax for a while! We got a full dinner which was so nice :) And after an exhibition of all the banks posters it was time for the results ceremony....

There was one person EVERYONE was excited to see...BRESSIE! The opening was loads of crazy dancers and people swinging from the roof. It was great and then Bressie arrived :) He did a really good job and got the crowd going. He announced the top 6 banks and unfortunately we weren't one of them. We were disappointed at first but we were delighted to get in the top 20 out of 200 banks which entered!

Our disappointment soon disappeared when the curtains lifted and Bressie did a small concert for us :) He performed about 8 songs and theres a small video clip of some of them at the end of this post! It was so great!
We then all got presented with plaques for winning the regional finals and well we were all just delight to get to go on stage and get a picture with Bressie ... even after he told us our school sounded posh and 'like something out of Harry Potter' haha :)

Overall it was a brilliant day and by far, i'd say the best day in TY :) I'm so happy to have gotten the chance to be a part of the bank and get to know my fellow bankers so well! We've all gotten so close and had so many laughs :) We couldn't done half of it without Ms.McM who was been so so supportive and helpful in everything we did!

Heres some pic's and a video from the day:

Sorry for the bad quality and unsteady hand but you get an idea of the atmosphere and stuff ! :)

Retreatin' in the rain.

On Tuesday the 1st of May class Banba went to Glendalough for our retreat :) The weather wasn't the best so we didn't really know what to expect. When we arrived we spent a lot of time in the visitors centre looking around a small musuem type thing and also Fr.Michael Rodgers spoke to us all. He has been in Glendalough for 20 years so he knows what he's talking about!

We then went to a small chapel and had 10 minutes of silence where we all just sat and thought to ourselves. Normally I get bored if I'm not doing anything but I found this really relaxing!

Despite the rain, we still got to go on a walk around Glendalough and take in the scenery. There were so many waterfalls and they were all so nice and peaceful even in horrible weather! By the end we were all still smiling because it was a much better day than I had expected! It was the best retreat I've had so far since I've been in Wolstans anyway :)

Swim a mile :D

A few weeks ago, we went to the National Aquatic centre to take part in the Ian Daly Swim a Mile with a Smile. I was swimming in a group with my 5 friends and our aim was to swim one mile between us. When we got there and started swimming we realised we were well able to do more and it was so fun! We ended up swimming our first mile in just 8 minutes and after a few breaks we swam 4 miles altogether :)

It was a really great day and is definitely up there with the best days of TY :D

25km hike done and dusted..

So I haven't blogged in a while, so I've a good few things to write about!

Last Friday 30 TYs along with 3 teachers headed off to the Wicklow Mountains to do a 25km hike as part of the Gaisce Award. Everyone was very excited about the food and the houses and maybe on the journey there most people forgot about the actual hike. But once we arrived we all remembered, we literally had 10 minutes to put our bags in the houses and we were off!

The first day wasn't too bad - one uphill part went on forever though which was probably the worst bit. But we all had great fun chatting with each other and the instructors who were so funny and nice :) 4 hours later and we had completed 13km. When we got back we had to night to relax in our houses and eat!! woooo :D it was great fun and everyone got on great!

The next morning we were woken bright and early and we were off hiking again. Saturday was a bit harder because there was more uphill but it wasn't anything we couldn't manage :) After we had completed the 25km we got to do high rope activities! These were so much fun but my favourite was the 'team challenge.' We all couldnt stop laughing trying to get through this course as well as trying to beat the record...and well, lets just say we failed miserably...

It was then time to leave and even know I was wrecked I was sad leaving. The instructors were lovely and I had such a great two days. I didn't I would enjoy the hike as much as I did but it has been one of the highlights on TY! :D
Thanks to Ms.H, Ms.O'C and Mr.K ! :)

Conflict - Religion

For the last while we've been doing a module on Conflict in religion class. We started by talking about conflict and thenwe started watching a movie called 'Hotel Rwanda.' I had never heard of it but I had an idea that it was going to be like Sometimes in April, the other movie we watched.

The movie is following the story of a man called Paul who lives in Rwanda. He works in a hotel when the fighting breaks out between the Hutus and Tutsi's in Rwanda. The movie has some shocking scenes but overall I really enjoyed it :) We learned all about the conflict and how certain groups of people were treated.
Paul was a very heroic character and no matter how bad things got he was always the couragous one. He did everything he could to protect his family and also protect everyone in the hotel. At the end we found out Paul had held 1200 people safe in his hotel.

I enjoyed learning about Rwanda for the last while but its really opened my eyes to everything the people have gone through.

Swim A Mile :D

On Friday, TY's are going to the National Aquatic Centre in Blanchardstown to take part in the Ian Daly Swim A Mile with a Smlile. This is an annual event set up by Eimear Daly's mam and dad in honour of  their son Ian who died of cancer.

A mile is made up of 64 lengths so you can swim it on your own or in a group. I've decided to swim it in a group with 5 of my friends so hopefully it won't be too hard! I'm really looking forward to it and hopefully a lot of money will be raised. The money is going to Barretstown which provides a camp for sick children so its for a great cause.
Click here to go to the website to find out all about the swim :)

Music Night

Last night our school held the annual Music Night. This is where all the music students in the school perform something for an audience :)
For the last few months, my class along with class Eriu have been practising the song we were going to perfrom. It is called 'Shake it out' by Florence and the Machine. After weeks of practising, it finally all came together.

The other TY class performed 'Wake me Up Before you Go Go' by Wham! so well done to them too :)

Sports in the Sun...

Yesterday class Banba helped to organise a sports afternoon for all first years. There were loads of different athletic events for them to try out and we were each assigned to a different sport! Some of the sports were: javilin, shotput, sprints, 600 metres, long jump, high jump and triple jump! I was part of the results table. The top 6 people in each event were given points for their class e.g 1st place got 6 points, 2nd place got 5 points etc. So I had to count up the points each class got, to find out which class won.

It was great fun because it was so warm yesterday so it was great to relax in the sun!

Internet Safety Talk

Last Wednesday morning, we had an internet safety talk in the hall before we went on the Braveforce assault course.
The aim of the talk was to make us all aware of how important it is to be safe on the internet. We heard about different stories of people being bullied on the internet or getting into trouble because of something on the internet. It was really good and got us all thinking about safety on the internet.

Sometimes in April

Last Monday we watched the film 'Sometimes In April.' I had no idea what this film was about and its safe to say I was so shocked at it!
The film is about a war that took place in Rwanda in April 1994. It was so cruel and unfair and innocent people died. One scene that really suprised me was when the soldiers entered a girls Catholic School. The girls were all part of the two tribes that were fighting but they refused to get split up and they all stayed together as a family even though they were from different tribes.

The film was very long but it was so informative and I really learned so much about Rwanda in 1994.

Braveforce assault course, wow!

Yesterday we went to an assault course called Braveforce  for the day. I knew before we went that it was going to be tough but it was so much harder than I expected!
We had to run through mud and water, jump over hay bales, crawl underground, crawl under nets, climb up nets and swim in ice cold water! This was the coldest water I've ever been in, my whole body froze but I got through it.
One of the hardest things I found we had to do was climb over these high fences. It sounds easy writing it here but woah it was so much harder than it looks! It was 3km and took a good while to do but it was such a good feeling when you finished it :)

Overall I thought it was a really good day and I would definitely recommend the TYs next year to do it!

Banking bloggers :)

Can you please visit and follow the SuperEuro's bank blog? :)

http://www.stwolstansbank.blogspot.com

We use it to write about our promotions and news! :)

Super €uro's Success!

Last Thursday, the Super€uros bank headed off to Leopardstown Racecourse for the Regional Finals of the AIB Build a Bank Challenge. We were all pretty nervous but excited too!

When we arrived, we registered and then got changed into our superhero costumes! We were then told to go upstairs for refreshments and fruit and stuff for about an hour. We saw all the other teams up there and we knew straight away that it wasn't gonna be easy to do well, the standard was so high! We then began to start setting up our stall :) Here's a picture of it, it turned out good and we were all happy with it :D

After that, Ms McM and our two student officers from AIB Celbridge had to leave because judging was starting. First, we were visited by a Head Judge who talked to us for about 5 minutes then the other judge came around for our 10 minute interview. It went really well and we got all of our main points across. 

Later, we were all sitting in front of the stage and a radio presenter from FM104 started to call out the top 10 teams who had to do a 2 minute presentation in front of everyone - this was so nerve wracking! Luckily we were called our 3rd so we didn't have to sit there nervous for long. 

We all went on stage and our manager Caitriona did our presentation - she did such a great job! 

The judges went to decide the four teams going through to nationals while we learned a dance to surprise the judges with! This was so fun and really took our minds off everything!

After performing the dance they called out the top 4 and the first bank called out was....SUPER€URO'S :D We were all SO happy :D 

We each won a €100 voucher and our school got €250 :D Bring on Nationals now! :)

 Us with Kerry footballer 'Gooch' Cooper :) ^

Source ^ 

Tich Miller goes on tour to Cork..

Last Saturday, everyone who was part of the drama 'Tich Miller' headed to Macroom in Cork for the All Ireland Final of the Briery Gap Drama Competition. There were 14 of us that went altogether and we were all excited to do the performance! We had met up a few times over the week of work experience to perfect our performance and sort everything out.
We met up at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning and headed off to Cork. The journey took longer than we all expected but time passed pretty quickly. We arrived in the theatre around 2 o'clock and we were brought to our dressing room. The judges were on a break when we arrived which was good because it meant we were able to have a run through of the play on the stage! The judge was one of the actors from Fair City which was good, even though he's not very 'famous!'
We all got our costumes on and got ready and then we were called to perform. It went so quickly and before we knew it, the curtains were closed and re-opened for our bow. I thought it went really well and we were all really happy with our performance!

We then got food in a local take-a-way called Chip Bar (what a smart name! Gettit? Say Chip Bar quickly and it sounds like chipper! haha) and then it was time to leave again :(
On the bus home we watched PS I Love You and Harry Potter ! The journey didnt seem as long, maybe because of the pitstop in Mcdonalds for ice cream...

We didn't win anything but we were all still really happy even to have gotten to the All Ireland Final! Overall it was a great day.

Work experience Day 5 :)

On Friday luckily I was well enough to go in for the day! There wasn't too much going on today so in the morning I did the usual cleaning of the kennels etc.. First a cat was getting spayed which didn't take too long and then they sedated a dog and examined his ears because he was having trouble with them. A branch of this vet was set up recently in Maynooth and one of the nurses from there arrived over with a dog who had got caught in barbed wire and needed to be x-rayed and stitched. From the x-ray they found he had broken a piece of his bone in his elbow.
I finished at about 2 o'clock everyday which was great!

The people in Hermitage Vet were so nice. I had known one or two of them because I bring my dog there but everyone was so helpful! They all bring their dogs to the clinic everyday and they either wander around different rooms or go outside in the really big garden and play! All the dogs are so well behaved and in my spare time if there wasn't anything to do, I got to play with them! :)
One of the surgeons dogs was one of the best trained dogs I've ever seen! Her name was Mindy and she was a Puggle. Yes, believe it or not, there is a breed of dog called puggle. I hadn't heard of it either. Shes half Pug half Beagle.
Here's a picture of a puggle: 
She did all the usual dog tricks like sit, high 5, lie down etc... but then.. when her owner shouts BANG she screams and I mean SCREAMS (not barks!) and jumps onto her back and starts rolling around on the ground pretending she got shot! It was the funniest thing I've ever seen a dog do! :)

All the staff's dogs are so well behaved and so friendly. Here's a picture of some of the staff with some of their dogs :)


After the week, I would consider a veterinary nurse as a career but maybe not a veterinary surgeon! Overall I enjoyed myself and I kinda wish we had more work experience now :(

Work Experience #2 (Day 1 & 2)

I've spent the last week on work experience in Hermitage Vet in Lucan. I'd never really thought about being a vet to be honest but I like animals so I said I'd give it a shot because I might find out I'd like to be one :)

Day 1 
On the first morning I wasn't that nervous because I go to this vet with my dog so I knew the people were lovely but I was anxious to see what I'd be doing. I was told to arrive every morning at 8.45 and when I got there my supervisor wasn't there yet so i just had to hoover the rooms. The kennels began to start filling up with owners dropping their pets in for different operations. First, the smallest dog ever arrived in! She was a mini Yorkshire terrier called Jessie and she was so small and nervous. I got to play and hold her a but before her operation with was spaying.
This is what she looked like (source)-> 
A few more dogs arrived as well as some cats. I cleaned out some kennels which wasn't as bad as I expected and got used to it pretty quickly. Then it was time for surgery....They were neutering a dog. I wasn't that nervous or anything before going into it but I think something got into my head that it'd be really bad and then i was told '4 out of 5 work experience people faint in their first surgery.' Great. It was all going grand, I felt fine but then the room was really stuffy because it was so small and I decided to wear a good few layers of clothes (bad idea) and well you can probably guess where I'm going here...yep I fainted. It wasn't bad at all though I woke up straight away and was grand again after drinking some lucozade! But still..pretty embarrassing.
I did a few more little jobs the rest of the day like cleaning instruments and listening to vet consultations.


Day 2 
Going in on day 2, I was determined to sit through a surgery without fainting and I did :D It really just takes getting used to and I don't really mind it at all now. There were 2 surgery's in the morning and then they had to x-ray a dog who had gotten knocked over by a car. It was really sad to watch when this dog came in. When they tried to let him walk on his own his back legs couldn't move at all and he really struggled.
Doing the x-rays really interested me. The machine is so advanced and gives such good results. From the x-ray they found out the dog had broken his pelvis in many places and were so surprised he was able to walk at all. His owners would then have to choose whether to let him have surgery or restrict him from walking at home for 6 weeks which would mean keeping him in a cage :(
I had never really thought about radiography as a career but after seeing it being done, I'd really like to find out more about it.

On Tuesday night I came down with something and ended up being sick on Wednesday and Thursday :( I was gutted to miss the days but I definitely would of fainted if I had went in!
 source

After all the planning, it was finally here..

So for the past few months me along with the 5 other members of our school bank 'Super Euro's' have been planning our official bank launch. I think its an understatement to say we've had so many mixed emotions over the past few weeks - excitement, nerves, stress and so much more... Its been crazy!
We spent so much time getting in contact with people to launch our bank and entertainment and well, it all came together today :D
We got Kildare football captain Johnny Doyle to launch our bank and The Original Rudeboys to entertain everyone :D
You could only go to launch if you joined our bank or lodged money with us, so for the past few days its been mad with so many people coming to us with forms and money! Even this morning we had so much to do, like giving out invitations, setting up the hall, sorting out the food and the running order of the launch.

At around half 11 the Original Rudeboys manager arrived and began to set up the sound system and everything. It was all happening so fast it was hard to keep up but before we knew it another sound guy had arrived and then the band arrived :D They were so lovely and we got pictures with them for the newspapers before everyone arrived :) They then went through sound check which was great because it was like a personal concert just for us! :)

We began the launch with Johnny Doyle cutting the ribbon and saying a few words :) Then The Original Rudeboys played six songs and really got the crowd going! They were amazing, they're gonna make it so big! Once they'd stopped playing they signed autographs for everyone and when all the students went back to class Kildare TV did an interview with them and also one with Johnny Doyle. The ORB's waited a little bit longer just chatting with us and having the 'BANKter' as us bankers would say ;) hahaha

It was such a great day and there was such a great buzz around the school.
Being part of the bank is one of the best things I've done in TY and I'm so glad in part of it :) Huge well done to my bank team Caitriona, Aoife, Sarah, Fiona and Elizabeth! Go super Euros wooo :D
Bring on the regionals in two weeks time!
Heres some pictures from the event! Thanks to Lana for taking these :)

St. Brigid

The 1st of February is St. Brigid's Day. This is a very tradional holiday here in Ireland so all of TY decided to get involved and celebrate St. Brigid.
My class were given the task of decorating the Prayer Room in our school. Firstly, we split up into four groups - Music, History, Art and Designers. I was part of the designers group. We had to design where everything went in the prayer room and make a list of all materials we needed to get!
We spent a few classes preparing until we finally began decorating the Prayer Room. Roisins dad made a well to go in the cornre of the room, it was so good and really made the room more peaceful!

We had a part of a tree and on it we all placed a piece of cloth with our name on it. This is called 'Brath Bhride' and in the past women would leave the cloth out on a windowsill on 31st of January and then Brigid would bless them!

I'll post pictures soon of the prayer room so you can see our creation! :)

Road safety..

Last Friday, the 3rd of February two guards from the Traffic Corps in Naas came in to talk to all TYs about Road Safety. I was in the first group to get this talk, I'd heard things about it before but I still didn't know what to expect. It was a weird coincidence of the timing of this because just two days before I passed my Theory Test!

The guards introduced themselves and explained a bit about what they'd be telling us about. The first video they showed us was of a man holding a pizza and walking across the road without looking..and well you can probably guess where this is going...Anyway the video wasn't real but it still shocked everyone.
We were shown so many videos and told stories about road accidents. One of the worst things as part of the guards job in my opinion has to be when they have to go to a family's house in the middle of the night to tell them bad news about an accident. One of the guards has had to do this many times and the one thing he said is, it's totally different than what they make out on tv. They make it out to be a lot easier on tv.

One of the main videos was of a mother telling the story of her daughters death. Her daughter Emma was only 17 when she died. She had gotten into the car of an irresponsible driver and they crashed. Seeing her mam explaining everything really put everything into perspective...
This had to be one of the best talks I've ever been given, both the guards did a really good job and I'm pretty sure they got their message across to everyone in TY.

They ended by showing us this video, describing it as 'the worst one and you should probably cover your eyes'

Cork here we come!

Well last week we found out my groups drama 'Tich Miller' got through to the finals of the Briary Gap competition in Cork! We were all so shocked because we weren't expecting to get through at all. Our drama was very last minute and we changed our idea so many times.
Its taking place on 3rd of March which is the Saturday after our week of work experience. I'm really looking forward to it but we're going to have to put in a lot work between then and now!

Well done to all the other dramas though, they were all really good :)

Bank :)

Theres a good few things going on right now including running the school bank, Super Euro's! We're getting ready for the launch which I'm excited about because we have big plans including a few guest appearences. It's taking place at the end of February so hopefully it'll all go to plan.
The regional competition is taking place in March so we're running promotions and things around the school to let people know about the bank. One promotion is our Valentines Day one which is if you join the bank with one of your friends you both get a prize. And if a cirrent bank member brings a friend to join the bank they both get a prize too! :) We have a good few great prizes to choose from!

We've set up a blog for our bank so click here to go onto it!

''Pick Tubby!''

Yesterday all TY's went to Mullingar for a drama competition. The last time I blogged our play was about a war, wow did that change! With four days to go, our group decided to change our play totally but I think it was definitely for the best.
Our play was based around the poem Tich Miller by Wendy Cope. Click here for a link to read the poem. Everyone really got into character and I think it went pretty well! The poem deals with the theme of bullying which was portrayed well. I was a bully in the play and in case you're wondering the title of this blog is a line I had to say!
The three other plays from our school were really good, even though I didn't get to see them because my group were last to perform.

Well done everyone!

English Play...

In English we're in the middle of practising our drama for a competition thats taking place next week. It called the Briary Gap competition and its on in Mullingar :) My groups drama is about a war. Although we've had a good few problems and things its finally coming together..
We've changed our storyline a few times which slowed us down a good bit but I'm pretty sure we have our final storyline now!
Next Tuesday we're going to Mullingar and lets hope it all goes to plan!

Super Euro's

As I've already said a while ago, I'm part of the school bank team. We've set up the bank in the school and we're getting members pretty quickly! During the Christmas we spent a day organising how to promote the bank around the school and how to get members to join. We have some great ideas for members to take part in. At the moment we're giving a lollypop to everyone who brings their application form back. But there will be many more promotions throughout the year.
1st and 2nd years are our target market and after talking to first years yesterday, there are a lot more people interested!
The regional competition takes place sometime in February or March I think so that'll be good :)

We've set up a blog for our bank and when I know the link to it, i'll post it here. I can't remember it right now... But on the blog we're going to post all the latest news and competitions in relation to the bank :)

Back to reality...

So Christmas Holidays are now over and we're back into our TY routine! This morning I was so tired I didn't think I would be able to get through the day.
Christmas was great even though there was no snow this year! The three weeks went way to quickly...

On Friday all TY's along with 2nd years are going to the Young Scientists Competition in the RDS. There's 4 groups from TY taking part in the competition so it'll be good to see how they all do! I remember going in 2nd year and it was such a great day with lots of free stuff! :)