Thursday 29 March 2012

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 :)

Wednesday 28 March 2012

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!

Thursday 22 March 2012

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.

Thursday 15 March 2012

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!

Saturday 10 March 2012

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 :) ^

Wednesday 7 March 2012

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.

Friday 2 March 2012

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