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!