Off on an Irish adventure we go!

Hey guys,

As this post is coming a little late (whoops, sorry) my memory as to what went on the past week has slightly faded, and all I can really remember is the week previous, our Irish trip to be precise.

So, on Friday the 10th of may, all of us transition years headed out in our tracksuits to explore the grounds of St.Enda's school in Dublin. This was an all-boys school set up in 1908 by Patrick Pearse and Willie Pearse, two leaders of the Irish 1916 rising that were executed in Kilmainham jail for their involvement. The school was set up as the pair wanted gaeilge to be taught and spoken throughoutin schools and throughout Ireland. It was therefore set up as an all Irish speaking school which did succeed at influencing the teaching of Irish, which is of course still around today. Mar is eol duit.

While there, we had a tour of the beautiful gardens, learnt about the history of the school and the students that attended (the boys wore yellow skirts, blazers and white shirts). The house itself was fabulous, finished with three stories, a massive garden and a set of stairs which lead to the large green front door. (inside they even had the butcher block on which Robert Emmet was beheaded.

We then watched a movie about the life of the Pearse Brothers and enjoyed a nice lunch in the accompanying Brambles café. It was a lovely day out with everyone, and we all enjoyed learning more about the history of Ireland. If you are near the area, I definitely recommend a visit. The gardens are full of flowering plants and it is a wonderfully quiet and relaxing place to visit.

Till next week,
Ciara

   

Supersize me, and make me a teddy bear.

Hey guys,

So this week has been a prolonged week whereby we finished homework assignments etc. and found out about upcoming events and deadlines. Our summer tests are fast approaching and we've already been briefed on what subjects each student will be organising for Transition Year night, but more on that in another post.

Today we learnt about the geography and cultural contexts of India, and soon we will be having two native Indian speakers in to talk to us about their cultures and knowledge of India. We also got a little break from sewing our teddy bears (which are coming along just fine) and began to watch a  documentary style movie called 'super size me'. It's a really interesting film to watch, and is all about the rapid growth of obesity in America and their problems with fast food, ie. McDonald's. One man goes on a 30 day binge of mcDonald's food which involves him eating 3 square meals a day and nothing else from any other food source. Definitely check it out.

I'm afraid that's all we've been getting up to this week as nothing new has been scheduled. Make sure you check again for next week's blog post as I will be covering an up and coming Transition year outing.

Till next week,

Ciara

Dissolvaball, a cereal ball that dissolves in your milk.

Hey Guys,

This week was full of new projects and tasks that we took on in an effort to finish before our 3 month long summer holidays. All week we have been working on perfecting a song for an Irish competition we have decided to enter into. Ciara, Roisin, Zoe & Orla have been mad at work for the past two weeks creating lyrics to go along with the tune of The Script - 'the man who can't be moved'  and after successfully jumping a few hurdles, we have finally learned it off and even got around to recording the whole thing today, getting it ready to send into the judges. I'll let you know how we get on with that, and will have the video to share with you shortly!

This week we have also been designing cereal boxes for our latest mini company assignment. Myself, Eimear and Aisling have come up with 'disolvaball' a sphere shaped cereal that when dissolved in half a bowl of milk gives you eg. Chocolate milk and cocopops. I have been in charge of creating the logo and our character ('Bally Pauly'). We have decided to go ahead and create the strawberry version of our cereal, here it is below:

I went to my 3rd week of work experience, the half way mark until we're completely finished. If you'd like to read about my day, all you need to do is click on this here and you will be redirected over to my work experience blog! I've also been to work on my teddy bear, which is coming on nicely. A lot of us are nearing the end of the process so I'll get a picture up soon! I can't believe there's so little time left in Transition Year!

Till next week,

Ciara

Swim a mile with a Smile

Hey guys,

As you might have guessed from the title, we participated in the Ian Daly 'Swim a mile with a smile' event this week. It is a highly worthwhile cause that you can read more about by clicking here.

The swim a mile fundraising event was set up by the parents of Ian Daly, a 9 year old boy that was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour back in 2002. Sadly, Ian passed away in 2003 at the age of 11 after attempts to fight off the tumour hadn't been effective. This tragic event inspired Ian's family to start up a fundraising event requiring participants to swim a mile or as much as they could in honour of Ian, who loved to swim. Each year people take part in the challenge and raise money for Barretstown.

As well as fundraising for a very worthwhile cause we also had lots of fun and managed to swim over 23 miles all together. I strongly encourage whoever is interested to take part in Swim a mile as it's a truly amiable fundraising event.

Till next week,
Ciara

I mustache you a question, but I'll shave it for later..

Hey guys,

As you may have guessed from the slightly subtle heading I have been recently influenced by the French culture. This is a result of a delicious French breakfast that I shared with my classmates this Friday morning. We indulged in a LOT of French themed food including the likes of; croissants, brioche, pain au chocolat and bonbons. We definitely ate ourselves sick but it was worth it and we took it as an opportunity to practise for our future orals on the topic of breakfast time.

So, as that was at the end of the week, I should probably cover how the week started. First up on Monday we made deeeelicious lemon curd cupcakes. They were filled with a lemon curd swirl and topped with lemon icing, I was cooking on my own so got them all for myself, but it was definitely stressful trying to get it done in time! On Tuesday we got to work completing our art work on tape portraits and a lot of us began working on our new assignment: puppets! It sounds like it's going to be really fun and I can't wait to see all of the finished products, I was thinking of making a mermaid like the one below. We'll see how that works out!

On Wednesday I started my third and final work experience in a gorgeous cafe & garden centre type of place. It was a great day and looks like it's going to be the best work experience so far. You can read about that on my work experience blog here. On Thursday we had a double mini company class where we finalised a lot of the mini company business and continued to work on our new assignment which involves us creating our own cereal. We have managed to come up with our cereal idea so far and just need to get to work on the cereal box and logo. Lots to do!

So that's what I got up to this week. It was a lot to do in the first week back but hey, lots of new interesting projects coming up and there's only 7 weeks left until summer!

Till next week,
Ciara

Pilgrimage & Bowling

Hey guys,

This week we went on a mini pilgrimage, ate out, and went bowling. Not to mention we also performed in our school's annual Music Night.

The week started off on Tuesday after our long weekend and St.Patrick's day!! On Tuesday we started watching the movie '21' in maths. It's all about this guy that needs to save $300,000 for his college tuition fee's and so gets roped into a group of 'card counters' that use their 'super brains' to cheat casino's in Vegas and win themselves a lot of money. We haven't quite finished it yet, but if you haven't seen it I definitely recommend giving it a watch, it's so interesting!

Usually on a Wednesday we would go to work experience but since our second block is completed we have been going out on mini group trips. This week's came in the form of a mini pilgrimage to Kildare.

Our pilgrimage involved us visiting sights such as those shown above. They are all to do with St. Brigid and the last picture you see (St. Brigid's holy well) shows a tree on the left hand corner full of small belongings traditionally put there by visitors symbolising people they would like to be prayed for. Our pilgrimage was followed by a trip to White Water Shopping Centre (where we filled up on doughnuts & carrot cake) and then a competitive game of bowling! It was a great day!

On Thursday and headed straight to the hall to practise for that nights music night. We were singing a medley of 'Ho Hey' by the Lumineers, 'Hall of Fame' by The Script and 'I follow rivers' by Lykke Li. We had been practising the previous few weeks and set the stage that night in front of an audience made up of student's parents. It was a great night and nobody forgot their words!

Today we finally finished contagion (another BRILLIANT movie that you should watch) and continued to make our Teddy Bears, they're really coming together! Now for our two-week long mid-term break, Have a good Easter :)

Till next week,
Ciara

Retreat time

Hey guys,

So another week has passed in Transition Year and i'm here again writing about this week's antics. Transition year seems to be FLYING by, We can basically call ourselves fifth years, can you believe there's only a little over 2 months until summer?!

So this week was full of project work, but we took a lovely day off from all our hard work and went up to Tallaght for our TY retreat. Here we sectioned off into small groups of 12 students or so and made our way to our own rooms. Here, we spoke about life and experiences, and it was a spectacular day.

The week had a great finish and ended with us all dressed up as leprechauns and fairies. Our school prefects set up a dress up day to the fast arriving St.Patricks festival. Each year had a theme to inspire their dress-up and everybody brought in 2 euros to go towards charity. It was a great day, full of movie watching, celebrating and dancing!

Till next week,
Ciara