My return to Primrose

*Just realised that this was never published and has been sitting in my drafts for about a month! Woops.

For my first week in work experience I went back to my old primary school, which is school for children aged around 5 to 12. I had some great years in Primrose Hill and I was very excited to be heading back there. I was working mainly with Junior and Senior Infants. They kept me entertained for the week with their endless stories. I mainly just checked their homework in the morning and walked around helping them while they did their work. I had to supervise at lunch time and help them pack up at home time. I missed being in Junior Infants when the biggest stress you had was whether or not everyone could fit in the play house together. With only 4 other girls in my class at the time, it was usually very possible! I was working with all my old teachers but it was actually kind of fun because they weren't giving out and were being really nice. I only noticed then how much I had grown up since leaving primary school. 
It was Science Week so we had lots of fun doing cool experiments with the infant classes. They got so excited and found everything so interesting. When they went home early I went to help 2nd and 3rd class with their science projects. They were working on circuits and designed lighthouses with working lights. I was very impressed because the kids seemed to know what they were doing without my help or the teacher's.
I did an interview with one of the teachers and I found out that a lot more goes into teaching a class than just what goes on during class time. A teacher  must plan every minute of a class and make lots of schedules and plans. I had noticed during the week how organised the teacher was and I wondered when she even had time to decorate the class with all the educational posters and different paintings. She told me you have to be a very organised, patient and energetic person to be a primary school teacher. I really enjoyed my week and I'm now considering teaching as a future career. :)

Inequality

"  Maya
        You are fifteen years of age and live in the Bronx area of New York. Your Mom is a single parent and tries to make ends meet by cleaning houses and living on welfare. Your neighbourhood is pretty dangerous and you don't feel safe at night. You try to work hard at school but it is hard when the school is run down and overcrowded.  
                                                                                                                      "
In religion class we are discussing the millenium goals and in particular gender equality. We did an excercise to look at the treatment of females in different countries around the world. A series of statements were read out, and if the statement applied to you, you took a big step forward. If it kind of applied to you, you took a little step and if it did not apply to you then you stood still. 
The person I was assigned was Maya. When I first read my bit of paper I thought she had a hard life. As the excercise went on, I was taking steps the whole way. At the end, I was fourth from the top. As I passed people by I felt bad for them, for leaving them behind and I wondered why everyone else wasn't moving too? The excercise showed me that there is extreme inequality and unjust treatment going on in other countries. I learned that Ireland is a very well-off country and we shouldn't take our rights for granted. I am much more understanding now of women and girls in third-world countries. I feel bad that they don't get to receive an education or even to feel safe in their homes.
We all need to try help pull up the people who are being left behind.

Juno & the *cue Dublin accent* Paycock

We all headed into Dublin City on Wednesday for a very English day. We got the bus first thing in the morning, no messing about with classes or the likes :) Of course us fódlians had to go on our beloved mini bus and we set off in the hopes that one of our texts would reach Spin 1038 and they'd play our requested song.
First stop, the National Library. It was unfortunate we couldn't go into the actual library with actual books and things you would expect to see? So we stayed in the display room checking out different random facts and having a read through the guest book to see where all the people who visited the library had hailed from. 
Next was the National Museum. I had never been before so I was overwhelmed by the amount of historical artefacts in the huge room, and I didn't know where to look first. There was lots of things from Irish history which I thought was great because you always want to know what people did in Ireland before us. They wore huge cloaks called mantles and I was surprised to find out they even locked their houses with these little wooden keys. I found the Egyptian exhibition very interesting. It reminded me of all the stories I used to hear and movies and cartoons I used to watch growing up. It was weird when I was looking at the coffins of ancient Egypt and knowing there was actually a mummies in there, real, deceased Egyptians! I then started thinking of the film Night at the Museum and decided it was time to get out of there :L The most memorable element of the museum was the bog bodies for sure. These were bodies which had been buried in the bogs of Ireland, only to be preserved. The skin turned to leather and a kind of crépe paper looking constituent? The ginger hair remained on their heads and their teeth and nails remained in tact. 

This hand had been preserved  and kept the same size as it always would have been. The nails were still apparent.

This guys hair remained in perfect condition on his head. I remember he also had a  bit of a beard too!

We went to a W.B. Yeats exhibition. He was one of the greatest Irish writers. He wrote The Lake Isle of Inisfree, which (I don't know about anyone else) I had to learn off by heart back when I was in primary school. I was told it was a very important poem and Yeats was a very important man. So far in my life, this poem has helped me.. in no way at all. -.- Was it a waste of time? Totally! Naah I'm sure I can find a use for that little bit of knowledge I have :P So apparently Yeats was in love with this young'un called Modde Gonne. Why, I do not know, but he did have quite the obsession :/ He wrote most of his plays and poems based about her and his feelings towards her.

One McChicken Sandwich, fries and an Oreo Shakeaway later, we set off for the historical Abbey Theatre (a.k.a. National Theatre of Ireland) which has had many of Yeats' plays performed there in the past. The scheduled show for Wednesday was Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey, another of Ireland's great  playwrights. What a coincidence was it that we had all studied this play in class? :o Well, really it was a highly planned out trip by our three English teachers; Ms C, Ms G and Ms B. (Much thanks and appreciation for them!)

The play is set during the 1920's in Dublin, when there was war and havoc in Ireland. (At this time the rest of the world were happily dancing away to the Charleston). The Boyle family are living in the tenements and are getting on with life as Juno takes care of the whole family. Her husband 'the Captain' will moan about the pains in his legs any time there is a chance of him getting a job. The family do however come into a lot of money and are happy indulge. It all comes quickly crumbling down though, when it turns out the papers giving them all this dosh was filled out incorrectly. By this time it is too late and they are in waaay over their heads in debt. Meanwhile, little do we know, the children of this family have secrets of their own.

SPOILER AHEAD! :

Mary's boyfriend, Bentham, has done a runner to England, and she is left, none other than pregnant. Poor Johnny, with his broken hip and his missing arm, was having terrible visions and was unexplainably nervous and afraid all the time. This all became clear when two men visited the house to take him away. He was a traitor. He gave information about his 'best friend' who had been killed. Johnny's body was then found later on. Juno was left to cope with all this family drama, and 

"the world in a terrible state of chassis".

It was a great day out altogether! :D 

And thanks again Ms L for letting me fly off to my next class! (Life Saver!!)

What's the Obsession?

-Blog Action Day!

I think the best way of explaining how much food is such a big part of our lives is shown in the movie Over The Hedge. It shows how nearly everything we do is to do with food...

It's funny because it makes you think about how much food is actually a part in your life, whether you like it or not. Food can sometimes control your emotions, e.g. if you get your favourite food you become happier and if you're eating something truly rotten it could put you in a bad mood :( Sometimes people can crave or desire certain foods.

 -chocolate   -ice cream   -crisps   -milkshakes   -chicken rolls (yummm)   etc etc..

Here in Ireland we take food for granted, because there's a shop on every corner full of food, drinks and more sweets than you can imagine. However in some poor countries, food is a luxury, and you'd be lucky to get your hands on some. Think about how much we moan about hunger the class before lunch, just waiting for the bell to go. In these third world countries the hunger would be ten times worse, and the people there are never even guaranteed food. They work very hard to produce most of their own food or else they'd have to travel very far to reach it.
We need to sit up and take action! This can't go unnoticed and we all need to do our part. Many charities such as Trócaire and Concern have had tonnes of support in the past, but there is still an ongoing problem of hunger and poverty around the world, so it's never to late to donate and help the cause.


What to do now? Get Going And Think About What You Can Do To Make A Difference! 


(The next thing you'll probably do when you've finished reading this post is go to the fridge/cupboard to get your favourite snack, just because you've been thinking about food so much lately. Well, Enjoy! )

Educating Essex Analysis :B

In religion we've been watching videos of a TV show called Educating Essex. It's based on real life in a school in Essex as the cameras follow a handful of students and document their regular school lives. However it didn't seem like a normal school, with the number of bullying situations going on. Even the head girl was being bullied! She was getting disturbing anonymous texts and was getting really scared. It turned out to be a joke by her so-called 'friends'. This joke turned out to have serious consequences, which makes you realise you should always think twice before pressing SEND! There was also an ongoing incident between two boys who were always trying to wind each other up. One of the boy's mothers was encouraging her son to hit the other boy. BAD INFLUENCE MUCH!? It goes to show that you shouldn't always do what your parents tell you to do.. :P Well not when you know thet they are wrong anyway.

Final note : Bullying is NOT Cool! -.-

Everybody Dance Now! *Fistpump*

Fun walk success! Last Friday we performed our routine for the entire school, and everyone loved it :D We did the songs Absolutely Everybody and Everybody Dance Now to tie in with friendship week and show that everybody is included. We all arrived in our very own Kaza's Wheels, custom made to look like Ms O'C's yellow mini cooper! It could have been the best run through we had ever done and we couldn't hel but to smile cheesily :) Our finale was EPIC (yes, I said epic.). At one end Rebecca was lying across other girls, Aoibheann doing the same at the other end, in the centre Emily was standing on two peoples hands, she fell back and when we caught her we swung her a couple times. On one side of that Emma jumped up and fell down into the girls and on the other the girls made a small pyramid. It will be a hard dance to beat for Ms O'C's class next year..



Aoibheann's lift

 

Kaza's Wheels


Oh and congratulations to Banba who won the chocolate bars.. Good job :)



  

One more week! :D

Fm104, one of the top radio stations in Dublin, who I will be working with very soon! xD, will be hosting a gig in aid of the ISPCC (Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). There will be some brill acts there like Olly Murs, Royseven, The Original Rudeboys and Aslan!! :o Mostly I'm looking forward to seeing BRESSIE!! <3 He used to play in the band The Blizzards but has chosen to go solo for now.

These are a couple of his songs, Can't Stay Young (Forever) and Good Intentions. :D

And here's The Original Rudeboys, who I have just recently come across and can't seem to get them out of my head! :)

Can't Wait!! xD

Stuffs to do over the next week:

1) Tomorrow is the long awaited fun walk! TYs are yellow :D I'm sure I can fish something out of the wardrobe. The rivalry between the three classes will be over as we dance for a chance of winning a chocolate bar each.. It'll be so worth it :) Our dance is coming along, but we still need a lot of practice! I wish I could say what we're doing because it's very exciting, but for now it's top secret ;) Our class, Fódla's tutor, Ms O'C, is very competitive and really wants to beat Mr L and his class Banba. Can't wait to see Eriú too, they seem very excited about it :P

2) Babysitting this weekend will consist of me doing music research for class watching the X-factor, the live shows :D I will be supporting Frankie Cocozza <3 and James Michael - he has great hair. ;D Johnny Robinson is also a hero :P (not really anything to do with school but it'll be all anyone is talking about until it's over at Christmas :L)


3) I'll hopefully get round to seeing The Lion King in 3D, back out in cinema after 17 years! even though I'm sure the original will always be waaay better xD Could possibly have been one of the first movies I ever watched, and one of the best :P Don't know what kids these days are watching if they haven't got the likes of what we had back in the day? For Home Ec we're doing a lion king themed costume so it will inspire us :) :L


4) Hmm.. I must make some sort of conscious effort to do a bit of my Geography / Irish / Science / French projects before it's too late. There's so much to do! On top of daily or weekly assignments we have these projects to do and then all the things to do after school. TY is not as easy as I thought it would be... but it is even better than I though it would be! :)


5)  Another minicompany workshop yolk next Wednesday. We need to have some actual work done and be able to show it in case O asks us anything! :S I'll also have to try and figure out how to get from the workshop to a hockey match to help coaching with the 2nd years, first match of the year. GOOD LUCK GIRLS!! 


I probably have a lot more things to do over the next week, but this is just about all I can think of now..

Mini Company

So we really need to get started on mini company. We haven't had a lot of Fresh ideas for our mini company to run with. We're not feeling very motivated or inspired :( We've got an idea about little lights now and we're getting information on that. We had our first Mini company module last Thursday and St. Wolstan's girls definitely mad an impression, especially with us taking up 5 rows and the other schools only 1 each. There were lots of great ideas flying around that morning. A group from another school were thinking of doing pocket socks and they had everything pretty much planned out and organised. It made me think I should really hurry up the deciding on the product process. The girls in my group elected me Managing Director of  our company. I don't mind as long as we have a good product that we can put in lots of effort and work into. All the girls also got different roles in the company such as finance manager, production manager and sales and marketing manager.
What we've heard most about when Mini Company is brought up with past TYs, is that there are LOTS of fights. We haven't had one.. yet. I'm anxiously awaiting it just so we can get it over with and continue on! We went over to Meg's to see if we could get any work done, but we just ate AMAZING buns. Meg's a great baker :D We managed to write 3 sentences for our proposal and printed off our survey. If anyone out there's interested in getting a light to fit around your keyhole, to solve your ongoing problem in the dark, contact us at illuminateminico@gmail.com .

JERRY! JERRY!

We've decided in our music class that we will base our slef directed opera around Jerry Springer/Jeremy Kyle's TV chat show. We can't wait to think up ridiculous stories and funny messed up characters. I'm not sure if there's anyone in my class who can properly sing, but we'll give it a go anyway :) I hope we have a good time creating this opera and don't get stressed out about it, and that it turns out alright and isn't a big fail :/ And the other class's ideas sound really good too so I can't wait to see them x)

Bonjour! from Sarah, Jenny and Sarah M in french class.
Nous adorons Mr H.
J'aime le francais! J'aime le chocolat. J'aime les saucisse. J'aime la vie?
Nous sommes trés contente. Nous faisons notre projet de Monet, une artiste francais.
Il est un échouent. :(


Au revoir   :*    x

This is a picture of Niamh and Me in Carlingford after we lost the bet with our instructor and had to eat our dinner without our hands. :P

The Hunger Strikes

Too hungry to think about blogging.
It's 7 6 minutes to lunch time.
I have no lunch with me today so its really 3 and a half hours to wait until my next chance of getting food.
FML.

Busy, Busy.

There's lots to do in TY now. We have a project to do in nearly every class.

In geography we have to do a hypothetic round the world trip where we will research 6 countries in detail. It will take a long time but hopefully I will find it interesting and learn new things. I might even get to visit the countries some day :)

We are all entering the BT Young Scientist competition and we're thinking very hard to come up with interesting, original ideas to work on. My group have decided to research Ichthyotherapy - with the little fish that suck the dead skin off your feet. It sounds weird, but I think it would be good to find out about and experience.

We all have to come up with a product and form a mini-company. We've split into groups and now we must decide on what to do. We are all eager to get started but our teacher insists on teaching us the basics of Business, which isn't very fun.

In Home Ec, we were given a white t-shirt and a white pair of trousers which must be transformed into something completely different. Each group must use one colour to base their whole design on. My group have chosen Orange and we want to do a Lion King sort of theme. I'm really excited to do these and see what crazy outfit we'll end up with..

In Tech, we've moved on to our second project, a Key Holder. My first project, a key-ring, wasn't very good so I'm hoping to improve my skills this time round.

We will be starting our Irish projects soon. I must write about myself, my family, my school, my hometown and my hobbies. I will present my project to the class by speaking in Irish, and this will count for 50% of my total grade for the year.

It will be difficult to find time for all these projects as I have different activities on after school every day. There is also a new school hockey coach, and she has added another day of training. There will be an extra training session on today after school so I hope it will be good :)

Fat Camp :D

         -We did hours of excercise during the day, and smuggled bags of sweets and chinese food into our rooms at night. They so tricked us into going to fat camp..

   Wasn't too thrilled about waking up at 6 am on Monday morning, but when I arrived at the bus stop to go to Carlingford Adventure Centre, seeing the other TYs (most of them still half asleep) everyone was getting more excited and ready to leave. 

We got into groups when we arrived, and headed straight for a mountain side, to work on team-building by doing lots of challenges. For one of them we all had to crawl into a big metal container and find our way through a maze. It was pitch black, but we all managed to get through to the end. We lost a bet with our leader, Wayne (who had the best accent!), and we had to eat our lunch without using knives or forks, or our hands. Luckily I opted out of having beans for lunch...

   Laser tag was the best thing there, I couldn't believe how into it everyone got! :L REDS were the best team, with many victories >.< Everyone was looking forward to getting muddy in the dark at the 'night-line' that night. We ended up following a rope around the forest blindfolded. The blindfolds smelled so bad that nobody wanted to put them near our noses, so we could pretty much see where we were going the whole time.. We then took the long route home in the freezing cold and crawled through a tunnel under an old church.

   Back in the adventure centre, happy to be out of the cold, we had a sing-song with the boys school that was there. One of the other leaders, Luke, did a 'fire-twirling' display, which was really good :) 

   Afterwards in our amazing house with Ms. O'C, we reheated our chinese in the little kitchen and ripped open the endless bags HARIBO STARMIX. Yumm! :D Surprisingly, we did manage to get a couple of hours sleep that night.

 There was an unwanted awakening the next morning at 8 am and once again we were up the hill. We walked up the side of a mountain for about two and a half hours, snacking on Haribos :), trying to find an alright tree for Niamh to go behind,  running quickly past some scary looking sheep with horns, and trying our very best not to fortune seek and hunt any leprechauns.. cause they have laws against that sort of stuff.. :/

 Rock climbing was fun too, although the girls were pulling the rope very tight trying to make me fly -.- 

   Leaving Carlingford, I thought I would have liked to stay for a bit longer, but I also wondered if I'd be able to hack anymore of that endless hill! Tiredness being the reason it's taken me so long to get round to writing this blog! 

 Our thoughts had changed quickly on the journey home as we were all awaiting the next big event in our lives - Junior Cert results were coming out! And well done to everyone, all the results were great :) Going out the night we got our results was absolutely amazing! It will be hard to beat.

    All in all, it was a fantastic week, with lots of great memories.. :) 

Starting Off..

TY's going great so far! :D The first week was really good. We got into our class groups and I am in Fódla! :) We started our projects straight away in Geography, Science  and Home Ec so we've been kept really busy. On Tuesday we had a personal development talk and everyone in the class got to know each other a lot better. I learned about all the different types of personalitys and did lots of fun activities :) Today we have lots of fun classes including IT, music and double PE. In the afternoon we do different sorts of activities which are good craic :) We do photography, pilates and 1950's charleston dancing , it's lots of fun :)