Gaisce Hike!

30 of us TYs headed off to Kippure in the Wicklow Mts. to partake in our 25km hike which we needed to do to complete the President's Bronze Award. We were so excited and had bags full of food to last us a week even though we only went for one night. This was another challenge we were willing to take up! When we arrived we dumped our bags in our houses. I was in house Gryffindor! We then set off on a 13km hike for the night. After the first km i was wrecked and I reckoned we had just about covered half of the trek. I was soon disappointed to find out we had another three hours to go. We hiked through fields, forests and very wet bogland. We crawled through a 5000 year old tomb which used to be used as a meeting place. I for one would definitely not like to hike up to the top of a mountain everyday just to hear all the news.

The night in the house was one to remember. We stayed up all night, making ourselves dinner and brownies, and watching High School Musical and some other cringey movies.

Next morning we were woken at 8 o'clock and set off on another hike of 12km hike. We were a lot quieter that morning than we had been the previous night. We were all so tired and the cold was certainly a shock to the system. The second day was more uphill with a lot more wet and boggy land. At the end of it all it felt like such an achievement to have completed 25km in just two days! It was such a fun weekend and I'd love to do it again!

Nationals with Bressie

We were so nervous going to our national bank competition. We had no idea what would be in store for us that day. When we arrived we unloaded all our bags and had a lovely breakfast :) Then we went into the chill-out zone to relax before our important interviews. The chill-out zone was mad! There was a silent disco, a giant draughts set, penalty kicks, air hockey, a cinema screen and loads more! We practised our presentation on the big stage with our podiums and microphones. We were then called out to do our interview. It was in a tent looking thing called a 'hub'. It went on for twenty minutes and we each spoke about the different exciting aspects of our bank. The interviewers seemed very impressed. Next up, dinner was served in the hall. It was delicious! There was a great performance at the beginning of the presentations with loads of acrobats and dancers and stilt-walkers. It really got us in a great mood :D Then the host of the day Bressie came out! :o He also performed on the day which was great because it was like our very own private gig! The songs just kept on comin'! :) He awarded us with our plaque, renaming us 'St. Waltons' and admired our outfits :) It was such a great day and one of the highlights of TY for sure!

We are the champions!

Our school participated in the West Leinster school sporting events and we did pretty well. Students from our school took part long jump, triple jump, javelin, shotput, hammerthrow, relays, sprints, hurdles, steeple-chase, high jump and more all in the hopes of taking home the gold. The awards system was based on points so wherever you placed you got a certain amount of points for it. The girls did extremely well in all events and we managed to take home the first place prize for Junior Girls, Intermediate Girls, Senior Girls, and the most important, Overall Girls for yet another year! Most of the competitors will now be continuing on to the Leinster finals now and our school is so proud and excited to be winners again :)

Retreat

I went on a retreat to Glendalough, in the Wicklow Mts, today and it really got me thinking about my beliefs and my actions. Here is what I remember about the day. 

Swim A Mile With A Smile

Yesterday all of Transition Year took part in the Ian Daly Swim A Mile With A Smile. It was one of the highlights of the year so far :) Ian Daly was a local boy and my friend Eimear's brother. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour at a young age and after much fighting, unfortunately he died. He loved to swim so the Ian Daly Swim a Mile With a Smile was set up. It is a sponsored swim to raise money for Crumlin Children's Hospital where he was treated and Barretstown.
I swam a mile with my friend Niamh, and altogether us TYs managed to swim over 40 miles altogether, beating the previous record of 25 miles. We all did the best we could and it was a really enjoyable day for everyone. Hopefully we managed to get a lot of sponsorship too to help out :)
Thanks a lot to Brian and Laura Daly who do so much work to organise everything! We loved it :)


Click here for Swim A Mile Website

Easter Break

We're just back from our two week easter break. Although I didn't really do much it still went too fast! :( As soon as we got off school I went home, got ready and went out to see 21 Jump Street. It was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time! with Channing Tatum, a skinny Jonah Hill and Dave Franco.
Next day I had my last hockey match of the season which we won :D There was a rush home and then we all went out for dinner and then out to a club :)
Didn't do much for the rest of that week other than major reading of The Hunger Games and then saw it in cinema, it was brilliant!! Most of the rest of the week consisted of eating chocolate and catching up on my favourite TV shows like 90210, Bones and Pretty Little Liars.
There was also a huuge bank meeting during the week to get ready for the Nationals next week. It took SEVEN hours! I don't know why, but we always underestimate the amount of work we have to do. We also get seriously distracted a lot of the time...
On Saturday it was my hockey club's annual fun day with 6-a-sides, barbecues, cake stands, bouncy castles, facepainting and obstacle courses. It's always the best day of the year :D It was soo much fun and I had a great team with all my friends. Our theme was Where's Wally so we looked really funny playing the matches. That night was the awards night and it was weird to see everyone so dressed up, I'm used to the hair up, old tracksuit look. It was a great night and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone next season :)

Around the World in 365 days

In geography class we did projects based on our 'Arount The World' Trips. It was a really fun project to do because I got to learn a lot about different countries that some day I'd like to visit. We had to present our projects to the class, so here is a slideshow of one of the countries I chose to visit, Dubai.

Jitterbug

Last night was the school's annual music night. For the last couple of weeks we have been preparing to perform Wake Me Up by Wham! in music class. We did lots of practise and then even before the show when everyone had arrived we ran through it a few times to make sure we got it right. No offence to anyone, but we all know our class isn't very musically gifted, so we decided to just go out, try our best, and most importantly have a bit of a laugh. (Easier said than done when you walk out to a full house and the music doesn't start..) We managed to get through the song pretty good though and it was such a relief walking off stage that nothing went wrong! :) And well done to other TY classes Eriú and Banba too! Their months of preparation really payed off and they were brill singing Shake It Out by Florence + the Machine :)

Dia Daoibh

Here is a paragraph in the Irish language. If you need it, here is Google Translate, but I find most the time its not very accurate so just go with it..
Tá mé ag scríobh as Gaeilge anois. Gaeilge ná an teanga naisúinta anseo in Éirinn, ach fós ní labhraíonn a lán daoine é agus níl a lán daoine in ann a bheith ag caint as gaeilge freisin! Is aoibhinn liom Gaeilge! Thosaigh mé ag caint as gaeilge nuair a bhí mé an-óg, roimh thosaigh mé ag freastal ar bunscoil. Déanaim rang gaeilge sa scoil agus gach samhradh téim go dtí an gaeltacht - an áit is fearr sa domhain! Tá a lán gaeltacht difriúl, ach tá siad an-mhaith :) Sa gaeltacht, téann tú go dtí Contae na Gaillimhe agus fánann tú sa teach ann le daoine eile ar feadh trí seachtaine. Téann tú go dtí ranganna sa maidin, déanann tú spórt sa tráthnóna agus san oíche bíonn céilí (discó) ar súil. Déanann tú a lán cairde nua agus bíonn ana craic againn ann :) Chuaigh mé go dtí Coláiste Chamuis agus Coláiste Sheosaimh. Bhí siad go hiontach! :D Ba cúintóir mé freisin, sin an duine sa teach a raibh ag tabhairt aire (agus ag tabhairt amach!) le na daoine eile sa teach agus ag déanamh cinnte go raibh gach rud ceart go leor. Post an-deacair é sin ach an-taitneamhach :)

Seo é mise agus mo theach roimh an céilí gléasta suas :)

Seo é mo theach sa craobh comórtas amhrán :)

On the Brain

I've always been interested in Psychology so I decided since I have so much time in TY I would get more acquainted with the subject. I enrolled myself into evening lecture classes in Trinity College Dublin and I got the bus into town every week to attend. I started in October and the classes went on until Christmas and then again right up until last night. I learnt lots of different things such as how your brain works, how babies learn to talk, criminology, how psychotherapy works, how stress occurs and all about different mental illnesses and behavioural symptoms. It was all very interesting and I'm really glad I did :) At first it was a bit awkward being the only person under the age of 25, I still stood out even though there was about a hundred other people in the hall. I'm still interested in psychology now but I've just been shown that there is so many different aspects and specialities that you can focus on and it would be hard to choose.