Have a little sing song...

Firstly I'm sorry it has been two weeks since my last post I was absent last week and so had nothing TY to blog about.

This week has been a busy one in the wonderful land of TY, not that that is anything new. We began the week with much discussion on what we were going to do in each of our subjects for our end of TY Night on the 27th of May. By the looks of it, it will be a night of projects, drama and music.
In English we will all be performing some of our own written plays which are based on classic fairy tales. We have written both alternate endings to the tales, as well as totally re-writing them altogether.
In French, my own personal project will be on the wines and cheeses of France. This will include the top ten wines and cheeses, along with where they can be found in Ireland for purchase. I also will include how wine and cheese is produced in France, along with what wines go with what foods.

For our other subjects we are not 100% decided on what we will be doing to showcase our years work. For music though, we are going to do a TY group performance of Pompeii by Bastille. Speaking of music, we have recently been working on an entry for an Irish competition in which we must write a song in Irish based on an Irish proverb or "seanfhocal" as it is in Irish. A group of four girls wrote our song based on the proverb "Níl saoi gan locht" which basically means, "nobody's perfect". They then put it to the music of "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" by the Script. It sounds amazing and the lyrics are great, we recorded it both on video, and for audio to be submitted next week. (Hope we do well!)

In other unrelated random TY news, the frenzy has begun. With news quickly spreading about people and whether or not they got their subjects choices or not, people are going into mad panic and worrying like crazy. We are all hoping not to get called upon.... (eeek)

Another week goes by in the wonderful land of TY....

We all arrived back on Monday refreshed after our two week break for Easter! :)

Of course we didn't. We came back in to school like zombies .... but, with excessive fatigue comes over tiredness. With over tiredness comes giddy-ness. So we were actually all very excitable. The week started off really well, with not too much work pressure.

It was a typical Monday really, apart from in Science when we got to do a cool experiment to extract DNA from a kiwi. We did this by using washing up liquid, salt, and warm water that was cooled really quickly. As we were all so tired we weren't very enthusiastic, but as we got into it and realised how cool and fun it was, we couldn't wait to see the results.
(as a quick note, I have never smelt something as fruity and yummy as kiwi mixed with green fairy liquid and salt, it was like heaven) In the end, after a few easy steps, we added ethanol and protease to break down proteins so we could simply view the DNA by itself. It was really fun, and a really interesting way to learn about DNA and its composition.

Tuesday was great too actually, with the day starting off with a double art class in which we all started to work on our puppets. We had spent many weeks completing our cassette tape celebrity portraits, so it was nice to have a change and move onto a new project. We all did sketches of how we wanted our puppet to look, and then we had to come up with what kind of person they were going to be, as we hope to do a puppet show at the end of TY for our parents. I have to be honest, I am finding it really hard to get started as I am not a very artistic...actually that is an understatement haha, but I'm sure it will look good in the end.

Also on Tuesday we made the single most delicious creations known to man. Lemon Curd Cupcakes. Now, you should be aware, that I, Lauren, and a "Lemon-a-holic". I love lemons, and I love anything with lemon flavouring, lemon icing, lemon sauce, lemon anything. Therefore these were my perfect cake. They were so good that I am definitely going to make loads more this weekend :)

Well thats all that happened so far this week in TY, yesterday was a work experience day so check out my work experience blog (linked on the right hand side) to read all about how that went.

Bye bye ~Lauren~

Singing singing and more singing!

Last night was our annual music night!!

This is the one night of the school year where St. Wolstan's Talent really gets to shine and show the parents what talent the school is hiding away in the music room. The show was a huge success and everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, with some truly incredible performances from across all years on the night. I myself wasn't even fully aware of the immense amount of talent that was present in our school, and even in my own year.

Backstage was the best part for me personally. There was such a great atmosphere, and people were jamming together and harmonising and over all it was like being in an episode of Glee! :)

We got to mingle with people from other years and meet new people and find out about their music tastes.

Overall it was amazing and I even did a little performance along with two other talented girls from my class! :) 

Well well well...

This week was another busy and fantastically fun one in the world of T.Y.

It started off nicely with a long weekend, off on Monday, then it was just one day of regular class before we were off again on the buses we have become so accustomed to during our time in TY.

All three of the TY classes wrapped up warm, donning hats, scarves, gloves and coats on Wednesday morning ready to set off on our mini pilgrimage.
We hopped on the buses and off we went to Kildare Town, where we went to a lovely little heritage centre in which we watched a really informative short film on the history of the town and what Saint Bridgid had to do with it.
After this, we were shown around some of the local "landmarks" such as statues, round towers and a cathedral.
Mr. K provided us with all the knowledge we could ever need on the history of these places along with their religious significance. The cathedral was lovely and really peaceful which was a nice break from the singing on the bus. It was absolutely freezing though. I have only today fully regained the feeling in my frozen feet. :)

After this, we headed off to the National Stud/Japanese Gardens to see two of Saint Brigids wells. This was a lovely part of the day (apart from the cold) as we got to really just enjoy the beautiful tranquillity which the entire area around the wells seemed to exude.
The wells were lovely and had flowers and tokens which people would place there so you would be remembered in their prayers.
By this time we were all getting super hungry and were frozen...so off we went to Whitewater!

After refuelling in the food court and at Starbucks, we were ready to head off to K-Bowl to end our day out on a high. Bowling was so much fun and we got to spend time with others in our class that we wouldn't usually spend that much time with. I got two strikes. Oh yes. Success.

Overall our day out was super!

In other non TY related news: Robert Sheehan is "apparently" coming back to Love/Hate after his character Darren was shot. I can tell you now, that caused a lot of excitement on Wednesday morning haha :)

Retreats and Quartets :)

Hello again ....

This week has been a really cool one, with really great revelations and new friends being made. On Wednesday we headed off to Tallaght, to the Dominican Retreat centre. None of us knew what to expect as we had never been to this place for a retreat before, and we had no clue what we were going to be doing. I think we were all slightly apprehensive when we were informed we had to get into five large groups with people we were comfortable with. I was in a group with 17 other girls.
We had a lovely leader with us and we all had to answers questions and share our own experiences of home life etc.
It was a very emotional day, there were tears and laughs, but it all in all we made new friends, and became incredibly close through the experience. We now all know within that group that if any of us ever need someone to talk to, we have someone we can trust and rely on.

On the bus on the way back, after we had all cheered up considerably and realised how good an experience the day was, I was sitting with three friends. We began singing random songs and it sounded pretty good as there were harmonies and everything. We decided that we would form an "informal quartet" for all future bus journeys...hopefully we don't annoy anyone haha

On Friday we had our annual Lá Glás (day of green) which we have every year coming up to St. Patricks Day. So, I got decked out in all my green attire as you do, literally from head to toe covered in green. As part of the day we got to watch a few films and enjoy some fun activities, which included our "informal quartet" having our first performance in front of the class. Which they seemed to enjoy which is good.. :)

The day was finished off with a wonderful Irish play performed by Class Cairdeas, which ended with some mad dancing ... all in all it was a really good week in TY.

In todays news....

Hello and welcome back to another edition of the T.Y. news ....

This week has been a little less hectic than last week. This week we had two talks, and our last day of work experience (which is so sad really).
So, our first talk, which took place yesterday was in Trinity College. It was a really interesting insight into Intel and what they do, along with why we (as young women) should consider going into a career in science. It was really lovely as the speakers were all very down to earth and spoke about what they did in a way that was easy and simple for us to understand.
We were also provided with a lovely little lunch bag which included a sandwich, an apple, popcorn and a cup of either tea or coffee.
Megan and I however were rather pre-occupied with trying to locate the "Napper Tandy" pub that was in Love/Hate. We succeeded.

The other talk we had was today, and it was a talk on the Ian Daly Swim a Mile with a Smile. Basically it was on who Ian was, why the charity swim was set up, and then some information on Barretstown and what they do to help children and teenagers along with family's, who are suffering from illness.

In other news, in English we are almost finished watching the amazing Oscar Winning film "The Artist" which is just incredible, for a silent movie it is one of the best films I think I have ever seen.
In Geography we have finished our world diseases posters, and are continuing to watch "Contagion" as part of our medical geography experience.
In Business, we are creating a new cereal, along with the box design and brand identity, and advertising campaign.

That is it I think.... stay tuned for more T.Y. updates :)

No drama queens here...well not really...

As I had said in a recent post, there were two dramas written in my class, Class Síocháin. Both dramas were performed in Mullingar Briery Gap Theatre , and as I also said in another recent post, the group which did a drama on the effects of homelessness, the prejudice we have toward homeless people in society, got through to the National Competition which was held in Cork on Friday last (1st of March)

Well well....we headed off after a busy morning of the SciFest Competition Judging, and it was a very long three and half hour journey. It was well worth it though, we sang and chatted the whole way there, and arrived at around half three, leaving very little time to get organised to go on stage.
Despite how manic, crazy, hectic, it was backstage, and also pitch dark, we managed to pull it all together (even with some minor mistakes, it's all in the recovery guys.)
We were only there about a half hour and then it was back on the bus for a four hour journey home, though we were lucky enough to have gotten to stop off at a very swish McDonalds on the way back home.

It was just the other day that we found out that our 11 person drama had won two awards

The Adjudicators Award for best atmosphere created in a production.
The Runner Up Award.

We were all so delighted that all our hard work and our effort had been recognised, and that we were able to pull an actual production together and act it so well that we received awards for it.
The experience has allowed us all to grow in confidence, to see whether acting and being on stage is for us, and to allow us to gain new skills.

Found  a few little actors in the process ;)