Be Safe!

This week the TYs got to go on yet another trip! What a lucky bunch?!
This time, we were taken to visit a road safety exhibition at the Punchestown Event Centre.
  Due to the fact we had already been given a talk on road safety by the Drive 4 Life campaign and many of us had found it very hard-hitting and beneficial, we were all really looking forward to this trip!
  At the exhibition, there were many stands from companies relating to road safety, and there was plenty of free merchandise available! Over the course of the day, I took a test to calculate my braking reaction time, felt what it was like to be in a car crash and visited many other stalls too.
  After this, all the students gathered in a hall to listen to a talk given by Guarda Assistant Commissioner John Twomey, NYPD Officers and other guests, about the importance of road safety and awareness. Although it was difficult to listen to and quite sad, I felt that it was an important talk and really important in promoting road safety.
  Until next time, take care and be safe on the roads!

Musical Maddness

This Friday was the launch of our school musical, Calamity Jane!
  Held in the newly re-opened Celbridge Manor Hotel, the cast put on a few numbers to promote the musical to the public and mark the official launch of the musical.

 To open the launch, Lauren, who plays the lead of Calamity Jane sang the lovely romantic ballad 'Secret Love' accompanied by a troupe of ballet dancers. Next, the whole chorus joined her to perform the opening number of the show,  'The Deadwood Stage'. To finish, Lauren and Róisín, who plays Katie sang a lovely duet called 'A Woman's Touch'
 As a choreographer and dancer for ballet, I had to perform in the ballet dance. It was great fun, but also quite scary for us as we had to dance in our pointe shoes on an extremely slippy floor!!
  All in all the night was a great success! Don't forget to pick up your tickets for the musical and to check out the Calamity Jane blog here: http://www.swcalamityjane.blogspot.ie/

The Pharmacy

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For the past 8 weeks I have been doing work experience in Clancy's Pharmacy. 
  I really enjoyed my time at the pharmacy, both because I am extremely interested in science and chemistry, and also because the people that own and run the pharmacy are so lovely!
  I spent time working in the shop area of the pharmacy, helping and talking to customers, stocking shelves and pricing items. I also checked invoices and any new stock that was delivered.

  I was also given the opportunity to help in the dispensary, where the drugs are kept (all legal of course :P ). I put items on shelves, helped the pharmacists fill prescriptions and learned about many of the drugs.
  I had such a wonderful time working at the pharmacy, and I'm so glad to have had the chance to see the inner workings of a business and see the vital science aspect of the pharmacy too.
  I'm a little bit sad, to be honest, that my time at Clancy's is over, but nonetheless I will look back on fond memories of slagging the workers and having nice chats all the same!

A Tour in Town

This week the Transition Years were taken into Dublin City Centre for a W.B. Yeats themed trip.

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  We had 3 places to visit over the course of the trip: The National Library, The National Gallery and The National Museum of Ireland.
  First, my group and I went to the National Gallery. We were taken on a short tour of some of the exhibitions, such as the section on the artwork of the Irish artist Jack Yeats, and 20th Century art in Europe. Some of the artwork was very thought provoking and intriguing, even to someone without a shred of artistic talent such as myself!!
  Next we went to the National Museum of Ireland. We were shown two exhibitions; the Iron Age exhibition and the Bog Bodies.

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  In the Iron Age exhibition there were many pieces of gold and ironwork, like coins, torcs and tools. This gave a great insight into the lives and lifestyles of people at this time, even though I had already know quite a bit about this period.

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  Following this, we were taken to see the Bog Bodies. These are a series of bodies that were preserved shockingly well in the bogs of Ireland, due to the chemicals and lack of air in the soil. It was quite amazing to see how accurately well the bodies were preserved - for example, we were able to see wrinkles and marks on the skin that would have been there when the person was still alive!! I found this exhibition quite remarkable.
  After spending an hour walking around Grafton Street and eating in McDonald's for lunch, we were all herded into a big group to be taken to the final stop - the National Library, to see the W.B. Yeats Exhibition.

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  At this exhibition, there were various artifacts and pieces on the life of the famous Irish poet and writer William Butler Yeats, and his family. The Yeats family had a huge influence on the arts in Ireland, for example, as I mentioned earlier, William's brother Jack was an important Irish painter.
  When we were finished learning about W.B. Yeats, we all headed back to the bus, tired but satisfied with the day out in Dublin!
  I hope we get to go into Dublin again soon!

The Hist

This weekend, along with my partner (and sister!), I competed in the Trinity College Senior School's Mace Debate, also known as 'The Hist'. Mace Debates are events which usually run over two days, a Friday evening and all day Saturday. Teams are given 15 minutes to prepare speeches on unknown motions and then compete against 3 other teams. Mace Debates usually have 4 or 5 rounds over a weekend.
   In our 4 rounds, we came 1st, 1st, 4th and 1st, debating motions like 'This House Would Boycott the Russian Winter Olympics', and 'This House Would Make Irish the Only State Language'.
  Juliette and I broke as the 3rd team into the semi-final, which we were delighted with as we are a relatively inexperienced team! We spoke proposing the motion 'This House Would Hold Parents of Bullies Criminally Responsible for their Children's Actions'. We unfortunately didn't make the final, but we were delighted with our performance and had a lot of fun over the weekend!
  One final surprise, was when the overall speaker tab was announced, I had come 3rd, which meant I had received the 3rd most speaker points over the whole weekend of competition! I was not expecting this at all, and it was a great way to finish off a great weekend!

  I would highly recommend debating and Mace debating to anyone who is considering giving it a try!

Snapchats and Science!

This week, as part of Science week, the Transition Year group in St Wolstan's went on a trip to the Institute of Technology Tallaght, to attend a talk on science.

  After getting a bus to Tallaght, and singing a few songs on the bus to keep everyone awake, we arrived at the college. We were ushered inside, and brought into one of the labs to receive an introduction. One of the biologists gave us a brief talk about the work done in IT Tallaght, and told us what each of the apparatus in the lab do.

  I found this really interesting, but as everyone began to move forwards, I heard some people calling for the teachers. I looked around, and Lauren had fainted! Luckily she was fine, and was back in school the next day.

  We then filed into one of the lecture theaters along with another 2 schools, to be given a talk by the Xtraordinary Science group. We were shown experiments and told about how amazing groundbreaking developments have been made in science over the years, and how this has affected people's everyday lives.

  I really enjoyed this talk, but afterwards we were all eager to go and get something to eat. We were brought to Liffey Valley shopping centre, with an hour to spend how we wished. A few of my friends and I headed to McDonald's to have lunch, and we went a little bit crazy by spamming lots of people with taking so many SnapChats!

I'll let you know about any more trips we go on over the year, so don't forget to check this blog for more updates!

Radio TY

This year, Mrs L decided to set up a TY media team. Around 30 students volunteered, and we were all really excited about the work that we would be doing! So, armed with dictaphones, an Audioboo account and Audacity editing software, the media team set out with the task of interviewing students, teachers and any speakers who come to the school.

Interviewing 6th years at Halloween

  So far we have interviewed students on dress-up days, production team members of our school musical, cast members of the school musical and many more!
  I am really enjoying being a part of the media team, and I'm looking forward to hopefully reaching our goal for the end of the year, of recording our own radio show!
  Check out the Radio TY blog here, follow @StWolstansTY on Twitter and search for 'St Wolstan's TY' on iTunes to download all our podcasts.

  I hope everyone had a good week, and I'll be updating soon! :)

Debating and Driving

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This week I competed in the first round debate of the Leinster Schools Debating Competition. My partner (who is also my sister!) and I proposed the motion that 'This House Would Introduce Third Level Fees'. After a tough round, especially since it was only Round 1, we found out that we got through to the second round! We were delighted, and I'm really looking forward to the second round.

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  This week we also had a road safety talk from the Drive 4 Life program. It was a really eye opening talk, and it made me really consider how dangerous and risky driving actually is. We were told about driving precautions, how crashes happen, the effects of car crashes, and we even took a theory driving test! Since the talk, I have found myself noticing everything my parents do while driving the car much more often, and I am much more aware of how dangerous an activity driving actually is.
  So keep careful on the roads everyone, and I'll be posting again soon! :)

Friendship Week

This week in St. Wolstan's was Friendship Week, a week dedicated to being friendly and making new friends. Every year, the highlight of the first school term is the last day of Friendship week, when the annual FunWalk is held. Each class chooses a song and makes up a dance based on the theme of Friendship, and dresses up in their designated colour. My class, Tabei, chose to be yellow taxis.

After rehearsing our dance for the week, to the mash up done by Will Smith on the Graham Norton show, we performed it in front of the school on Friday - it was great fun!

I'll be posting again soon, hope you're all well!

Making Videos and Museums

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On Thursday, all of the Transition Year Irish classes went on a trip to the Pearse Museum - a museum of the Irish school that Pádraig Pearse used to run, St. Enda's.
  When we arrived, we went straight into the museum and watched a video about the life of Pádraig Pearse. Pearse was an active participant in the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, and set up the school as an Irish-speaking school for boys.
  We then received a tour of the museum, and learned about the lives of Pádraig Pearse, the other teachers and the students themselves.

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  After this, we took a tour of the grounds and gardens, and were told about all the different trees and plants there.
  We filmed a few funny videos afterwards, with Ms L, Ms O'C and Ms B, as well as a Class Tabei rendition of Lana Del Rey's 'Summertime Sadness'. It was very funny! :)


 

Workshops!

For the past 3 Wednesdays while we didn't have work experience, we have had workshops in school to prepare us for our entry into the world of work (temporary though it will be!).

  

  We started off with a workshop called 'Life Without Limits'. In this, we were told how not to limit ourselves and to be confident in everything we do. I really enjoyed this workshop and had a fun morning too!
  We then spent some time with Gilíosa learning how to give shoulder and head massages (which were unbelievably relaxing), as well as being told about the somewhat abstract concept of 'energy'.

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  Over the weeks we had several Positive Parties with Denise - we put on funny masks and wigs and sang silly songs, while being talking about our qualities and strengths. We also did laughter yoga - which everyone (including me!) may have been a little too tired to participate fully in, but all the same we had a good laugh! :P

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  My favourite of the workshops would probably be the Etiquette and Deportment classes from BK InniÚ. I got the chance to walk the red carpet wearing high heels, learned how to apply makeup, how to care for my hands and nails, and what skin tone I am (warm tones all the way!).

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   Also, on Saturday I went to a debating workshop in UCD (University College Dublin) in preparation for the Leinster Schools Debating Competition. This is a debating competition for students in Transition Year, 5th year and 6th year and it is run by Ireland's two biggest universities - Trinity College and UCD. I can't wait for the competition to start, and I will keep you posted on everything I get up to related to it!
  For the most part I did enjoy the workshops, and I look forward to spending the rest of my Wednesdays in work experience!
  Hope everyone is well,

Melissa :)