Swim A Mile, With A Smile :-)

On Wednesday 6th, St.Wolstan's TYs and 5th year LCVP students took part in the annual Swim A Mile, in the National Aquatic Centre in Blanchardstown. This is a well known fundraiser in Ireland, which raises money for Barretstown, a summer camp where seriously ill children can go for a week to have fun and take part in several different activities. 

The task was to swim a total of 64 lengths of a 25 metre pool, to complete one whole mile. It could be done in groups, or individually.

I decided that I was going to try and swim the mile by myself. It was hard work but it felt so satisfying when I had completed the full mile! We went to Blanchardstown shopping centre after for food :) 

Everyone did so well, and it was really nice to take part in such an important charity event!

More Dancing..

For the past few weeks, we have been preparing for our TY graduation night! We have been learning new hip hop dances to preform on the night to "Break Free" by Ariana Grande, and "Who Run the World" by Beyonce:) 

We are all looking forward to preforming these dances in a few weeks, along with everything else we have prepared! Hopefully it will be a great night!

Gaisce Hike :)

Last weekend, over thirty of us TY's went on a hike to complete our Gaisce Bronze Award. Along with the hike, you must choose three activities to do for 13 weeks each. Once your 13 weeks have been completed, you choose one of your three activities to do for a further 13 weeks.

I chose:

Choir (13 Weeks)

Speech & Drama (13 weeks)

Dancing (26 weeks)

We went into school for the morning, and departed for Wicklow at 2 p.m. The girls in my house and I went shopping the night before to buy our food for the weekend. ( http://costellooo.blogspot.ie/ , http://annahepple.blogspot.ie/ , http://janecummins99.blogspot.ie/ , http://annastyblog2014.blogspot.ie/ , http://piaamitchell.blogspot.ie/ , http://mollymooney.blogspot.ie/ , http://mytylife.blogspot.ie/ .)

When we arrived at Kippure Estate, we put our bags in our houses and got ready for the hike. We set off on our "3 hour" hike, and arrived back 6 hours later :) :) :) :) :) though it ended up being an extremely long walk, it was actually really fun! the weather was nice, and we got to see views we hadn't seen before!

We were all wrecked when we got back to our houses. Meadhbh and I cooked spaghetti bolognese, which wasn't ready until 10 p.m, so we weren't really hungry anymore..

When we finished dinner, we all kind of half fell asleep. We managed to wake up again at around 12, and ended to stay up until 2:30 chatting and eating chocolate digestives! 

We woke at 7:20 the next morning, and had pancakes for breakfast:) We had to be out of the house by 9, so we made our lunch and got dressed. Before our second hike, we did a high-ropes course in Kippure Estate which I enjoyed!

We left for our second hike at around 11:30 a.m. We were looking forward to this hike, as we expected it would be just like the one we did the day before, but shorter...we were wrong. The further up the mountain we got, the more horrible the weather got! Eventually, we were hiking through a snow blizzard, and completely drenched:( When we reached the top we were all huddling together trying to somehow stay warm!

Finally, after 4 hours of torture, we completed the hike! We all got on the bus in our pyjamas, absolutely wrecked!

Though it was a tiring weekend, it was so much fun, and we all felt like we had achieved something!:) I would definitely recommend this experience to future TY students! There may be a lot of walking involved, but it's 100% worth it!:)

With http://evemcmahonty.blogspot.ie/ , http://ellenredmondsblog.blogspot.ie/ and http://carolinebehan.blogspot.ie/ half way through the hike!

TY So Far : )

So far, I have really enjoyed Transition Year!

I’ve had chances to do a lot of things I’ve never experienced before.

I’ve never had a job in my life, and this year I’ve had two so far, and have just started my third one!

-Scoil Naomh Bríd Primary School

-Setanta Sports Broadcasting House

-ABsolutely FABulous Flowers

I really enjoyed my first two work placements, and I have a feeling I will really like my third one too! When organising my work placements, I made sure to choose three completely different ones, so I could experience more.

We have done many activities in aid of several charities…

-“HollyDays” for ISPCC

-“National Pancake Party” for Tallaght Children’s Hospital

-“Lollipop Day” for the Oesophageal Cancer Fund

We have taken part in competitions, such as “The Briary Gap TY Drama Competition”, where we got a chance to write and perform our own play, and “MiniCompany” where we invented and sold our own product. I have never taken part in any competition similar to “MiniCompany” before, and I really liked it. It made me feel much older for some reason...maybe because we had a lot of responsibilities, and we had to organise the whole thing ourselves!

We have gone on several trips, such as the traditional trip to Carlingford J We also went on a maths trip to Rathbeggan Lakes, a science trip to the RDS (BT Young Scientist) and a Road Safety talk in Punchestown.

Apart from the trips and activities, I think TY has made me much more confident, and it has allowed me to make loads of new friends! I’m so excited for the rest of the year!

 

http://dearbhlaty.blogspot.ie/ and I at Rathbeggan Lakes!

http://annahepple.blogspot.ie/ , http://annastyblog2014.blogspot.ie/ and I at Carlingford!

http://costellooo.blogspot.ie/ and I at the school Funwalk!

Leading the school Funwalk :) 

(when you realize that you make the same face in every single picture..)

GO TEAM I.PROTECT!

After weeks of work on our mini companies, the day has finally come! Today, two adjudicators came into our school to judge our  TY product and company in general.

I am the managing director of “i.protect”. Our company has designed and made cable protectors to prevent iPhone chargers from breaking.  It was a very stressful few weeks trying to get our product made, and everything ready for the school competition, which was held in the school hall.

It was quite scary having to speak to the judges about our product. However, I think they were impressed by our “innovative idea”, and our “i.protect” branded t-shirts!:)

The day was a success, and as a member of the “i.protect” team, we are delighted to have gotten through to the regional competition, which will be held in the Kilashee House Hotel in Naas, Kildare.

We are so excited to go along to the competition with the girls of the other winning mini company – “Bam Beauty”!

i.protect members:

http://costellooo.blogspot.ie/

http://ellawalter.blogspot.ie/

http://annahepple.blogspot.ie/

http://hannahmahonty.blogspot.ie/

Briary Gap Drama Competition!

Many weeks of preparation went into our play – “Willow”, which we performed in the first round of the briary gap TY drama competition.

Our play was about a woman named Willow, who was a play write back in the 1500’s. She wanted to be successful, so disguised herself as a man – “William Shakespeare” . When she finds out that her best friend is a Jew, she is shocked, as Jews and Christians could not be friends back then. When Willow finds a diary from the future in her library belonging to Anne Frank, she is suddenly transported to the future, where WW2 is ongoing. She sees how badly the Jews are treated, and is greatly upset by it. She is sent back to the 1500s, and goes on a mission to stop prejudice against Jews. She writes a play – “The Merchant Of Venice”, which becomes a huge success. (I played shylock at the end of the play, and had to say a speech from the Merchant of Venice!)

 We thought our play was pretty good and original, but unfortunately we did not get through to the next round. However, two other groups from our year got through, so we are very happy for them!

(tall people problems..)

Bye Bye Zumba :-(

Us TY’s had an amazing four weeks of Zumba classes as part of our PE program! Despite being extremely hard work, it was great fun, and we lost a few calories at the same time which can’t be too bad! I really enjoyed it and am thinking about doing Zumba classes..!