Sci fest or sky fest???

A couple of days ago we went to sci fest it was an experience. We arrived early enough because we had to leave at 8 and when we got there we saw a lot of projects. My group was in the physical sciences category and we were put into a lab with a few other groups...we felt very important. Then the judges came around and analysed our projects which was fun but after our third judge we were getting tired and Hungry! After lunch we went to a few lectures i went to one on alcahol. Then there was the awards, we listened to the speeeches and then he began announcing the winners he called out the juniors first and then the intermediate which was us. There was a first and second place for each catagory and he announced that we had come second which was amazing because we felt we blabbered on in our second interview so we were very pleased and even more pleased when we got a 15 euro voucher for one for all. Then they called out the winner of the catagory which was roisin p and lauren m. This was great as another project from wolstans had won a prize . Then they had a space award i think which wasnt in a catagory but it was a seperate thing and ciara m, saidhbh h and oriana f. won this. Then they announced the winner of the biology catagory and that was aoife b, kate e and steph hanan who in the end won the overall award so out of 180 projects st wolstans won five awards...not a bad day all in all! well done everyone :)

Sylvia Plath

In english we are learning about Sylvia Plath. It was very interesting watching the movie about her life as you really got an insight into the experiences in life she had to deal with such as the infidelity of her husband Ted Hughes and in the end the fact that she felt she was alone in the world with two small children led her to commit suicide. Reading Sylvia Plath's poems made me realise what a gifted poet she really was and part of me believes that her life and her difficulties fuelled her to write better poems because of the emotions she felt during her difficult times. So whether or not she realised this,ironically the one thing in life she was really passionate about which was to be the best poet she could be and when she was depressed and did not feel like she wanted to be alive she suffered but her poems did not, they improved as people could feel her emotion through her words on the page so as cruel as it might sound, the saying "there is a silver lining in every cloud" comes to mind as even though she was suffering she managed to succeed in her lifetime dream which was to become a poet who people could read and relate to and because of this she is a world famous poet and in my opinion her poems have been some of the most powerful and emotional ones i have read to date.

Gaisce hike (mini Carlingford)

Over the weekend a group of 16 students went to Knockrea in Wicklow to undertake a 25km hike as part of Gaisce. At first i was a bit apprehensive as 25km did seem like a lot to walk over two days but i was looking forward to it anyway. We left the school at 2 pm on Friday accompanied by Ms H and Mr K. We all had our bags packed to the brim with food and we were ready for the hike. We arrived in Knockrea youth hostel at around 3 pm and we met our instructor Bill. We were then given our room keys and we headed off to the rooms to get settled and ready for the hike. We couldn't believe our eyes when we walked into a state of the art bedroom with two bathrooms but not only that we walked in to find there were two floors!! After we got over the excitement of our 5 star rooms we went downstairs to start our hike. Everyone had their hiking boots on and we set off on our hike. The hike was surprisingly good fun it wasn't as gruesome as some of the ty's last year had said it was :L and the scenery was just beautiful we ate our lunch overlooking powerscourt waterfall it really was spectacular. After 3 hours walking we had completed 20 km which was a lot more than was predicted we would walk and Bill said we were one of the fastest groups he ever had. This also meant we wouldn't have much to walk the next day which was great. We arrived back at the hostel at 7 pm and we then made our dinner which was fun and then chatted for awhile. After that we watched 50 first dates which was funny and then we headed off to bed. The next day we woke bright and early to a spectacular view of the valleys and mountains outside our bedrooms. we had breakfast at 8 40 and then we were told that we were going orienteering and then going to do archery and then team games we were all delighted and the rest of the day was filled with people falling off logs and hitting bullseyes in the archery area. The trip was finished off in the best way with everyone buying a 99 and eating it on a sunny afternoon in Enniskerry! :D

music night-memories....

last week we had music night! we had been practising for awhile in music class for the music night and it was good to finally sing our song "Mamma Said". It was really enjoyable as we all blasted out the song and really had fun doing the moves. I was also in the choir where we sang "to a wild rose" which was fun aswell as we opened the night with this song. Later on in the night a group of us did a dance to the song "Memory" from the musical "Cats" we accompanied a third year singer who was absolutely amazing at singing and it went really well on the night. Everyone had a great night and that's a credit to everyone who took part doing solo's or group acts and especially to the teachers Ms o'Reilly, Ms Gilsenan who organised it all and a special thank you to Ms Ward who let us take part in doing the dance and helping us choreograph it. It really was a great night! :D

i can ride my bike with no handlebars!

The other day we had talk on cycling and why its important. The man who came in to talk to us talked mainly about the reasons why people dont cycle in ireland and so on. He talked about weather and windy narrow roads being very popular reasons not to cycle. It was a good talk and made me really want to cycle around just to help the environment. The problem of cycling to school is i live four miles from the school and the roads are quite dangerous :(

jabba jabba jembe and david :D

A couple of days ago we had a percussion workshop involving drums called jembe's which was really fun and interesting at first we were told to bring in the jembe's and there were about thirty or forty of them. Then we each took one and he started to show us how to play them. It was really good and it gave us a taste of some of the african culture which was an enjoyable experience! i definetly recommend it! and Charlie his dog is very cute :L

bog bodies??..

yesterday we went to dublin to go see the national museum of Ireland and the gallery of Ireland. The first thing Emnet did was go and visit the national museum and we looked at the prehistoric times. It was very interesting and im glad i picked history as a choice subject because it was really intriguing! After that we visited the bog bodies and that was amazing as the bodies were so preserved you wouldnt think they were thousands of years old! Then we went to the Yeats museum and that was fascinating as we learned all about his life and it was funny to compare it to my life as his was very different. After that we went to the national art gallery which i enjoyed but im not very interested in art so i probably enjoyed the museum a bit more. It was a very informative trip and very substantial for the leaving cert.