Music Night :D

Well we did our Ty performance of 'Mama Said' last night at the Music Night. Ms.O'Reilly conducted us through the song with the speed and coreography and she looked very pleased after the song! She was great with preparing and practising the song with us for the past few months, thanks Ms.O'Reilly :) We;'ve heard that we got very good feedback from the audience so im very proud of the two Ty classes, well done everyone :D There was a huge variety of acts performing in the Music Night. These mostly consisted of 3rd and 6th year music students who performed some of their practical exam pieces, there was also a performance from the 5th year music class and a number of solo singers and musicians. Unfortunately, performers weren't allowed in the audience before they performed and after unless they bought a ticket so most of us didn't get to see the show itself but we had seen rehersals earlier on in the day and from what we saw it was a great show! We will also be performing 'Mama Said' at our end of year Ty night for our parents as a small taster of the fun things we have done this year. It was great fun to do and I really enjoyed the song. Ciara Xxx

Mama Said Ther'd Be Days Like This ..

The annual Music Night is on tomorrow the 30th of March and the Tys have prepared a big performance ;) We are singing 'Mama Said' , the Dionne Bromfield version. For music our class has Ms.O'Reilly and Amina have Ms.Gilsenan. We learned and practiced the song seperately but for the past few classes, we've been practicing as a Ty group. We've had a great time coreographing it and making up harmonies :) It's looking and sounding great when it's all put together. I think performing this song for the Music Night has brought us closer as a Ty group and will be one of the main memories of Ty. Hopefully it will all go right tomorrow and that we will be a Ty group to remember :D Ciara Xxx

Trip to Dublin :)

Yesterday on our trip to Dublin, we went to the National Museum of Ireland, the WB Yeats Museum in the National Library and the National Art Gallery. First of all we went to the National Museum where we had a tour of the Mesolithic & Neolithic periods, and the Bronze and Iron ages. We also went to a section of the museum that displayed a number of 'Bog Bodies'. These were bodies that were preserved in the bogs hundereds of years ago and are still perfectly preserved with fingernails and hair, they were quite strange to look at :L We then went to the WB Yeats museum because we have studied some of WB Yeats' poems in English. This was interesting as we found out lots about his life and his love for Maud Gonne. We saw loads of his original poems and his handwritten journals. For lunch we were all allowed to go off into town to get lunch and relax, most of us went toget lunch in Mcdonalds and then we went to relax in St.Stephen's Green, it was a really nice day out so this was lovely :) After lunch we went to the final museum of the day, the National Gallery. We had a tour guide that showed us around all kinds of paintings by Irish Artists, we also went to a JB Yeats art exhibition. JB Yeats is WB Yeats' brother who was a very talented artist. It was a good day in all and is probably one of the last days out we will have in Ty 2010/2011 :( Ciara Xxx

Jabba Jabba Jembe :D

The percussion workshop our class had yesterday was one of the best things we've done in Ty I think :) We had the whole day with a man called David, who owns the company called Jabba Jabba Jembe. He owns loaads of African drums, all different kinds called Jembes, bongos and some other crazy names that I can't quite remember :L We started off with clapping some rhythms to get into the beat then David showed us some basic rhythms on the drums such as 'Woodpecker' and our answering call, 'Pat the Baker' :L We had a great time all doing a big rhythm together, we kept it going for ages well done everyone :D It looked like everyone enjoyed it as much as I did, it was great fun. We also watched videos on youtube of a rhythm/music group called Stomp, It was really interesting to watch as it shows us what rhythm can create when it's used in the right way :)

Everyone got really confident during the day and had no problemswith doing little drum and percussion solos :L It was a great way for the class to listen to eachother and feel like we were accomplishing something as a group, I was quite proud of Emnet when we put all the rhythms together, it sounded great :D

I really think it's worth doing this workshop again for all the future Tys, it's a chance to learn something unusual and new and to just have fun with it.

Ciara Xxx

Last Days of Work Experience x

Well that's it, Ty work experience is over :( I think it's worth doing Ty just for work experience, it's such a good thing to do and you really learn a lot about yourself. For the last few days in Focus Ireland I was mainly doing office work such as updating media contacts and writing pieces for the organisation. On the last day, I went to a ceremony called the PETE awards. PETE is a project in Focus Ireland that helps people who were or are homeless get back into education that they may have missed out on. This was a very moving experience, it really showed me how lucky I am that I have a secure home and I will never have to leave my education. Some people, when they see homeless people on the street, they may be scared or want to stay well away from them, but when I was in Focus Ireland and meeting with their customers I learned that they are all just normal people like us who were just unfortunate enough to become homeless. Before I went to the awards on Friday, the people in my office brought out a big cake for me and my supervisor gave me a present and a card, it was so nice of them :D

I really enjoyed this week even though ~I wasn't expecting much out of it, i've learnt to have a better attitude towards anything I do in the future :)

Ciara Xxx

Work Experience #2

For my second week of work experience, I'm in Focus Ireland, Dublin. Focus Ireland is an organisation that provides long- term and short term housing for people who are homeless or in extrememly poor living conditions. They also provide emergency accomodation and have a coffee shop for homeless people to come in and have something to eat, it's open everyday from 11:30am-8:30pm.

I work from 9:30am to around 5pm. On my first day here in Focus, I was updating the company's Media Contact database. I've been working on it everyday since. This is an interesting task as I get to see all the radio and newspaper contacts from all over Ireland that Focus work with. For the second half of the first day I went to a session with some of the customers that use the houses that Focus Ireland provide. I got to chat with the customers and find out how they benefit from using Focus Ireland's facilities. They were telling me about how they will be designing a garden in Phoenix Park for the Bloom Festival in summer. They are very excited about this project and it was great to see how customers like to get involved in the organisation.

I am currently working on a customer newsletter that is being produced. The great thing about this newsletter is that the customers are involved in it's production so it will be of more use to them. I am also writing an article for the Children's Rights Alliance newsletter about a conference that Focus Ireland set up on Youth Homelessness and how they are trying to get more Governments and Political Parties involved in eradicating child and youth homelessness in Ireland.

So far i'm learning loads and even though this is not likely to be a career path I will take, it's still a great experience. I'll write more at the end of the week :)

Ciara Xxx

Mini Company Competition :D

Yesterday, the 3rd of March, all the Tys went to Clane GAA club for the first heat of the County Enterprise Board Mini Company Competition. We've been working on our companies for months and finally it was time to show people how far we've come. Our company, The Just Desserts, has come such a long way in only a few short months. We've got scammed, had disagreements in our group and had financial troubles but we've managed to get into the final :D

We worked really hard on our presentation for the competition, Sarah's dad sponsored our group by making the display board for our stand and we all went over to Sarah's house one day after school to decorate it. We designed it as a little cottage complete with photo frames containing our recipes :L Aoife's mum, who's a chef, made us her gorgeous brownies and Sarah's dad made a lovley strawberry cheesecake, the food disappeared pretty quickly :L Our stand looked really well and the judges seemed to love it :) We were the first group to be interviewed, our judge was eager to start and began talking to us before the judging was due to begin :L We were all nervous before the interview, but it turned out to be fine. The judge was lovely, just talking to us about how many we've sold, he asked us about the trouble we had with being scammed so we told him the story about us being amature buyers on the internet :L He told us he loved our product and that it was very innovative. We were delighted with his comments :)

After our interview, while everyone else was still nervously waiting for their turn, we had fun going and looking at all the other companies for a few hours. We even got our picture taken by the Liffey Champion photographer :) After a few hours when all the judging was finished, everyone took down their stands and cleared up everything while we waited to here who had been shortlisted. A few groups in our school were shortlisted, and 4 have made it into the final, well done girls :D

The Just Desserts are now preparing for the final and we hope to do well :)


Ciara Xxx

February Midterm (L)

We're all back after a nice break :) It was a good week, full of a lot of rest and relaxation. There wasn't too much on during the week, Mantra was the main event of the week on the Wednesday. This was a great night, some of the blisters still remain :/ haha Most of the Tys were there so it was like the class was together again :L It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to get up for school on Monday, mostly because it's my birthday today so I was excited for that :L Finally 16 :D Me and my friends all went to the cinema and then back to my house for food and cake on the Friday of midterm, it was a great laugh :) Some of the girls made me an Amazing handmade card (in the picture) and got me lots of lovely presents, thanks girls <3

We've a busy few weeks coming up in Ty with the Mini company competition on Thursday, work experience next week and the music night coming up soon aswell, along with a couple of concerts in between (The Script & Katy Perry :D). It won't be long until we're on our Easter holidays and then the rest of Ty will fly by, I don't want it to end :(

Ciara Xxx