Gaisce

For the past few months we have been doing Gaisce and at the end of it there's a 25km hike to do. At first it was the whole year doing it but a lot of people kept dropping out. Now there is about 35 people doing it. We're going on the hike today. We leave school at 2pm today. We're getting dropped off before we get to Kippure lodge, where er're staying and we walk for about three hours to get there. We should arrive at about 7pm and then we can make food. We had to bring all of our own food because they don't supply it there. The next morning we are going to have to leave by about 9am and we're doing activities like archery, high ropes and other things. After that we walk again and finish the 25km. We should be home at around 6 or 7pm on Saturday and we're getting picked up at the Celbridge manor hotel.

Driving

This week we had driving lessons in school. It was really fun and we learned loads. We went to Leinster Driving School in Maynooth. First we broke up into two groups. The other group went driving first and my group done a practice theory test. Nobody got all the questions right and some of us failed. We got to keep trying to get a better score and then the groups with the higher scores picked their cars first. After the test we wore beer goggles to see how much it affects your co-ordination when you're drunk. They were really fun because we couldn't ever do easy things and it was funny watching everyone.

After that we had our lunch and then picked our cars. Most people were in groups of three in the cars but i was in a group of two with Emily. I think it was better being in a smaller group because we had more driving time. Emily drove first. She was really good for her first time driving. the driving instructor we had was really nice and funny. When it was my turn to drive I drove off without a seat belt and it was really embarrassing. We drove for a while then swapped and drove again. It was really fun and I can't wait until I can drive. I booked my theory test and will start lessons as soon as I can. They told us about a CD that we should get to help us study for the test and I got that because the book is way too long and there's so much in it.

Dancing 

This week we started hiphop for P.E. Half of my class went in with Aurora on Friday. Its really good because now I have three doubles in a row on Friday. The girl who was teaching us was really nice. We started learnig a dance to break free. We got it quite quick and it was really fun. I haven't done any dancing like that in years so it was fun doing it again.

SCI FEST

Last Friday we had Sci Fest. We got our project done just in time for the competition. There was four judges that went around looking at the projects and asking us questions about them. We were nervous at first but we got used to it.
Half way through the day I had a competition for choir so I had to leave. I heard alter that 15 groups got through and we were one of them so we will be going to a college in Tallaght.
we didn't get through in the choir competition but we done really well and it was fun.
Hopefully we will do better next year.

This week was a very busy week. It was the final of our mini companies and it was very stressful getting ready for it. We had to work hard and we were very proud that we got it all done. We got our stand ready on Thursday morning and it turned out looking really well. It was a long day of waiting for everyone to talk about their companies to the judges but eventually it was our turn. We were very nervous and might have missed a few things but overall we done very well and we were happy. We didn't go through to the final but we didn't mind because we had made a profit in our company and that was enough for us. We know that we put in our best effort and that's all you can do. Even at the start of the mini company we weren't expecting to get through because we knew our idea wasn't different but we didn't mind. We learned so much over the few months and it made me realize that I like to do that type of thing. I  hope the girls who got through Iprotect and Bam Beauty do really well because they worked really hard and they deserve it. Mini Company was one of my favorite projects of the whole year.

This week there wasn't much going on. We sold our t-shirts for mini company in the science corridor at lunch. We had work experience on Wednesday and next week is our last week. We're making a music video in music of a song we made up and its fun. We're using garage band to record it and it sounds really good. We're preparing for the presentation of our mini-company next Thursday and we're not ready so we need to hurry up and get something done. We also heard that we are going to be making pancakes and selling them in school to raise money for Temple Street.

Briary Gap

On Tuesday we  performed our play for the Briary Gap Competition in Mullingar. We had been working on it for months. It started off with different groups in the class coming up with ideas and grew from there. We chose to do a play called 'Willow'. In summary it was about William Shakespeare really being a girl and how she was inspired to write the well known play 'The Merchant of Venice' when she was transported through time to WW2. Our play highlighted issues such as antisemitism and sexual discrimination.

I played a Jewish man in the play. It was a small part but I was still nervous before I went on in case I messed it up. Overall i think the play went really well. Everyone performed brilliantly, the sound effects and lighting turned out well, our costumes and make-up looked good and everyone done their part to make it a success. 

All the other plays were also really good. We don't know who got through yet but  were hoping for the best. Even if we don't get through I don't care because we had a lot of fun working together to make the play and to perform it. We all learned alot about performing in front of an audience and how there's so much more going on behind the scenes of a play that you don't even realize. It reminded me of going to see Elf the musical and how much effort must have gone into making the sets, costumes, doing the make-up, writing the script, composing songs, and of course how much the actors must have rehearsed it to make it perfect.