Spanish Fiesta

24th, April, '15

Our Spanish teacher decided to hold a spanish themed party for our last class. We went to the home economics rooms and cooked four big paellas. I missed the first class for music rehersals for the end of year awards ceremony but when i got back the smell of the kitchen was amazing. They were chicken paellas (my favourite) and we had it with sangria (I think it was called that) kind of a fizzy fruity drink. It was gorgeous. We blew up balloons and decorated the tables and put on some spanish music. Once the paella was fully cooked we invited in the other spanish class in the year. We all ate tonns of paella as there was enough to feed an army. There was soo much left over that we invited in other classes from different years, even people just walking on the corridors. So most people got some, it was the nicest paella i've had so far.

The balloons were so hard to blow up. We nearly fainted and our faces went red.

Science

22nd, April, '15

Today in science class we made paper rockets and tested them on the back pitches. It was really fun and we just messsed around for the whole class. We got to design our rockets, I drew Nyan cat on mine, and then tape them together with great difficulty. We then used a pump to build up pressure to blast them off down the pitch. This was really fun, some peoples went really far, like mine, and others not so far, some even broke without even leaving the launch pad. We all laughed at those ones. I love science in T.Y, there are no books and its all very practical. We were outside in the sun enjoying ourselves.

My rocket

 Liane and Hannah

Me and Hannah

Car Safety Demo

21st, April, '15

For three periods today we had a car safety demonstration at the back of the school. A large trailer with half of a car was brought in and the presenter told us about all the different safety features like how to wear the belt properly and the airbags.. It was quite shocking but informative. He got different people to sit in the car to demonstrate different possibilities. It was quite funny aswel as he made a lot of inuendos. He made the lesson quite entertaining, but also direct. We all learnt how to be safe while driving. Most of which I already knew, but it doesn't hurt to hear it all again.

Mathletes Provincial Finals

18th, April, '15

I somehow managed to get myself to the Leinster provincial finals of the mathletes challenge. Six students from my year made it to the provincial finals. We were invited up to google in Dublin for the event. I brought Bronwyn with me as a guest which was fun. We had to sign in at 9:30a.m and then at 10a.m we started the tasks.
The first task was doing a series of short questions and we had half and hour to do them. There were twenty four t.ys in total in the Leinster competition. I found the questions quite difficult and got a few done. My friends found them difficult too.
Then the second task was longer brain teasers and we had forty minutes to do these ones. I found these even more difficult and guessed a lot of them. Then lastly we had a team task, we were each given numbers and put into teams of four. I had another girl, Carmella, and two lads, Oisín and Eoghan, on my team. Our task was to build a lego car and make it travel the furthest down a ramp, we were against all the other teams. It was really fun because I am obssesed with lego anyway. We started off with a pretty good car, then we added lots of stuff to the design and changed it, and it ended up worse than ever, and we lost that round, but we still got on very well as a team and they were lovely, fun people, who I hope to meet again someday.
After we completed each of the three tasks we got lunch. Google provided free food, so as you can imagine, me and Bronwyn helped ourselves to a lot. We were given a tour of google. It is one giant canteen, in every room there is comfortable seating and food. They even have see-saws and swings. We asked how they ever got work done in there, it is like a playground. The staff there were very friendly and Bronwyn managed to befriends a few employees while I was off doing maths. Bronwyn even managed to get herself locked into rooms because she didn't have a swipe card to get out, but you could get into the rooms by a button on the doors.
Once Bronwyn finished adventuring, and we finished the tours, we were brought to the auditorium for the awards presentation. This was the most fun. They played good music, there were lots of lights and we were all sitting in comfortable seats for it to start. Once it started we were shown about all the work the mathletes have been doing, and khan academy to make the competition happen, and also some thanks you's to google and the presenter. Then the winners of the online leaderboards were called out to collect medals, I was the overall winner for T.Y's which was a huge achievment. Bronwyn wouldn't stop clapping, and I got lots of congratulations from people. There were lots of other awards for 'most time spent on khan academy' and also the champions league winners I was only in the challengers league because this was my first year on khan academy. They aren't going to announce the winners of todays events till Tuesday, and the top twenty all across Ireland go through to the finals, but because I was overall leaderboard winner in Ireland of t.y's I automatically go through to the finals on the 2nd of May in DCU, I didn't know this till today, and I am so excited, it means no matter how bad I did at the maths today, I still go through (and I did pretty bad today) Also the winning team of the lego round got lego ducks. Once the presentations were over we all got hats, mugs, stickers and certificates outside the auditorium, I also got another medal for being the Wexford county champion. I was so proud of myself.
I can't wait till the finals in two weeks, I better start practicing again. I don't really mind if I don't do well in the finals as even getting to them was such an achievement, (although it would be nice to win something) I am so proud of myself and I think it is my biggest achievement of the year, and the best day out i've had this year also. I don't mind being called a maths nerd because of it, i've enjoyed every minute of it.
So on Tuesday I will find out which of my other five friends will get through to the finals.

The view of the Aviva Stadium

 Outside on the swings

Giant google maps screen that you could control.

A wall that lit up as you walked by

Work Experience 2

13th - 17th, April, '15

This week was our work experience week. Some people had workshops and others had community service. I spent the week helping my art teacher in the art rooms with all of his classes, and some other art teachers with theirs whenever he didn't have classes.
I came in at 9a.m and had to help out 1st to 6th year classes. In some free classes I tidied and organised the rooms or sometimes sat outside in the nice weather or learnt how to do the rubix cube. It was so fun helping out the classes, especially the younger classes. The 1st years wanted the most help with their work so I was always kept busy in those classes. The third years mostly need help with the computers and printing off pictures for their junior cert projects. I was quite suprised with a lot of the talents the students have in art.
 For the first two days I was quite nervous and shy and tried not to help with too much with drawing because I wasn't confident in my own art skills or art initiative, but after a while I became confident and took control, and the students asked for my help, and appreciated it. It was very nice and we got along very well, I often say hi to some of the students on the corridors now.  I also got along very well with my art teacher, and he was very appreciative.
I had lots of fun and I might get to be a model for the junior and leaving cert art practicals because of it. Art is my favourite subject and I definatly think this week has helped me improve my owns art skills and my confidence in my skills. I also find it easier to get along with other students and teachers now and have made some new friends in other years.

CheeseCake

24th, Mar, '15

Today in home economics we made cheesecakes. We all made different variations of it, mine was dark chocolate chip. It was quite a complicated recipe and we all got confused as to what to do a lot, but in the end it was perfect, if I do say so myself.