Favourite TY Moment

Okay this is impossible!| There has been so many moments this year that have been a one in a life time experience. Picking my favourite, I just cannot do it! I have been thinking about what to choose all week...


Although one moment that really has stuck in my head happened in the beginning of 2012. The third years were getting a talk on Tansition Year, the pros and cons (defiantly more pros!)
Catriona needed help from another Transiton Year student in her class to do the talk last minute. So Caitriona and I sat outside the hall while Mrs. L told the third years all about TY from a teachers perspective. 
Caitriona and I had a piece a paper ready to go with so many different events you take part in during TY. 
When we started to talk to the third years I really began to think about how amazing each experience had been. Telling them all about Carlingford Adventure Centre. All the jokes like chasing sheep up mountains, everyone getting lost in orienteering and late night sing-songs by the fire.
Then on to the amazing opportunities brought with work experience and all the time spent at new extra curriculum activities, I could have spent hours sharing everything that the musical had brought and I know if I had been in any other year I would not have had the time to put as much in to the musical and equally get out of it as I did this year! There was so much more we both had to rush through like the excitement of Zumba every week, the thrill of a new Thursday afternoon activity and throwing TY parties!
Caitriona and I stood in front of the third years and I know we both realized every achievement you can get out of TY. That's why this talk was one of my favorite moments of Transition Year, it brought together all the memories of the great days, mornings and afternoons.

Fridays are looking good!

The next two Fridays are definatly going to be exciting ones!

This Friday we are heading off to the National Aquatic Centre for the Ian Daly Swim A Mile With A Smile. It is a great charity set up by Eimear D's family and is for an amazing cause. Every year since the charity has been set up I have swam a mile to try and help out, this year I will be doing the same along with many of the year!
Everybody should check out the charity and do their bit. Everything from swimming 1 Lent to 64 Lents makes a difference.

The following Friday we are going to Wicklow for our Gaisce hike.
Gaisce is a president's award and this year many of us will be getting the bronze award after completing the hike. We had to also complete 13 weeks of either a community service, a personal skill and a sport and 26 weeks of one of these.
I decided to do homework club in our school, cooking at home and hockey for my three Gaisce events.

For the hike it will be a 25 km hike through the Wicklow mountains on Friday evening. Friday night we will spend in houses in the hostel. We have to bring our own food and cook in groups which will be pretty fun. I think there will be a lot of packets of noodles that night! It is looking to be a very exciting night and then the following morning we will be doing high ropes! I know I cannot wait.

A little bit of Glory!

Rachel, Aoibheann and I started our project called 'Could this be a Cool Current?' back in September. Everyday we either loved or hated our project!
Honestly, we were slightly gutted that we did not get into Young Scientist but we quickly forgot about it. We were the second group to present our project to the TY group. All the other projects we saw were so interesting! Like Emma and Vicky's about carpooling and of course Isabelle, Niamh and Elaina's (who were in Young Scientist) with their surfing app!


Here's a link to my first blog about this Scientist Project: http://megsme.blogspot.com/2011/09/scientists-are-born.html


Here's Aoibheann's blog when we started out with this project: http://aoibheann-apples.blogspot.com/2011/09/could-this-be-cool-current.html


Finally, here's Rachel's first blog ever (now that's exciting) it includes a bit about starting the project too, in purple writing. Enjoy: http://rachiee15.blogspot.com/2011/09/and-ty-finally-starts.html


Now the exciting bit. 'Could this be a Cool Cutrrent?' won the prize of the top three porjects, that weren't Young Scientist, in in our TY group! We were so thrilled! This project isn't over yet. In May we will be going to SciFest, so we can still be hopeful that maybe the glory will continue! 

¡Hola Chicas!

Me llamo Meg, soy irlandese y tengo dieciséis años.
Voy a ir colegio en St.Wolstan's. Me gusta mucho el año TY. He aprendido sobre mo mismo porque me encanta los musicales. Cada persona en año TY son amigos porque esta un año pequeño. Hay setenta y ocho personas en el año. 
 Cada dia hago mucho trabajo intereste. 
Cada jueves tengo clase de bailer 'Zumba'. Me gusto mucho! Fui el aventuras por ejemplo una ópera, Carlingford y unos bolos. 
Me gustao mucho el comida de españa. Me gusta cocinar paella y churros! En el colegio cocinamos comida. El mes próximo voy a cocinar el comida de españa!
Gracias y adios!

Work Experience TAKE 2!

I LOVE WORK EXPERIENCE!

I could not believe my luck when I found out that I would be spending a week in the RTE studios in Donnybrook.

I had read a TY blog from last year outlining what had been done in RTE work experience so I was super excited that I was going to get this chance.

Every morning Jenny and I got the 67x to Donnybrook. I found it really interesting to see the same people heading into work on the same bus every morning. I know to most people this would be normal but I was not use to getting public transport on a daily basis as I walk to school.

On the first morning Jenny and I were slightly nervous but we had both read the RTE work experience blog from last year and had a fair idea of what to expect.

We found the TV receptions and sat together, half an hour early, waiting for everyone else to arrive. The work experience group contained 18 TY students from 9 different school across Ireland, there was two students from Cork, two from Meath and even two from Mayo.

Fair City set

On the first morning we did some ice-breakers within the group and got to know each other and learnt a lot about RTE from a very cool guy named Jerry. Afterwards we went on a tour of RTE with Ciara and the fun really began. We met the cast of Fair City, Joe Duffy and Pat Kenny. I LOVE PAT KENNY.

RTE is huge, different building for Radio, sets, publishing, offices and so much more. We also got to see the sets from Primetime, the news and The Late Late Show!

Our first lunch together was a bit awkward but we really bonded by the time Jedward walked into the cafeteria (which, by RTE rule, we had to called the canner!).

That afternoon we spent in publishing, learning the excitement and disappoint of photo shop and experience the daily work and effort in the RTE guide! I had a nice sleep on the bus home that evening.

Pat Kenny!

On the second day we were working in a radio workshop with two presenters from RTE Lyric FM. We split up into three groups and had to think up a radio programme. Our group started 'Film Fantasia' every evening at 19:30. I was one of the presenters. We really felt as if we were live on air when recording our shows. It was so exciting!

In the afternoon we played a small part in the Rick O'Shea show, we were the clappers! We got to learn how to edit sound recordings and even had to curse into the mics so we could edit them it. We saw all the CD's that RTE has. There is SO many, it's unbelievable.

On air

Wednesday was like another world. We knew there would be work involved as we were told the day would end at five, while it normally ended at four. We did not expect the excitement and achievement that Wednesday brought.

We split into two groups of nine and started of brainstorming ideas and then went onto script writing. We had to go quickly to get costumes and props, the wardrobes or RTE are amazing. I wanted to live there. All the clothes and costumes you could dream of stored in a pretty hot and stuffy but big wardrobe.

We had a a short lunch break but everyone was buzzing to get a start on shooting the show. Another bit of excitement was we couldn't tell the other group anything about our show.

When shooting began I laughed for the next three hours. With Brian playing Harry Potter sitting casually in the back round of every scene and a random security guard taking part in the end of our show things were just so funny.

Our show was called 'News for Insominas' it including the people of Dublin's reactions to the shutting down of Dominos and Justin Bieber's snake jelly high. That day I will never forget the pain in my sides from laughing so much!

On camera

Thursday was a late start. We headed to the National Concert Hall at 10am where we saw a live performance and had a tour of the Concert Hall. The trip there was full of laughs as the group of 18 of us were now best friends for life!

In the afternoon we had a talk about SaorView, which if anyone has any questions about I feel like a SaorView wizzkid. SaorView will be taking over all satellite TV (that you guys who don't have UPC or Sky) and it will happen this October. Make sure to get your SaorView boxes everyone.

Broadcasting

Friday. I don't want to remember the ending. After only a week the 18 of us were inseparable. Although I do have to talk about Friday cause I have to say, like the other four days, it was amazing!

We wrote a newsletter about our week together in the morning but this quickly changed to everyone showing each other their houses of google maps. Technology is pretty amazing.

Our last lunch together we seriously felt like the apostles but we need the lunch would end early because we knew who was coming to TV receptiontion....

SUSAN BOYLE! She was closely followed by The Wanted so we were all on a high!

We then watched the two TV shows that we had made and the director of each group had edited. Everyone was in stitches laughing! We also got our RTE goodie bag and a group photo that had been taken on Wednesday. The real surprise came next.

Jerry held 18 tickets in his hands and asked us if we would like to go to The Late Late Show? All week were told that we couldn't go as it was strictly over 18's but this Friday Susan Boyle had asked to do a pre-record of her interview and so we would be part of the audience. It was so much fun and even though it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon I really felt as if I was at the real show, we even had to clap on que! 

Waiting for Subo!

That was week in a nutshell. RTE work experience was really unforgettable!

All the crew

Work Experience TAKE 1!

Firstly I spent a week in the Arnott's cafe

 'Homemade by Clodagh McKenna'

The first day I worked in the cold kitchen making orange juice, chopping vegetables, making sandwiches and salads.It was so exciting to be in a busy kitchen and see how everything needs to be prepared in bulk and in a short time frame.

Day two was one of my favourites! I worked with the head baker Alberto for the day. Nearly every recipe is multiplied by at least 5 so there is always cake batter ready to go! We made carrot carrot, scones, red velvet cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, lemon cupcakes and so many more. Alberto and I also decorated the cakes. I really enjoyed this and had such a sense of achievement when a cake I had baked and decorated was bought. 

The bakery was very organised and there was such a variety of ingredients to bake with. The huge fridges in the kitchens were really scary. When you went inside them there was always those few moments thinking is the door going to close behind me? I'm going to freeze to death! Luckily, that never happened.

Day three I was working in the main kitchen preparing all the roasties, I love Clodagh's roasties! I've been making them all the time at home since work.

I also prepared about 70 turnips and cauliflower, most people would find that boring I guess but I loved it. I think I could cut and chop vegetables for the rest of my years.

On day four we worked doing promotion. We handed out leaflets and had to help to bring people in to the cafe with the offer of a free Americano with every sandwich bought. We helped bring in business so we were happy. I also learnt to use to coffee machine and served customers in the Food Market. I really enjoyed the social aspects of interacting with the public in the Food Market as they were all very interested in the different foods and cakes sold here.
I really
Coming to work Friday morning (day five) I really was so sad! I could not believe it was my last day. I was so comfortable in the workplace I felt that I could really take part in any areas of the work that I enjoyed. I spent my day helping the baker as this was my favourite place to spend time. The Head Baker Alberto told us all about his life from Venezuela! I also baked peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, partly my own recipe, that are now being baked everyday in Clodagh's cafe!
Before I left Clodagh, Head Chef Ben and Manager Micheal gave me a beautiful present of a red poka-dot apron and a Homemade by Clodagh cookery book. Also I was given goodies to bring home such as the some of the freshly baked cookies I had baked earlier that day.
Everybody from the cafe signed my card which I really liked as I do not want to forget such an amazing experience!

I was so sad to leave such an enjoyable week behind but I count myself lucky for having an amazing experience. I was even given a part time job to work with Clodagh in her cookery school in The Lyons Estate. I worked there last Satruday and it was a great oppertunity! I can not wait to work there again. :)

Hockey *love*

Well done to the Junior Hockey team who were so close to the Semi-Final yesterday. Sadly, after a draw leading to extra time leading to penalties the other team got the goal!
The St. Wolstans Junior team really did us proud though. It was unbelievable play by centre back Emma who's in Transition Year and an amazing goals by Chanice and Alannah both in 3rd year. The Junior goalie Alannah O'S played a blinder, letting almost nothing past that white line.
Well done Juniors! Good luck with your match Thursday, hopefully we'll be out supporting again.

Next for Senior hockey, my beloved team who are in the Leinster Semi-Final this Wednesday! Wow, that's tomorrow! We are all very excited for the match but already I can tell nerves are running high. Hopefully we'll pull together as a team and go for gold. With Captain Ali leading the team anything is possible.

I shall blog the result of the match, wish us luck!