Young Scientist & Basketball Baes

On Thursday the 8th of January the TY's and 2nd years went to the RDS for the Young Scientist exhibition. There were 550 projects at the exhibition which meant we spent most of the day looking at the projects and making friends with people who had projects there. Shout out to Gabe and the guy with the project about cities, whose name I do not know. Some girls from our year had a project in the exhibition, which was about the ideal conditions for learning. In my opinion it was the best but I'm a little biased because Emily the bae was part of the group.

On Friday the 16th of January, the first year basketball players that I help coach had their first match in Athlone, which meant I got to go and help. When we arrived everyone was excited and we made sure that even if we didn't win we would still smell better then the other team. Although they tried hard and played amazingly, unfortunately the girls lost but they are determined to win next time. The long journey home was full of taking selfies, talking and eating which made the time go by quite fast. It was actually one of the highlights of my year so far and I have first year baes now. If anyone of you are reading this hellooo you guys are fab.

"People Will Stare. Make It Worth Their While"

After weeks of preparation the fashion show was this Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday morning the Cebridge Manor was definitely not ready which meant the TY's were needed to fix the place up. We spent the day painting the stage and stapling material to the side of the stage. It was very eventful, I had to go collect things which resulted in Ciara nearly getting hit in the head with a staple because Haven Hire didn't know how to use the staple gun and getting followed home by a creepy lady. By the end of the day though the Celbridge Manor looked fashion show ready.

The mini companies were selling at the fashion show which meant I was at the fashion show at 6pm (2 hours before the show started) We set up our stand and I got ready to dance and model. After that we were all just waiting for the show to begin which meant practising and stretching. Backstage was stressful to say the least. At one stage Sadbh and I had to put Anna's into a minute in less then a minute, we got it done but it was definitely stressful. 

Our dance went really well and all of the rehearsals were definitely worth it. 'Thinking Out Loud' will be stuck in my head forever now. Sadbh and I didn't forget the the dance or forget it so I'm very proud of us considering I had forgotten the dance earlier.

I was also a model for my some of my friends mini company 'Seem' I was modelling their jewellery and although backstage was stressful when we got on stage everything was fine, and everyone got a chance to see their jewellery. (You should buy some)

The fashion show was overall a success, my mini company (Casevana) sold quite a few cases and we have orders too. All the hard work everyone put in paid off and we had a fantastic show.

Vanishing Art

On Tuesday we went to an art exhibition in Carton House. The exhibition had pieces of art indoors and outdoors. We all got a map and Ciara and decided to be like tourists and walk around using the map. I ended up ripping the map thank to the wind. We saw lots of pieces of art like a pink T-Rex, dresses made of bronze, an owl made of paper and what Ciara and I like to call 'The Swag Man'.

We were there to look at the art but most people ended up looking at the Irish rugby team who were training there. I guess people classified them as moving art? I spent most of the day listening to Four with Ciara, stumbling into a fictional world(long story) and taking photos (yes we did take a selfie with the T-rex)

Thinking Out Loud & Casevana

Rehearsals for the fashion show have started and the countdown has begun. With only 3 weeks to go everybody is working hard to make sure we are all ready. I will be doing ballet in the fashion how along with other girls from different years. The ballet dance will be opening the wedding section of the fashion show so evryone is very excited for that. We have rehearals most lunch times and we also had a rehearsal after school on Thursday.

We are dancing to the Ed Sheeran song 'Thinking Out Loud.' We are still working on the dance as most of us are still learning it but we have gotten off to a very good start. I'm excited to see what the finished dance will look like and to see what the fashion show is like.

We are all currently working hard on our mini companies and my groups mini company is called 'Casevana' we will be selling custom made phone cases with a place to keep your headphones as well. We are ordering our first cases this week and after that it will be hard work to get all of the cases made and sold.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Centre of the Stage & Business Moguls

Not many exciting things were planned to happen this week but there's always something to do and this week the challenge was to write a play and start a business. Trust me it's not as easy as it sounds. For the play I am in a group and we work together in English class to come up with ideas and write our play. Our play is called 'Schizophrenia'  we are all very excited to see how the play will look on stage, we have big plans for it so watch this space. Ciara and I came up with the idea after being inspired by a story we had read before, the aim of the play is to show how mental disorders are a problem in our world and how they affect people. The play aims to especially show the emotional problems people suffer from because of these disorders so hopefully we will be able to make it an emotional roller coaster for the audience. It's definitely not a Disney story...

This week we also became business moguls by starting our own mini company. There is still a lot of work to be done but we have an idea and we all have jobs to do so soon our business will be taking over the world, well hopefully at least the school anyway. Our business idea is phone cases that will be custom made and will also have useful add-ons such as pockets and a place to put your headphones. It's harder then it sounds Ciara and I attempted to make a prototype phone case and it took us a long time to made a not so great case. 

Walk In My Shoes

Today the school is raising money for a charity called 'Walk in my shoes.' This charity is to help young people who have mental health issues of any kind. Everyone in the school today wore their own choice of clothes and shoes, some people even wore wellies for the charity. Everybody who didn't wear their uniform donated €2 to the charity. 

Mental health is a very important topic that is often overlooked because its very hard for people to know, if someone they know has mental health issues. This charity aims to help young people understand what mental health issues are an how to deal with them. 

Some mental health statistics:

• 1 in 6 employees in Ireland will experience a mental health difficulty.
• 1 in 4 young people in Ireland will experience a mental health difficulty.
• Suicide is the leading cause of death among 18-25 year old men in Ireland and the second most common cause of death generally in this age group.
• Ireland has one of the highest suicide rates in the 14-24 age group in the EU.
• 75% of all mental health difficulties begin before 24 years of age.

The inspiration behind the fundraiser is that people 'walk in the shoes' of people with mental health issues, so that everyone can see what it is like for people with mental health issues. The fundraising went really well in the school today as everybody wore different shoes and they all donated.

Links for help with mental health in Ireland:

Walk in my shoes: http://www.walkinmyshoes.ie/i-needi-feel/

Aware: http://www.aware.ie/help/support/support-mail/

Grow: http://grow.ie/how-we-help/

Mental Health Ireland: http://www.mentalhealthireland.ie/

Aurora and Maleficent Woke Me Up

This week we had our fun walk, which of course meant we needed to come up with a dance, luckily our class names are Disney princesses so we already had a story line. My class is Aurora, who is sleeping beauty, so of course the only logical thing to do was to dress up Mr. Kennedy as Maleficent. After changing our dance multiple times, we finally decided on one. Half of the class would be evil, wearing black bin bags and masks while the other half would be good, wearing yellow. The evil people were mean to each other and the audience and then the good people came in and made them nice with hugs and dance. The plan, which surprisingly actually worked, was for the bad people to take off their masks and bin bags when they turned good. After that we all danced together to 'Wake me up before you go go' because sleeping beauty woke up and we turned Maleficent good.

The dance went really well on the day and we actually ended up winning! All of our practising paid off and of course Mr. Kennedy dressing up as Maleficent paid off too. As Mr. Kennedy said "I am not dressing up as a woman if we aren't going to win." The day was really fun, especially because it didn't rain. It was a busy day of dancing, dressing up and party poppers.