Geog Project - My Music Map

About a month ago we were given a project from Ms L that involved travelling around the world via Google maps to find out more about our interests all over the globe. I chose music as my interest...I loooove music! I play piano but I love every type of music and listening to music is how I chillax! For the project we had to make a map and place five tags on it from different places relating to our interest. We were supposed to connect them but I did it kinda wrong so they're not really connected but anyway...then we had to make five blog posts on the tags...this post is the intro. I'll post the rest in a while :)

The Intro:
I love music so I'm going to travel around the world and look at different types of music from various different countries across all the continents :)

F1 In Schools National Finals

Wow! I haven't blogged in sooo long....I was so busy recently!

Thursday 7th April was the National finals of the F1 In Schools Competition. We had spent a busy few days getting ready for it and the last-minute pressure was really on...we all had to work hard to get everything done on time and to ensure that our posters, porfolio, presentation...but most improtantly...OUR CAR were ready for the competition.

I was relieved when, on Wednesday, the box arrived back from Cork with our car in it...I was a bit worried, though, when we opened it up and saw that our aerofoil had been broken, however all was resolved when Michelle & Mia got together to make a new one out of pink plastic. Still, there was so much to do...Sarah volunteered to collect our posters from a guy in Newbridge and Hayley's mam (who pretty much came to the rescue all the time throughout the project) organised for the portfolio to be printed and then collected it for us. Most of the team spent extra time in the Tech room on Wednesday getting ready for the competition, along with Mr W who gave up loooads of time to help us. I worked on our Powerpoint for the Verbal Presentation. Hayley & Mia sanded the car, Sarah varnished it, Mia & Michelle built the aerofoil and the last-minute work was getting done pretty rapidliy...until the bell rang and we had to go home with our car still not ready. Mia took the car and offered to paint it, but she didn't have a vice to finish the aerofoil, so Michelle said she'd do it and drop it to Mia's house later. Hayley's mam had bought the spray-paint, so she had to go to Mia's house after school too to drop it off...and I had the glue to stick the aerofoil on so everyone was going to Mia's house in dribs and drabs when school was over just so the car would get done! :L

The next morning, we had to be at school at 7.45am! We left soon after...and I saw the finished car for the first time...I must admit I was kinda scared! It looked great though...Mia & Michelle had done a fab job! When we arrived there, we could see the competition was fierce...most of the other schools had big fancy displays and impressive-looking uniforms, but we set up our stand and it looked really good (and not OTT like some of the others)!

First thing we had was our verbal presentation in front of 5 judges. It went really well - they seemed to like us and they were all very nice. Our "speech" could be no more than 5 minutes and we sort of ran out of time but we got in all we wanted to say when the asked us questions afterwards. Then we had our display judging. Two judges did that one. We thought it went good aswell and they really liked our logo too which was a bonus! This is the logo here..

By the way...Éalú is the Irish for escape!

Last but not least was our race...probably the worst bit of the day for us! Our "driver" Sarah was fantastic....her reaction times were brilliant and much faster than the other team, but unfortunately the way the car was manufactured this time meant that it was a lot slower and sadly, it didn't perform at all how we would have liked...oh well!

We had a great day, despite only winning in our hearts :D Thanks Mr. W for all your help! :)

Gáisce Hike :)

Yesterday 14 of us + 2 teachers set out for Wicklow for our Gaisce hike...it was definitely a weekend to remember!

We came into school in our hiking gear (ie. tracksuit bottoms etc). We left after lunch, at 2 o'clock. When we arrived at Knockree hostel in Wicklow, lots of us recognised it from our ecology trip in 3rd year...

We checked in and got our rooms...I was with Aoife, Siobhán and Ashling N (Aoife & Ashling are from 5th year). We put our food that could go off in the fridge, packed our bags and then set off for the first leg of our hike at about 4 o'clock At first when our guide (I can't remember his name) showed us the mountain we'd be climbing, I got a bit of a shock...it looked huuuuge, but as we got going I realised it wasn't too bad. This is the mountain we climbed...we went to the end of the trees near the top;

We stopped for a few breaks along the way to regain our strength which was good because they were needed (for me anyway). The wind on the mountain was so strong...we could nearly lie back and be held up! The views were lovely along the way...we could see so much. When we got near the top our guide decided to go back down because the wind was too strong to go any further. We got up and down in record timing...we arrived back at the hostel at ten to seven! Our guide said we had walked almost 20km!

After that we went to our rooms for showers and stuff...the shower I went into was fuh-reez-ing! And there was a big spider too!! eeshk :/

Then we went down to the kitchen to make dinner...I had to get help 'coz cooking isn't my strong point...who knew pasta could be so easy! ;) After we cleaned up we got into our pj's and went to the tv room to watch 50 first dates...such an awful movie :D We were getting kinda freaked out by girls from another school who kept watching us through the window...but it was all part of the fun :L

"Quiet time" in the hostel was after 11pm and the movie finished at 10.59...perfect timing! Then we went to bed...ish...we finally got to sleep at around ten to twelve after some wall-feeling, talking, and eh....forcing into bed ;)

We were woken this morning at 8.00...according to Siobhán I was a sight for sore eyes when Ms. H came to wake us...I quote "You looked like someone who had been asleep and didn't want to be woken!" hehe :D you got it in a nutshell Siobhán!

We packed up our stuff and went for breakfast....just a side note: Kellogs mini-packs are in no way filling! We brought all our stuff downstairs and gave back our keys...but we weren't finished yet!

We had two new guides today...Mick and Andrei. We started off with orienteering. Team Andrei (the one I was on) lost :( actually we let then win! jk :P Then we did archery...I was surprised coz I was ok at it and I thought I'd be awful! The final score was 1400 to us and 1320 to the other team...I scored two bullseyes which was really cool! Here's us behind the targets afterwards...

After archery we went to use the low ropes...there were tight-ropey things that we had to walk across and that sort of thing; easier said than done because we were blindfolded when we were going across! Everyone had a go...even the teachers! Here's me going across blindfolded with Aoife ready to catch me if I fell...I made it though!

Speaking of falling...there was another rope thing after that and there was a metal wire that you had to walk across with the help of these two blue ropes that were in a criss-cross kionda shape (worst description ever!). When Aoife was going across I was standing behind her (supposedly) ready to catch her...but she fell back and I wasn't looking and I missed her...nevertheless she landed on top of me and the two of us went flying onto the ground...sorry Aoife! Siobhán caught the moment on camera....

And afterwards...

Afterwards we did some team games like making a square out of different shapes, making numbers add up to 15, moving a ball using drain pipes and "skis". I think Team Mick won most of the stuff :( :D

And that was it! We grabbed our bags, waved goodbye and got back on the bus. We stopped in Enniskerry to get ice-creams. We got back to Esso (where we were being collected) at 2.20. I had such a good time...the weather stayed gorgeous for most of the trip...I was really hot anyway! (I used my suncream too :D) ...so many funny memories (Siobhán feeling the wall for me...taking pictures of bananas....loads of funny conversations and mis-interpreted sentences!! :L) Fortunately I'm not in much pain at all...I'll upload more photos from the trip later. Thanks to the teachers who brought us! :)

Everyone who went ^^

Challenge 4: Finding My Way

I've added a blogroll to my blog as part of Challenge 4 of the blog challenge. I've added a few blogs to it...I already had the blog challenge blog. I added my Transition Year blog, which my Year-Head Ms L posts on. I also added my friend Hayley's blog and the Blogger Cafe blog. I'll add more as I find more blogs that interest me. I haven't added any categories yet because I don't have enough blogs but I'll do that soon. :)

French Pen-Pals

After coming back after Chrismas we were told that we'd be getting pen-pals. We found out that they come from Brittany. Last week we got our first letters from them. My pen-pal is called Kevin...he's 16. He told me a bit about himself, his family and his interests...I wrote another letter back and our teacher is going to send all our letters together soon...I can't wait to hear more about him...at the moment we're doing a short project on Ireland and the area we live in to send over to them. It's really testing my French skills! I hope Kevin can make sense of what I'm saying... :)

English Trip

Last Thursday we went on an English trip to the National Museum of Ireland, the National Library & the National Gallery (in Dublin). In the National Museum we saw artefacts from pre-historic history (?) like rocks and bog-boats. We then got to see some "bog-bodies". They were dead people who's bodies were preserved in the bog for thousands of years. They were really life-like looking (but knida disgusting.) One guy had only his torso -no head or legs. Another had no legs but had a torso and a head. The last guy has a full body. It was so interesting! At the national library we saw a W.B. Yeats exhibition - we were told all about his life and about his poetry. I honestly didn't like him after the exhibition -he's really really really wierd! Then we went for lunch...Mai, Hayley, Clara, Emma & I went to Eddie Rocket's...it was great craic! We got burgers and chips and milkshakes...which Mia spilled all over herself! After lunch we went to the Natinoal Gallery to look at paintings done by W.B. Yeats' father, John Yeats (I think that's his name...). It was a really good day! Thanks to Ms. B for organising it and to Ms. B & Ms G for bringing us! :)

Earth Hour

As part of challenge 3 we had to blog about a global issue we took part in...I decided to take part in earth hour on Saturday night from 8.30 to 9.30. Everyone in Ireland (and around the world as far as I know) was encouraged to turn off all the lights in their houses for one hour. I turned of my bedroom light and other lights around my house - I also encouraged my family to do the same (my dad let me dim the lights in the tv room!). It really made me realise how much we rely on light and therefore electricity to get by...I don't know what I'd do without my laptop, phone, ipod or the the tv...(I'm that sad!). In the houses around me, a lot of lights seemed to be off...I don't know whether that was just coincidence or if others were taking part too, but even still, it was very interesting...I wouldn't have been able to survive longer than an hour though! :L

Percussion Workshop

I had no internet last week so I have a lot to catch up on with my blog :/ On Tuesday last week we had a percussion workshop with a guy called Dave from Jabba Jabba Jembe (see his website here). We had it from 9.45am until 2.40pm, so we got to do loads of stuff. When Dave arrived we helped him to bring in his drums from his van...he had really cool colourful bags that they drums were in. Then he showed us how to play the drum properly. You use the palms of your hands with your four fingers together and your thumbs sticking out. There were loads of different types of drums, all different sizes. One was called the jembe and it was the main drum. There were bass drums too and other drums I didn't know the name of. He also had loads of hand percussion instruments. Some were made out of gourds. We played loads of rhythms and we all had the chance to try out every drum - it was really cool. At the end we watched a video called Foli on Youtube..you can see it here. It's about jembe druming in Africa. We also watched a video on Stomp...a grup of people who use every-day items (like sweeping brushes and basketballs) to make percussive sounds...it was sooo cool! It was a really good day...when all of us were playing together the sound was amazing (and really loud!). I'd love to learn how to play the jembe drums properly some day. :)

Back At School :)

I don't trust the Google translate gadget so I'm going to translate my last post myself so everyone can understand (just in case the gadget says the wrong thing!).
Here it is in English:
Well, as I said yesterday, I'm going to write this post in Irish.
We came back to school today...I have to say it was sorta strange...we weren't in proper classes for a few weeks because of the amount of competitions that were on this month.
This morning, first of all, we had careers class...everyone told stories about work experience. People were at hospitals, universities, the Guards and a lot of other places.
Then we had maths class. We're doing "probability" now...it's not too hard. After break, we had English...from the start of the year we were doing our dramas, so today it was very strange when we did poetry! We read a poem form the poet W.B. Yeats; "The Wild Swans At Coole". I love that poem! On Thursday, all of TY will be going to the Yeat's museum in Dublin for the day. I'm really looking forward to it!
Now I'm in I.T. class...everyone is writing on their blogs.
Tomorrow we're having a percussion workshop...it'll be interesting!
There are only three weeks left until the Easter break...there's seven weeks left in TY! :(
This year went so fast...we had a taste of fifth year today :/
I don't have a lot to write aout today yet...maybe something will happen later...I'll write more tonight... :)

Ar Ais Ar Scoil :)

Challenge 3: Bhuel, mar a dúirt mé inné, tá mé chun an "post" seo a scríobh as Gaeilge. Thangamar ar ais ar scoil inniú...caithfidh mé é a rá bhí sé saghas ait...ní raibhemar i ranagnna ceart ar feadh cúpla seachtaine maidir leis an méid comórtais a bhí ar siúl an mí seo. Sa maidin, ar dtús, bhí rang "Careers" againn...d'inis gach duinne scéaltaí faoi taithí oibre. Bhí daoine ag oispidéal, ollscoil, an Garda Síocháina agus a lán áiteanna eile. Ansin, bhí rang matamaitic againn. Táimid ag déanamh "probability" anois...níl sé ró-dheacair. Tar éis am sos, bhí Béarla againn...ón tús an bliain bhíomar ag déanamh ár drámaí, so inniú bhí sé an-ait ar fad nuair a rinnemar filíocht! Léamhamar dán ón file W.B. Yeats; "The Wild Swans At Coole". Is aoibheann liom an dán sin! Ar an Déardaoin beidh an idir-bhliain ar fad ag dul go dtí an musaem Yeats i mBaile Atha Cliath don lá. Tá mé ag tnúth go mór leis! Anois tá mé i rang ríomhairí...tá gach duine ag scríobh ar a "mBlogs". Amárach beidh céardlann "percussion" againn...beidh sé suimiúl. Níl ach trí seachtaine fágtha go dtí brise na Cáisce...tá seacht seachtain fágtha san idir bhlian! :( D'imigh an bliain seo chomh tapa...bhí saghas blás agam inniú don cúigiú bhliain :/ Níl a lán agam chun scríobh faoi inniú go fóill...b'fhéidir tarlóidh rud éigin níos déanaí...scríobhfaidh mé níos mó anocht... :)

Challenge 3: Going Global

This week's challenge involves making my blog more international-friendly, as well as by discovering who is looking at my blog and where they're from. I also have to write about a part I played in a global issue such as world water day (March 22nd) or earth hour (March 26th). This is my first post on Challenge 3...I'll write more as I check each part of the challenge off the list. Firstly, I added the blog challenge badge to my page...you can see it along the left-hand side with my other gadgets...if you click on it, it will bring you to the Blog Challenge page. Next I had to add gadgets to find out where my page visitors are coming from. I already had a views counter and a clustr map so I added a feedjit and a revolver map...you can see them also along the left-hand side. Then I added a Google translate gadget so anyone can read my blog. It's not 100% accurate but it was the best I could come up with. Next step I've to write a post in a different language. English is my first language and I learn French in school (although I'm not very good at it!) but I'm also pretty fluent in Irish so tomorrow I'll write a post in Irish...it's our National language and I'm very proud to be able to speak it. I often speak Irish at home and sometimes with my friend Hayley too...I think it's really important to keep the Irish language alive because there are less and less people able to speak it these days...it's a dying language, but that saddens me because itt's part of our identity as Irish people. So yeah, that's my rant on Irish...I'll post tomorrow as Gaeilge (that's the Irish for "in Irish"!). :)

New Design (again!)

Since St. Patrick's Day is over, I decided to change my blog design again. I picked this one becasue it really reminds me of Spring, and Spring is probably my favourite season! I love when the weather starts to heat up a bit, the sky turns blue again and the leaves come back on the trees...Winter is such a bare season and I love when it's over and Spring gets here. This year and last year we had particularly long and cold winters so I love Spring all the more.
In my background design there are loads of birds and leaves which kinda symbolise Spring. I also picked the three primary colours (and green) because they look nice together...I really like my new design. It's nice and bright and makes me smile :)