Hey guys, welcome to my blog. My name is Shamira and I am currently in TY. As part of the TY experience we will be sharing our adventures through blogs.
It's already month two of TY so I going to fill in what you missed in the first month.
Class Names:
There are 60 girls in all of TY. We were divided into two classes by our year head, Ms Leonad, named Lagarde and Merkel. We are named after famous women in power.
Lagarde(the class I'm in) is named after Christine Lagarde.Christine Lagarde is a French woman and is currently the managing director of the IMF. Our tutor is Mr. Lawor.
Merkel is named after Angela Merkel. She has been German chancellor since 2005 and is the leader of the Christian Democratic Union(CDU) since 2000. She is the first women to be in either position.
JC Results:
On Wednesday the 9th of September the Junior Certificate results were distributed to thousands of students across the country. We all came into school at 11:50. After a short speech from our principal and vice principal as well as our year head, the results were distributed. As we opened our results the Liffey Champion representative took pictures and a few weeks later we appeared in the paper.
Retreat:
The next Wednesday we went on our retreat. An awesome, funny company called Mustard Seed did the retreat with us. I actually came away from the retreat never having laughed so much and had so much fun in such a positive environment. They made everybody feel really good and taught me lots about myself.
Carlingford:
The morning after the retreat we left for Carlingford, Co. Louth. The bus journey was about 2hrs but it was well worth it. When we got there we were greeted with the scenic town of Carlingford. We immediately got down to the fun. We were split into two groups. My group was brought off to do team challenges on Challenge Island. Here we completed a couple of tasks but the best was the 3-D maze. We had 8 people that we had to move through a 3 level maze in the dark. We only got 4 people out but it was still good craic.
Then we had lunch. The food was pretty good. They had really nice chips.
After lunch, my group went straight for the water activities. Here we wrangled our way into wet-suits, before getting helmets and life jackets. We started with my favourite part, pier jumping! It was so much fun. There we two heights. I went straight for the highest jump. I ended up being first to jump off the high jump. I just tried not to think to hard about what I was about to do and jumped. The rush was exhilarating. I think I jumped 4 or 5 more times. I was almost sad when we moved to the kayaks. We rowed our way out to a platform and everybody crowded onto the platform. We waited here for a chance to go on the water trampoline. I would have liked longer on that too. But the platform was really good craic. The best part was pushing your friends off and even once an instructor.
After this we returned to the base for dinner. I'm not vegetarian but I took the vegetarian option of vegetable quiche because it just looked really good and it was. I've never had such nice quiche in my life. I'd almost go back for just the quiche.
When we were finished dinner and had put our bags in our room we went out for our final activity of the day. We walked up a hill to a large forest where we played tip-the-can while we waited for our turn to do the night time walk. When it was our turn for the night time walk we were blindfolded and put into a line. I volunteered to go at the front. We were lead around the forest over rocks and under bridges. It was quite fun.
We returned to the base for showers and to visit the local shops. Some of my friends and I messed and talked in one of the bigger rooms until we had to go back to our own rooms. We had "lights out" at 11p.m. however we didn't got to sleep until the early hours. The next morning we were woken to music being blared on the loudspeaker.
When were dressed and had eaten breakfast, we were split into our groups again. My group went to ziptopia. On our way to the training course I tripped on a rope and fell backwards down a hill into nettles and thorns but thankfully I grabbed the rope I tripped on a didn't fall all the way but everybody got a laugh out of it so... After a training course on how to use all the equipment we completed some challenges like walking across ropes and climbing ladders up in the trees. But the best part of ziptopia was the zip line that ran over a quarry. I got such a rush. The weather stayed really nice too so the day wasn't spoiled.We spent the morning in ziptopia before going back to base for lunch. After this we got back on the bus for Celbridge. We were back on-time. Everybody was wrecked and glad to go home.
Mini Company Workshop:
On the Monday after our trip to Carlingford we went on a small trip to the Westgrove Hotel in Clane. Here we had a workshop on Mini Company. W got loads of ideas and advice for our companies.
Work Experience:
On the 23rd we started our first work experience placement. We will be doing this placement for 10 weeks until December 2nd. I started in the chemistry department in NUIM along with Róisín O'Farrell and Tara O'Flaherty. The experience is really good and different from school. It is really interesting to see the different dynamic that exists in the workplace compared to school.
Kilkenny Trip:
On the 24th we went to Kilkenny for an art trip. We left a little late at 8:30 because somebody forgot the trip was on. But we arrived on time because there was very little traffic. We were dropped off a short walk from the cinema. We were given a private screening of "Song of the Sea" by the Cartoon Saloon, an Irish animation company. After the film we walked to Kilkenny castle where we were split into two groups and given a tour in The Butler Gallery on the making of Song of the Sea. The tour guide was an animator from the film. The pictures were really beautiful and it was really interesting to see how an animated movie is made.
That's it for September! Next post will be some of October.
