A Drama Filled Day in Mullingar

Tuesday, 24th January 2012: TYs headed off on the long bus journey to Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Myself and Emma spent our time on the bus doing our best rendition of "We Are The World"... ears bled to say the least.
The two other TY classes, Eriú and Banba, have spent the last few months preparing 4 separate plays to take part in a drama competition. Just to let you know, the students wrote these play themselves which is such an achievement so well done girls!
Arriving in the surprisingly large town over an hour later, the huge wine coloured group of us, squeezed into the theatre.
Fódla took our place in the seats of the theatre and watched a couple of the plays rehearse. We had to give our advice but we may have taken our criticisms a tad bit too far.

Drama 1 (Eriú)
This drama was based on Seamus Heaney's 'Mid-Term Break' (a poem I absolutely love, by the way). It was so good! The poem is so heart breaking that it wasn't too difficult to recreate the sadness on stage. Eleana was playing the character of the dead child's sibling and when "A four foot box, a foot for every year" was quoted by the narrator, her portrayal of the crushed sibling was just amazing! I asked her afterwards had she ever done acting before and was so shocked to find that she hadn't! I really liked that play.

Drama 2 (Banba)
The following drama was centred around bullying, a topic that is always so sad. The typical story of an outcast vs. a trio of popular girls with a vicious ringleader that ended with an unimaginable twist! The leader of the popular girls was played amazingly by Sarah. Her boyfriend (well not so much 'boy') gets the outcasted girl, Siofra, pregnant. Sarah's character's bullying and exclusion of Siofra's character backfires leading the rest of the school to hate Sarah. The final scene is off the visions of her schoolmates taunting her. With each snide comment, Sarah takes a pill. When she tries to stand she collapses onto the table and the pills spill everywhere. Believe me when I say, that her death was so realistic, that firstly, I questioned was Sarah ok and secondly, me, Emma and Niamh gave each other the "OH MY GOD, DID YOU JUST SEE THAT?" look. After that performance I thought to myself that it was the one to beat...until the 3rd play began.

Drama 3 (Eriú)
I feel mean saying this but... this was the best drama of the day! It was inspired by the song 'Concrete Angel' which is one of the saddest songs in the world! It makes me cry everytime I listen to it :( The song is about a young girl who is abused by her mother. But this abuse goes unnoticed by her teacher and father. The play was just as heartbreaking as the song. Aoife played the cruel mother flawlessly, and I flinched when she was beating down her daughter, played by Grace, physically and mentally. One day, things go too far. The mother smashes a bottle over her daughter, killing her. The father, Isabelle, walks in to find his sweet daughter dead and his demented wife in the corner, sobbing. But, nothing compares to the final scene of the play - the funeral. Standing over the grave, Isabelle delivered one of the best monologues I have ever heard. It was so emotional and rivalled that of Shakespeare and Wilde. I would consider myself the least emotional person in the world and I am very embarrassed to say that tears threatened to come! I would see that play again in a heartbeat.

Drama 4 (Banba)
The final drama of the day, once again, centred around bullying. This one was inspired by the Wendy Cope poem, 'Tich Miller'. It is viewed from the eyes of an unpopular girl who knew of another girl who was even more of an outcast than herself - Tich. Vicky played Tich so well and was decked out in nerd glasses for the part. Tubby, the less unpopular girl, was played by Niamh. The story is taken from a heartfelt diary entry written about Tich, by Tubby. It tells us of the cruel treatment Tich and herself had to deal with from the bullies - Tich always drew the short straw. The last line of the play is the most heartbreaking. Tubby explains that over time, her life improved and she managed to get her own back. The Niamh delivered the final, sorrowful line: "Tich died when she was twelve". Once again, I found myself getting embarrassingly emotional.

All of the plays were so amazing that I have not done a good enough job of explaining just how amazing they were! Who knew there were so many brilliant actresses in our year?
After that depression session, I was in need of a little pick-me-up... Hello, McDonalds!
We (literally) stuffed our faces with the most unhealthy food imaginable (life = complete) then took a look around the town.
Like every other TY day out, it ended too soon so we had to make our way back onto the bus and off we headed to home.
On the return journey, me and Emma took a break and listened to a bit more 'relaxing' music and fell into one of those "bus ride home" comas.
An unforgettable day filled with drama :)

Sarah

Oxygen Hydrogen Sodium Sodium

Whats my name?

13th January, 2011: all of TY went to the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition (using the full name awh yeah) in the RDS in Dublin City.
We went in 2nd Year but this time round was waaay better :)
The main reason being that we knew people actually IN it! Out of TY, 3 groups got in - the lucky suckers. All the projects were so good, its easy to see why my group and I didn't get in...
Me and Laura spent the day looking for free stuff (unsucessfully) and chillin' at our peeps' stands hehehe
Also, a momentus day in the history of our school life happened. Our school booked something on the SAME DAY as the local guys' school :o so yeah, talked to people we knew from there too :P
The bus ride to the RDS consisted of a small group of Fódlians belting out tunes from High School Musical. (badly)

Even though I was so tired that I needed a nap on the way home (most of us dozed off) I still didn't want the day to end.

Until we meet again
xoxo

A Whole New World... on Thursdays

New term in school means new activities on a Thursday afternoon in school! :D
Instead of photography, pilates and 1920's dancing we now have...
-Massage and Relaxation
-ZUMBA
-"Make our own Band" and Songwriting

I'm just going to put out there that the new activities are amazing!
We learned how to give a head massage and our we also received one from our partners. I have no shame in saying it was heavenly...
Moving onto Zumba - well what can I say? Best. Thing. In. The. World. Its like a style of Southern America dancing but it is a work out and a half!! (Pitbull chewns blaring throughout)
To finish the day we have "Make our own Band" and Songwriting. It was so much better than I thought it would be... we basically spent the class belting out golden oldie songs - U2, Sting, Billy Joel, Whitney etc etc

I love Thursdays
^ cute r wha?

Back to school at last...

Ok, its been a week already but like I said - I have a lot of catching up to do with my blog!
Seeing as its TY I was actually excited to go back to good oul Wolstans! I was "buzzin" to see all my fellow TY heads once again after over 2 weeks of separation.
:)

Countdown to the Apocolypse begins...

DUN DUN DUUUN!
It's 2012 and even seeing it written down looks crazy o.O
I am just going to put it out there that I do not believe a word of this "End of the World" shhtuff! Its a whole load of baloney - so proud I didn't use another word :')

So I guess I'll be polite and say Happy New Year to everyone and personally, I'm praying that 2012 treats me well :)

And the bells were ringin' out for Christmas Day

December 25th, 2011: Obviously, it was CHRISTMAAAAAS :D And if I do say so myself, Christmas '11 was sooo amazing! "Santa" brought me a trip to London, makeup and clothes so I am super happy and grateful :) As usual I had a mouth watering Christmas dinner *drool*
I am a bit late but I hope everyone had a good Christmas and that everyone got what they wanted!

♥

(apologise for the shortness of this post)

ONE HOP THIS TIME!

December 21st, 2011: After a week of umm..."exams", all of TY had a wild parshee! Well, if you consider kris kindle and the Cha Cha Slide wild, that is. (awh yeah) It was my class, Fódla's job to be the hostesses. We got hot chocolate and baked food and organised music - epic choooons lawdz - and to give the party the all important Christmasy feel, we put loads of decorations up in the Library :) The other classes, Banba and Eriu, we're "ushered" (as I like to say) into the Library for the party of the century... sort of.
*Cue eating/singing (badly)/getting jiggy with it*
SLIDE TO THE LEFT, SLIDE TO THE RIGHT, TAKE IT BACK NOW Y'ALL...

And then it was time to hop on the bus and off to go bowling UNCE. We went to K-Bowl which is about 20 minutes away and there we got into groups of 8. It was soooo good. Honestly, I think that we've gotten to that point where everyone in TY gets along and trust me when I say, witty banter occured.
I came 5th in bowling... I think :/ Which is not surprising seeing as in all my years of bowling I've only ever gotten 1 strike. ONE! Scarleh or wha? It was still good, even though I was a complete embarrassment. Fail whale.

It was the perfect way to say goodbye to everyone for the Christmas holidays and by the way, TYs got an extra day of holidays! sweeeeeeeet

Awh I'm so cute :')
lol jk
LEAVE MY BLOG NOW.
k?
:3

Waris Dirie - Desert Flower

In religion we studied the story of Somalian model, Waris Dirie. We had been studying Millenium Development Goals and her story relates to Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality. Growing up in the 3rd World, she faced a lot of hardships (especially because she was a girl) but the most poignant being the practise of FGM (google it you own risk :/) on young girls.
When she was older, she moved to the UK where she was discovered by a famous photographer. He believed Waris had potential to be a stellar model and she featured on the well known Pirelli Calender. Her model career soared afterward.
But Waris didn't liked to be known as the "Desert girl to top model", and after seeing that in the Western World, the horrific practise of FGM was completely incomprehensible she wanted to make a change in Somalia.
Following a world changing interview with 'Marie Claire' magazine, Waris stood before the UN and made a speech on why FGM should be made illegal globally. The whole world listened and changes were made for the better. People everywhere were now more than aware on FGM and became vigilant for it. Although, unfortunately FGM is still practised but nonetheless, Waris (now an UN ambassador for the problem) continues to work on stopping it.

We watched a film about her story named after her autobiography "Desert Flower". I found her story to be very inspirational and moving and I would definitely recommend for everyone to watch it! It opened my eyes to the hardships that some people in this world have to face. Waris' work has truly changed the world for the better :)

Me and my partner Aoife, then had to make a comic strip on what we thought were the most important scenes in the film:

"Not something big, just something lavish"

December 5th-8th, 2011, our school production of Rogers & Hammerstein II's The Sound of Music, was on! :) Basically the entire school was involved some way or another which made it so fun :D
Preparations began in September and there was so much excitement around the school leading up to the big night! So much of mes copines were actually starring in it; Aoife was Liesl, Eve was the Baroness (thats her line above), Isabelle was a maid, Georgia was a party guest ;), Niamh was a nun and Leah was playing Maria :) They were all brilliant!
I was working backstage but although I was supposed to be doing make up I did so many other random jobs - including doctor ;) - that I felt so... needed hehehehe
It was hectic but such an unforgettable experience that absolutely nobody wanted it to end :(

We better do another musical before I leave the school!

Auf wiedersehen

Laura est une superbe danseuse

December 2, 2011 (that all of a sudden sounds weird!) all of TY, along with Mrs. L went to the theatre in Belvedere College in Dublin City. OMG BELVO GOYS, LIOKE.
We went there to see the Irish National Youth Ballet's production of the Nutcracker Suite and the Snow Queen :) I absolutely love ballet and I've already seen the Snow Queen but what made the day so much better was that 'me bleedin besto' Laura, was dancing in the show!!
As usual, the ride on the bus was fun and Laura danced amazingly in the show :D what a star ♥

It was one of the best TY days out so far :) And getting my usual (fries, twisty fries, double cheeseburger, chicken nugget, sundae and drink - DON'T JUDGE ME) at Mc Donalds was the cheery on top!

TOTES HAD LIOKE, A MAJOOOR BAWNT AT BELVO, LIOKE.

My Sincerest of Apologies...

Its been almost a month since I blogged and I'M SORRY! I was just super, super busy in the time leading up to Christmas :/
I am about to do a whole load of blogs to compensate for my absence so be prepared!


Until my next post (about 10 minutes), goodbyyyyyyyyyye :)