Busy Week!

Im not going to lie I really loved how much class I missed last week.

Monday  17^th - I had most classes but I missed double IT at the end of the day.(explains my late blog) I didn’t just decide not to go to class, myself and aisling went around to each class room and took the numbers off the projectors and then I typed them all up for Mrs. Ward. We got really confused at one point at what number we had to take down but got them all in the end.
Tuesday 18^th -  I had double science in the morning and we started making soap but then ran out of time so after break myself and three other girls missed half the day to go to liffey valley with Mrs. Leonard to get clothes for the fashion show that’s is on the 25^th and 26^th . I say in total we spent about a half an hour in the shop and then we had 40 minutes to walk around the shops while Mrs. Leonard went to get other things for the show. When we got back to the school we had 10 minutes of Irish. (Longest 10 minutes of the day) Don’t get me wrong I loved missing class to go shopping but the best part of the day was after lunch when the whole year had the pleasure to go to carton house to see the vanishing art expedition. Well to be honest most of the year weren’t interested in the art after we heard that the Irish rugby team were in the grounds. That’s when the art went out the window and almost everyone started looking for them. Seeing them in the gym was pretty good but the best part of the day was when out of 86 girls in ty 9 of us meet Johnny sexton! Loads of the other girls got pictures with Tommy Bowe but that was after we got a photo with Johnny sexton and we were gone to do the work we were set when he was there.



Wednesday 19^th – as every Wednesday is I went off to work experience and had such a fun day like always. I never would have thought I’d like doing work experience in the primary as much as I do. The book fare was there for the week so after I did some cutting I went down and re-read the same frozen book allowed. (I think I can say it off at this point) surprisingly they didn’t get distracted like I thought (Well hoped) they all listened to the end. After that I had to draw and paint a picture of an elephant to stick up with their pictures but the one I painted was called Elmer and was all different colours because the story they were reading was about an elephant being left out because he was different but at the end he was accepted. I did so much other stuff but painting and going to the book fare were both by far the best things to do!
Thursday 20^th – I had most my classes on Thursday but I missed the last three because we had a road safety talk.  I learnt that Last year saw the first year-on-year increase in the number of road deaths in Ireland for the first time since 2005 when 190 people lost their lives compared to 162 in 2012. Do you wear are seatbelt? Well in 2008 it was recorded that 89% of adults in a car wear seatbelts and that sounds like a lot but that 11% is a lot of people and are more likely to be killed on the road. 12% of all car drivers killed in 2007 were not wearing seatbelts. The talk was three classes long but not once did the speaker lose my attention!
Friday 21^st – we had another talk but this time it was about the millennium goals. Our school is thinking about writing a book about raising awareness about achieving goal 6. After the talk we had a class to work on our mini-company products so we would be ready to sell at the fashion show.

Im just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but im doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you liked reading about what I did last week and I apologize that this blog is late. - Miss.Galligan x

Work Experience

5 days in school and only 2 days off each week isn’t enough and I think we can all agree with that.  No matter how much free time I had in the past week I couldn’t bring myself to sit on the laptop and write a blog post. The first thing I did on Saturday morning after I got up was sit down with a blank white screen in front in me and hoped it would take like 10minutes to type a full post. I failed miserably .My phone kept buzzing from across the room and all I wanted to do was start texting my friends and go out so I did that. But so I wouldn’t forget everything I did I typed out the dates and a few bullet points and today Monday the 3^rd of November im going to attempt once again to write a blog post including what I  did. Bear in mind when you read this that I did all these things almost 2 weeks ago and I have a terrible memory, if I have to be completely honest. (I’ve a memory like a gold fish as they say)

On Friday the 24^th of October at 3.20 every single girl and teacher in the school ran out the door to get home for a week off. This isn’t going to be short blog post on what everyone dressed up as on Friday but I want to give credit to everyone who did because everyone look amazing and to the people who didn’t WHERE IS YOUR SPIRIT? I really can’t say much I think this was the first year I put in any effort! But I did and that is all that really matters!

Now it’s time for you to hear about the best part of the week. Work experience on Wednesday the 22^nd.Last Wednesday the 29^th since we were on midterm we did’t have to go into work experience (well I couldn't because the school was closed anyway!) Since the kids won’t be in school the week of Halloween I helped with Halloween art on Wednesday the 22^nd. I helped make trick or treat bags. Well that’s what we told the kids they could be but of course you know how five year olds are we had a child disagree and she said it would rip so we can’t use it but thank god one of them said that they can use it as a Halloween handbag for dress but and obviously the teacher and I took what the girl said and told them to do that if they already have a trick or treat bag or if they think it will rip.

It was harder then it sounded to make the bags. Each bag had a ghost, witch, pumpkin, start and a moon on it .Once again I had paint on me at the end of the day. But this week surprisingly I only had a small bit of paint on my hands and on my jumper. Instead of going home and putting everything in the wash I went home to wash my hair because I was cover in glitter for a change.

Life lesson number 1 – Don’t use glitter with kids, they get it EVERYWHERE!!!!

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Throughout the day I brought two girls down to the back to the things that would be stuck onto the bag. If I knew how messy the glitter would have been I would have left it until the end but I didn’t and I did it first. To make sure the glitter would stick with the print stick I got to do a star and since they were both on the same page I did a moon after. (I always test that the art will work and honestly I love it because I feel like a six year old again and its ok if I do it wrong im not being graded on it)  Each girl came down and I put glue onto the star and moon and then they sprinkled gold glitter onto the star, sliver glitter on the moon and both glitters on the floor, table, themselves and me. Once that was done I attempted to clean the table off and left the floor until later. Im not over reacting when I say it got everywhere, it really did!

So the girls knew not to just paint the whole pumpkin with their figure I filled the pumpkin with dots of paint (once again i felt six and loved it) and then I showed it to them so they knew what to do. In the end some of the pumpkins where just covered in orange paint but sure what can you do?

There weren’t enough ghosts for me to one but I got over it. I spent at least 10 minutes cutting out ghost and putting the girls names on the back and the handing them out. While I did that the teacher handed out cotton wool and told ever one of the not to touch it and continue colouring until we were ready. Once every girl had a ghost and cotton wool the teacher and I went around and made sure they all spread it out and pressed it to the picture. They didn’t even use glue and most of them had cotton wool stuck to their hands.

Life lesson number 2 – don’t use glue sticks to stick down cotton wool because it doesn’t work very well.

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On Tuesday they all coloured in a picture of a witch so I got them from their folders and I handed them out. On the top of all the girls tables there was a bag and all there art from the day and once they went home the teacher and I had great fun jumping from chair to chair making the biggest mess ever trying to cut everything out and stick them on the bag. The glue we used really failed to keep the glitter and the cotton wool on. Every time I picked up the star and moon to cut the out half the glitter feels off the page. Originally only the back of the room had glitter everywhere but by the tie we finished the room was cover in glitter and every desk had paper all over it. The teacher picked up all the paper and put it in the bin, while I cleaned the glitter off the tables, well as much as I could anyway. The day was almost over but the last 10 minutes consisted of both of us sweeping the floors and I say we only got rid of have the glitter.

I did have a picture of a bag and a picture of all the things individually that were put onto the bag but I lost them(oooppps) well there's the disadvantage of wanting to enjoy your midterm and not doing a blog post when you really should.

Im just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but im doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you liked reading about how I tried and most likely failed to portray how fun it is at work experience ever week! there might be a new problem every minute but I don't care I think it is amazing. - Miss.Galligan x

A simple Red button

Friday the 10^th of October 2014 was known to the world as mental health day. €2 may seem like nothing but when the majority of a school brings it in it all adds up. As a school we donated to those who suffer day to day because they mentally can’t deal with things. The organisation we donated to was “walk in my shoes." We wore our own clothes in and also to show our support we wore different shoes in that we wouldn't wear to school on a day to day basis e.g. Wellies, slippers, heels etc. The different shoes showed that we all walk different paths (well I think that’s why we wore them)

“A staggering 1 in 4 people are experiencing mental health difficulties. Younger people seem particularly vulnerable to the stresses, the pressures to succeed and the struggle to find their own place in the world.” Can you believe that maybe one of your family members could be suffering on the inside and you don’t know? It’s hard to believe but it could be true and this organisation offers as much support that they could possibly ask for.Mental health problems can cause long life disabilities and long term suffering and it can also have a big impact on a persons personal development and that's why as a school we felt its important not to give to those who are recognised like usual but to try give the confidence to those who suffer to speak up and then with the money we donated they can be helped.

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Mental health day isn't a new thing added to my calendar. I, along with many other people in the world watch YouTube on a day to day basis. I watch this girl called Zoe Sugg also known as “zoella.” Zoe tells people in her videos that nobody is ever truly alone. I have been watching Zoe's videos for a good while now and im amazed at how much a 10 to 15 minuet clip on YouTube can tell you so much about something so important. She speaks freely on how she deals with her anxiety and gives tips on how others can overcome the fear of feeling alone.To help prove that nobody is alone, this year she got involved to help raise awareness for people who suffer with a mental health illness. She became the digital ambassador with the organisation called “mind” and launched the #DontPanicButton campaign. The #DontPanicButton campaign is basically surrounded by the idea of panicking at the sight of a red button. But when taking part in this campaign you simply wear a red button somewhere. Doing this you show that you are either suffering with a mental illness or that you are there to help anybody who needs help. It can help those who suffer immensely because if you see it on somebody you can then realise you are not as alone as you think you are and even if you don’t suffer from anything you can very easily change somebodies day by smiling at them and that can reinsure them that the world isn't full of bad and its ok to be upset at times because others are there to help you. 

Thanks to Zoe over the past while i have learnt more and more things about mental illness and i was very happy when i found out she was on board with an organisation to promote it and i was also very excited when i heard my school would be taking part in raising money for those who need it as well. 

"Just say yes" - Zoe Sugg 

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Im just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but im doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you liked reading about my thoughts on my schools way to earn money for a good cause and my thoughts on the #DontPanicButton campaign. - Miss.Galligan x

Digital Dossier

I set up this blog a few weeks ago in I.T when the teachers asked us to so we could record all the things we do in TY. In order for us to know how much we need to post and what about we are giving challenges each month. One of the challenges this month is to watch This Video on YouTube to find out what a digital dossier is and then we have to write a post about our digital dossier.

When I read that I had to do a post on this I had no idea what it meant but now I know It is basically your digital tracks. It is there for your whole life and even after you die. It all started when I wasn’t even born. 5 months before I was born my mam got a scan done and the picture is emailed to friends, family and kept in a file in the hospital. When I was born pictures and/or text messages got sent out to my family, friends and kept in a file in the hospital. My digital dossier has been growing and growing day by day as I use social media constantly.  Even from the age of four and five my digital dossier was active. It got bigger when I created accounts online to play games when I was younger and today when I create accounts on social media to communicate with my friends it grows and until I die it things will keep getting added even after I did my work on the internet and on my phone will stay there forever.

I'm just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but I'm doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you learnt something when reading about my digital dossier ! - Miss.Galligan x

A Wednesday full of Work

By the end of the day I had paint all over me and I was singing nursery rhythms. Is that what happens each day when you’re a teacher? For my first term of work experience I went to Scoile Naomh Bríd in Celbridge and was helping my third class teacher with her junior infant class. I can’t remember much of being in junior infants but I thought in junior infants everyone was all quiet and cried at the start of the day because they didnt want to leave their parents but it looks like I was wrong! None of the girls cried when they came in and from the minute the class door opened and they came in until the minute they all left the class room always had a least one kid talking. It was like reliving my childhood if I have to be honest. The worst part of the day was by far the tiny chair that I had to sit on for the day.

Once the class came in I was introduced to the class and the teacher told the girls that I was going to be helping them with their art and work for the day. All of them were so fascinated and interested to see me sitting on the tiny chair at the back of the room in their "art corner" as they called it. Once the class was settled I was given A3 pages, the role, paint brushes,l tissues and the basic colours of paint. I wrote each girls name on the top right hand corner and then poured the paint into the pots and put a paint brush in each pot. Once the table was set up and ready for the girls to paint I looked at the list of where each girl sat and got them to come down two by two to paint a picture of themselves. I made them trace what they would draw with their finger so I knew they would fill the page. Watching them paint and helping them hold the paint brush was surprisingly fun. It wasn’t all fun and games though with the painting. Some of them didn’t want to stop painting because they liked it so much so to make sure they didn’t have too much paint on the page and you could see their paintings I had to take the paint brush off them. As mean as I felt telling them “all gone” when they asked for more paint I had to or else there would really be no paint left. I had the pleasure of cleaning some them because you can’t expect a five year old to paint without getting it on their uniforms, hands and even their faces. God knows how they got it on their faces but one minute they were clean and next they had orange paint straight down their jumpers. Painting was fun but I must say being a teacher would be hard because as they painted I had to get them to try say the colours they wanted not just point at them because they wouldn't learn anything if they just pointed at a pot full of paint. I had lunch and then continued painting with them after.

Once everyone did a painting I cleaned up all the paint and wiped down the table. I then helped them with the cutting and then got all the worksheets they had done in the past while and put them into their folders. While I did this I got to listen to them singing and a story being told.Then I had another lunch and then when back to the class and did that again until they went home. When they went home I put the chairs on the desks, made sure they had one of every colour crayon in their crayon bowls and then out the colouring books onto the desks for the morning.

I’m just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but I’m doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you liked reading about my first day of work experience  – Miss.Galligan x

Two Days of Team Building

At 7am on Monday the 15^th of September everyone who was going to Carlingford for two days and one night met at Esso petrol station to get on the bus for a long bus ride to the centre. We arrived at around nine and then sorted out who was in what room as soon as that was all figured out we all ran to the rooms to claim our bed for the night, even though we all knew with 12 teenage girls in one room we would get hardly any sleep.

Day 1 –After we all knew where our rooms where we got put into two groups and everyone walked down to the beach for our first active of many. To wake us all up we went into the ice cold Irish Sea. We put on out swimming togs, wetsuits, helmets and life jackets and then group B (the group I was in)  got into kayaks to do kayaking. There was me and two of my friends in one kayak and I must say it was a team building activity because if one person stopped rowing we ending up going in circles. After a few minutes of hard work and non-stop rowing the kayak finally made it to a little beach across from where we started. On the beach we played games, and then headed back to have showers and have lunch. After lunch group B met in the laser lane to go to the forest to do laser tag. This was by far the best thing we did. The instructors didn’t lie when they said it wasn’t that long a walk but it was mostly uphill so wouldn’t be easy to walk. It was well worth the horrible walk though, it was so much fun and I think everybody enjoyed it. We played a few games of it and it was team blue verses team red. I was Team Red and we got an inspirational quote before each game to help us win and they will forever be in my head. 'You miss 100% of the shots you don't take’, ‘Aim for the moon because even if you miss you'll land among the stars' and ' it’s not what can the red team can do for you it’s what can you do for the red team'. When all the games were finished we hiked back down to the centre for dinner, which we all were in need of after all the walking and running around. When it was dark we went back up to the mountain again for nightline to the same place but an easier way but it felt like a much longer walk. In the place where we did laser tag there was a rope tied to the trees and with blindfolds on we held the rope and the person in front. It may not sound scary but walking around a very uneven area with a blindfold on, only depending on the person in front of you and the instructors saying stuff in your ears unexpectedly was very scary. Once we reached to start again we took off our blindfolds and all became very great full of our sight and then walked back to the centre for the rest of the night.

Day2 – To make the most of our last day we dragged ourselves out of bed and went to breakfast running on very little sleep. Even though the day before had been full of actives and we were all so tired we still managed to fill ourselves with so much sugar that we could stay awake for most of the night. After breakfast it was back down to the beach and team B did canoeing. This was most defiantly a team building exercise. There were three boats tied together and 10 people and an instructor trying to make our way to a different beach then the day before so we could go to the fountain of youth. Once we reached the beach we went into the cave to put our heads under the water fall to supposedly gain an extra day to our lives. I didn’t put my head under but the splashes that came of it that hit me told me the water wasn’t like the water in a kettle after it has been boiled, it was ice cold and I don’t think anybody really enjoyed it. After that we went back for lunch then we went for another walk that was at least five times longer to the challenge course. I say if we weren’t all so tired we might have enjoyed this lot more. It was fun and was really funny attempting to figure out how to do the thing when we were all half asleep. After the challenge course we went back to the centre and packed up the bus and then we all went home.

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I’m just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but I’m doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you liked reading about my two days in Carlingford adventure centre in Co. Louth – Miss.Galligan x

The First of many Wednesday

Every Wednesday we have work experience but our first term of work experience won’t start for a few weeks. Wednesday the 3rd of September was our first day of workshops because we have no classes scheduled so the school arranged a day for us were we could learn how to act in an accident, become better young ladies and have fun and laughing with our new class. For the day to be fun and also a way to prepare us for life after school we had a first aid workshop, etiquette workshop and a positive party.

To my surprise the first aid wasn't boring as I expected. Many laughs were shared once we became comfortable and weren’t afraid to talk. Along with laughing and having fun we learnt things some of us didn’t know before the day. We were told when an accident occurs you stay calm and we learnt what to do in some situations. I learnt how to do a sling and that you put your head forward when you have a nose bleed not back.

After the first aid workshop we changed room and went to the etiquette workshop to become the young ladies we already are. To start the workshop we tried to find out things that we didn’t know about the people in the class. Then we walked a red carpet. Yes you read that right! We learnt how to stand up straight and walk in our heels. For the “lesson” to be more fun we did it on a red carpet. I say it was funny for the teachers to see us stumbling in our heels as they walked by to get to their classes. After we removed our heels and complained for a few minutes about our feet hurting, we exfoliated our hands and they smelt and felt amazing for the rest of the day.

In my opinion the best party of the day was the positive party. If I’m 100 per cent honest it was a very weird but an extremely fun way to end the day. We did laughing yoga which was to make us turn a fake laugh to a real laugh and it oddly enough it worked. It was all very out of our comfort zones and nobody really wanted to do it at first but when we did, we were all surprised that we were almost in tears from the laughter!I can’t wait for work experience but I don’t want to start at the same time. I’d rather do workshops every Wednesday because it was so fun and everybody got to talk to one another. After the day I feel like our class has become closer together. But on the 24th of September I will be able to wake up happy knowing I don’t have to go to school but at the same time nervous as I walk out into the work world for my first day of work experience.

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I’m just a teenage girl who hates the thought of growing up but I’m doing it with a smile on my face and a positive attitude. Hope you liked reading about my thoughts on my first Wednesday of workshops – Miss.Galligan x