Ice Ice Baby

After our tests, on Monday the 21st of December we all went to Blanchardstown shopping centre to go ice skating! Wippee! 

We got to spend the morning looking around the shops and buying last minute presents for people, and we then got our totally nutritious lunch from McDonalds! 

When we made our way over to the rink we got kitted out with skates and then we were let loose on the ice! We rented the rink out so we had it all to ourselves. It was a funny sensation ice skating but we got used to it after a while. 

Luckily none of us fell, but I almost jinxed myself when I proclaimed that while still on the ice and I slipped just as I said that! I kept my balance though; don't worry nobody had broken bones for Christmas;)

Mary Poppins

We had the loveliest day out on the 16th of December. We as a year group went into town to see Mary Poppins in the Bord Gais. 

We drove into town in the morning and had until the afternoon to ourselves. My friends and I ate our lunches and took photo bursts of us jumping off benches. We felt like High School Musical. 

Mary Poppins was one of my main childhood films, I asked for it from Santa when I was 6 years old. I loved the stage adaption so much and I felt like I was 6 and not 16! 

I got so into it that when I was clapping at the end I decided to seal clap and ended up smacking poor Róisín in the face! Ooopsies.....

Overall we had a fabulous day and it felt like Christmas came early to me!

School Trade Fair

All the TY Mini Companys sold after school in the hall on the 15th of December. 
The In A Jar crew (which includes me obviously) did very well indeed. 

Our stall looked very cute if I do say so myself! We actually sold out of the light jars! 

We're still producing and selling for now, small jars are €5 and tall are €6, but you can get any 2 for €10!

Fundraising for ISPCC

On the 9th of December we all went into town and fundraised for the ISPCC. Everyone got their own place to stand with a bucket with a partner. Ciara and I were together at the end of Grafton Street. 

The day went well, we made a good bit of money for the ISPCC, and we then had the afternoon to ourselves to look around. It was a lovely day full of Christmas cheer and we really felt the spirit of Christmas doing something good for others:)

Jade's Poetry

My friend Jade is quite the poet. Just the other day she pulled this beauty out of the "notes" section on her iPad, while casually informing me that she had "written a quick poem thing". I'll tell you what, watch this space people, that's all I'm gonna say.


I DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT LOVE
by jade wolfe

I don't know what love feels like
But if I had to guess
It'd be you,
Of The way your hand always
entwines with mine
and the fabric of your favourite shirt

I don't know what love smells like
But if I had to guess
It'd be your shampoo
And of roses- your flower
And your natural perfume

I don't know what love looks like
But if I had to guess
it'd be your smile
How it Changes the mood
of an entire room
And captured my heart in a second


I don't know what love tastes like
But if I had to guess
It'd be your food
The breakfasts in bed
And the late night dinners
Even the burnt is nice when it's yours

I don't know what love sounds like
But if I had to guess
It'd be your voice
Your singing, your yelling,
Your laughing, your talking
And when you calm someone
Down with your words

I don't know much about love
And I don't know if you love me
But I know of my feelings,
my dreams, my soul
And I know that to me love is you.

 

 

Amber Flag Day

We launched the Amber Flag campaign in our school on Friday. Everyone in TY wore amber clothes in for the day. We had no classes, but instead had workshops and singsongs all for positive mental health. 

Our school's Amber Flag website was launched too! It's being run by the Amber flag web committee, and now it's officially live!

Before our school's lunchtime we had our food earlier, as the majority of the events were to happen at the break. We had a bake sale in the hall, face painting in the library, and I was on the "emoji boards" with a few others. We had face cutouts with positive quotes on them (obviously the cutout boards were amber!) and we had cut out big face sized emojis (only the smiley ones though!) We took photos of teachers and students all holding the cutouts or emojis at their face. 

It was a very successful day, the bake sale raised the guts of €400 for both Suicide Aware and Pieta House, both of which are great charities working for mental health. We raised awareness around the school about the Amber Flag project, and everyone seemed to have a very positive Friday indeed:)

December!

It's now officially December-you know what that means. TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY TRALALALALALALALALA!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yes as you can guess I'm one of those people who love Christmas and can't wait for it to officially be December so I can belt out Christmas carols, take out d'oul advent calender, and live in the presence of Christmas decorations 100% guilt free!

December is shaping up to be a very busy time for us in TY....We're having our very last Work Experience day in our first term tomorrow (awww!). We're also collecting for ISPCC on Grafton Street. We'll be seeing Mary Poppins in the Bórd Gáis Energy Theatre. We have two days of Christmas Exams (dun dun dun!!) then on Monday the 21st we're going on a mystery trip as a year group. Where to? I don't know, it just gives me another excuse to blog when the time comes;). Then we get our Christmas holidays, which I can't wait for!

December looks like it'll be one very good month!

In A Jar Selling

Hey everybody! (*cue me singing "Hey Everybody" by 5SOS for the rest of the day*) 
So as you know my mini company In A Jar sold in the Mill Christmas Market on Saturday the 21st of November. This went really well! Loads of people came and bought a jar or two, and we made a bit of dosh too;)

We're also selling in school on Mondays and Thursdays in the Science corridor, and as per usual you can email us if you have any questions!

We're also on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook...you know the drill by now;)

Amber Flag

Life in TY is busy and exciting; we're always up to something! This year we are hoping to get the Amber Flag for our school. It is an initiative set up by "SuicideAware" to encourage schools to promote positive mental health and to rid themselves of misconceptions and the stigma attached to mental health. 

Everyone in our year is getting involved in some shape or form. I'm a part of the Audit group. I have to keep records of everything that is happening around the school relating to the amber flag. Other groups include the PR group, the notice board group (who do art and make posters to put on our noticeboard dedicated to mental health), the web group (who run our Amber Flag website; I'll link it when it goes live) and the events group. 

I think this is a great project to work on in TY, and mental health is definitely a very important issue for schools (and society in general) to address. I'm glad to be a part of this, and I'll update you as we do more and more to earn the flag!

In A Jar in the Mill

Hey lovely people. I'm sure by now you don't want another post about my mini company "In A Jar", but I have important and exciting news for you! 
(If you don't know what my mini company is, I have posts about it here and here.) 

So we'll be selling in The Mill in Celbridge tomorrow (Saturday the 21st of November). If you're around you should pop along and see us (and maybe even buy some). The door is always open, or should I say aJAR!(Hahahahaha...ha...ha....) 

As per usual bigger sized jars, such as our Movie Night In A Jar and our Sleepover In A Jar are selling at €8. Our Christmas In A Jar is selling for the price of only a fiver! Bargains bargains everywhere! 

Hopefully we'll see you there! Don't feel left out if you can't come though, you can join in on the jar action on our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

I'll let you know how we get on!

Chocolate Biscuit Plum Pudding-icing

Today is a Thursday, so I had my weekly Home Economics class. Here I decorated my chocolate biscuit plum pudding I talked about last week. Want to see my earlier blog post on how I made the pudding? Look no further, it's right here.

Decoration ingredients:

• Ready to roll white icing
• Ready to roll icing in green and red for the decorations on top
• Icing sugar to dust
• Water (or edible glue if you have it)
• Rolling pin

First of all you'll need to remove your pudding from your bowl. Hopefully you greased the bowl enough before leaving the pudding to set! I know we certainly could've done with more in the greasing department.
(Your rolling pin may come in handy here to hit the bowl so the cake comes out!!!)

Sprinkle icing sugar on the counter/your worktop. Be sure to use plenty here as you don't want your icing sticking to the surface!

Take your white icing and your rolling pin and roll it out.

Once the icing is rolled out, you need to pick it up and place it on your cake. (This is the scariest maneuver in the recipe). When you've completed, your pudding should look like this:

Now for the creative bit. Using a knife, draw the contours and the curves you want your icing to make.

Keep going around the whole "pudding" until you have something like this

Green and red time!!!

Take your green icing  (use a much smaller amount than you did for the white icing) and roll it out as you did with the white.

The goal here is to make holly leaves. A cutter would be handy. (I actually brought one with me to class but it was way too big for the pudding) If you don't have a cutter I'd recommend making a template to make your leaves. Or if you're feeling creative, brave or simply don't have the time to do so (like my cooking partner Tara and I were) you can cut the leaves freehand.

Stick your leaves to the white icing using water (or edible glue). We chose to add the veins to the leaves after sticking them on. 

To make the red holly berries, simply take a small amount of red roll out icing and roll it using the palms of your hands until you make a ball. 

Arrange your leaves and holly on the pudding (here's how we did it)

Sit back and enjoy your lovely chocolate biscuit pudding! Alternatively, you could use a muffin tin to make several small individual puddings. 

Projects

Transition Year-infamously known for work experience, projects, teamwork, and supposedly "dossing". Well for a "doss year" TY is pretty busy, in a good way.
Since it's a year in between two courses (Junior Cert and Leaving Cert), we're doing many projects to keep us going. So here's the lowdown, the inside scoop, the "juicy goss" on the projects I've done/ am working on.

French: I did a powerpoint project on "a French speaking country" with mon amie Ciara. We chose to do ours on Luxembourg. It went well and we learned a good bit about the lovely little nation.

Irish: We had to do a "sraith pictúir ar mo laethanta saoire". This was where we show 6 pictures representing the things we did on our summer holidays and give an oral presentation on them. It was "go maith" (good)

Geography: Our teacher gave everyone a county in Ireland to do a project on. I was given Leitrim, the county with the smallest population in the country. It was grand and I did get to learn more about the county while doing my project.

Science: Everyone in TY has to have some form of science project for Scifest later on this academic year. I'm doing mine with Róisín on sound energy and electrical energy and if music could potentially create electricity. It may sound daunting, but it's great craic and it's really interesting. (You'll most likely see more about this later on in the year)

Mini Company: I've mentioned this before, "In A Jar".(Contact us at stwolstansinajar on gmail.com) I won't bore you by constantly talking about my mini company so be sure to check out my other posts about the company to read all about it.

Religion: We did an individual essay on gender equality, and then presented a group project focusing on gender equality and education in third world countries. I did this with Kate, Carmen and Naoise. The project and studies we did opened our eyes and made us grateful for what we have.

Amber Flag: I'm also on the committee for the Amber Flag. It's a flag/award that schools can earn based on the awareness the school creates about mental health issues. This is very important to me (and the others) so I'll definitely update you on this as we go along.

Mini Company Update

Today after school Jade, Kate and I all made some more jars. We focused mainly on the Movie Night In A Jar....so now you can all see what it looks like. (hurray!). To be honest, I find it quite jarring how much I answer myself on this blog. Hehe JARring...see what I did there? Nope? Just me? Well I think my jar puns are ah-mason. (*everyone reading this groans loudly*). 
(Shameless self promo time now) If you want more of these lovely puns you should check out our Twitter. I'm in charge of it so that's another reason you should show us some love.

Anyhow back to business. I present to you....Movie Night In A Jar!

This lovely jar includes a microwave popcorn sachet, chocolate bars and sweets, a lavender candle to relax and wind down to, and a packet of tissues if you're watching a tearjerker. And it's a reusable jar with chalkboard paint and chalk included so you could customise the message on the jar, and reuse the jar itself. (#reducereuserecycle)

The jar is €8 (not bad not bad if I do say so myself). 

Here's a photo of us making up our Christmas selection box style jar. (Including the contents of a selection box with an extra Christmas scented candle). This jar is slightly smaller and is selling for only €5. For only a fiver you can get yourself the equivalent to a selection box (with extra added "Celebrations") with a candle and in a reusable cool jar.

So that's the idea. Be sure to check us out on our social medias (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) 

And why not see the other lovely people behind "In A Jar"? They're pretty cool. And they put up with my puns day in day out so I think I owe it to them to give them a shoutout.

Kate's blog

Jade's blog

Róisín's blog

Irina's blog

Later alligators!

Chocolate Biscuit Plum Pudding

Ah Home Economics-one of the highlights of my week. At the moment we are working on Christmas cakes (woohoo!). We were given the option of either a traditional style fruit cake, or a chocolate biscuit cake. Needless to say the latter was the more popular option (although I hold no grudges against fruit cake). 

My lovely home ec partner and awesome friend Tara (total promo there!) and I decided to make a Chocolate Biscuit Plum Pudding, where it looks like the pudding but once you cut into it it's actually chocolate biscuit! Possibly the biggest plot twist since that unavoidable time we've all bitten into a cookie to find that the chocolate chips are actually raisins. (*violently shudders*) So if you wish to recreate and join us on our journey of chocolate biscuit/plum pudding cake making here's the recipe we followed (including an exclusive photoshoot performed by yours truly). We got the recipe from here if you want to see the original.


Equipment:

• Spoon
• Pudding Bowl
• Rolling Pin
• Sharp Knife
• Holly cutters (optional)
• Small paintbrush

Ingredients:

• 375g biscuits
• 225g milk chocolate
• 225g dark chocolate
• 150g butter
• 225g golden syrup
• 100g marshmallows/raisins/malteasers/your choice. (we used malteasers)

Decoration Ingredients:

• Ready to roll white icing (250g)
• Ready to roll icing in green and red for details on top
• Icing sugar/cornflour to dust
• Water (or edible glue if you have it)

Method:

• Grease the pudding bowl well with butter (or line with cling film)
• Break half the biscuits into small pieces 

• Make the other half into fine crumbs by putting them in a bag and bashing them with a rolling pin. 

• Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup together

• Keep mixing and melting until your mixture looks like this
  
• Put all the dry ingredients (i.e all of your biscuits and your malteasers) in a bowl together.
  
• Pour the melted chocolate mixture into this dry mix. (I have no photo of this as it required both Tara and I to hold the bowl and pour and mix the two together. 
• Put your chocolate biscuit mix into your pudding bowl. 
  
  
  
• Refrigerate your cake.

We only have Home Ec once a week so on Thursday we will begin the icing process. Your chocolate biscuit should last for up to two weeks when refrigerated (if it's not eaten by then!). Stay tuned for part two: icing!

Pray for Paris

Over the weekend, a great tragedy occurred in Paris where 127 people were killed. We pray for everyone in Paris during this awful time. 

Mini Company

How after all of this time have I forgotten to mention my Mini Company?
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you..... "In A Jar"!!!!

The idea is simple; we have the necessities for a given occasion, such as a sleepover, all "in a jar". 

We have three jar options (so far):

• Sleepover In A Jar
• Christmas In A Jar
• Movie Night In A Jar (not pictured)

As you can see we have 2 different sized jars, the smaller one is €5 and the bigger one is €8. 

If you want to contact us you can do so here:

Email: stwolstansinajar@gmail.com

We're also on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Check us out!

Spinning

For P.E we are doing a 3 week module of Spinning and Circuits. Spinning is cycling on a stationary bike where you alternate between sitting and sprinting, standing and squatting, and standing with high resistance on the wheels (very heavy!). Or as I call it: "going nowhere fast". 

We have P.E for a double class last thing on a Friday. Spinning and circuits is enjoyable, but tiring. 

Mid Term!

I was sick for the first weekend of the mid term. (Cue sympathetic "awwww").

After a lot of sniffling, snoozing and "Sounds Good Feels Good" I got better. (yay!) 

I spent the rest of the mid term going out with friends, visiting family, and my cousin came up from Galway to stay with us near the end half of the week. It was great craic indeedio. The week flew by and all of a sudden it was November and we were back to school and back to TY Land....

Castletown

On Tuesday the 20th of October our year went to Castletown house for a history trip. At the end of lunch time we lined up in the PE hall and had the roll taken. We ended up getting a bus for the quick journey over to the house. 

We walked down the avenue together and when we reached the house we were split into three tour groups. The guide around the house was really interesting. It tied in nicely with what we were doing in history class before the trip. We made our way home at 4pm. It was a lovely afternoon out.

 

Jade, myself and Tara taking a selfie in the infamous "Devil's Mirror" in Castletown House. Rumour has it that the devil visited the house and cracked the mirror on his way out....

Maths Quiz

On the 16th of October we had a maths quiz with the TYs from Salesians (the local boys school) in our school hall. 

It went well and was a nice change from our usual Friday schedule. 

 The back of my head!

Home Economics

Being in TY means that we get to try new subjects and experiences. So on the 15th of October I baked in school for the first time!

My Home Ec partner and good friend , Tara, (shoutout to her!) and I baked chocolate buns. It was certainly an experience! 

If you're a glass half empty kind of person you wouldn't get past the fact that our buns didn't rise too much and had a slightly burnt complexion.

However, the glass is also always half full, and we had great craic making them and got a laugh out of the end result! 

If you're interested in making these buns yourself you will need:

200g flour

140g caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp salt

70g cocoa powder

140ml water

70ml vegetable oil

1 egg

1) Mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl

2) Add the wet ingredients

3)Bake for 15 minutes at 175C. 

For the icing:

140g butter

280g icing sugar

2tbsp milk

1 tbsp vanilla

1) Beat the butter

2) Beat in sugar

3) Add in milk and vanilla

4) Place in nozzle and decorate.

Enjoy!

The Day We Met the President

 

We went to Dublin for an English trip on the 8th of October. We went to the Yeats Museum in the National Library and also the World War 1 Museum. 
First we went to the war museum. This was very interesting and they had plenty of primary sources such as authentic diaries and letters. 
On our way into the national library we ended up arriving at the same time as our president, Michael D. Higgins, and his wife Sabina!
They were very nice, although we could only get a quick picture as both us and them had places to be. 
The Yeats exhibition was very enjoyable and interesting.  Afterwards we were let loose on Grafton Street to have our lunch. We all met up at the end of lunch and went to the National Museum. We split up and looked at the bog bodies and various other artefacts. Before we knew it it was time to go home. We had a great day out:)

 

Fun Walk

On Friday the 2nd of October we had our annual Fun Walk for friendship and anti-bullying week. Every year had a colour to wear and each class put on a performance for the school. The colours were:

First Years: Pink

Second Years: Purple

Third Years: Green

TYs (us!): Yellow

5th Years: Blue

6th Years: Black 

As we are TYs, my friend Róisín and I had to mark a station along the walk to make sure everyone stayed on track for the walk. When the walk was over we made our way back to the school then went home. We had a good day:)

 

Kilkenny Art Trip

The next day, (The 24th), us TYs went to Kilkenny for an Art Trip. We saw the film "Song of the Sea" in a cinema there and afterwards we went to Kilkenny Castle for an exhibition put on by the animators. 

The film was very good and had lovely colours and patterns throughout. The animators put on a very interesting exhibition and although I wouldn't want to become an animator I found it really interesting to hear about their work. 

We arrived back at the school just at 4 and made our way home. My friends and I had a great day!

 

Work Experience

On the 23rd of September we started our work experience. I am doing mine in a local primary school. I was nervous but excited to start my work experience. All the staff at the school were very nice to me and the students were really cute and funny too. 
I spent my day stamping books, cutting posters, helping infants with their reading, minding 5th class, and reading with 3rd class. I'm really enjoying my work experience. 

Carlingford

We went to Carlingford Adventure Centre for a night from Thursday the 17th to Friday the 18th of September. We really enjoyed our time at the centre. 

I was put in a group with my friends. We started our trip with team building exercises and activities, such as crawling through a maze made up of small tunnels in pitch darkness. We had to guide each other through the tunnel. It was great craic!

After lunch we went to the lake where we did water activities. We did pier jumping and canoed out to a water trampoline. We really enjoyed ourselves but we were a bit cold! (BRRRR!)

We were assigned our rooms before dinner. My friends and I had our own room with our own en suite. After dinner we did a night walk. We hiked up a hill to a forest where we were blindfolded and had to walk alongside the trees holding onto ropes. By the time we got back into the centre it was late. We went to the chippers and then relaxed in our rooms. 

We were woken the next morning at 8 am by the "Bare Necessities" playing over the intercom. After breakfast we went zip lining in the forest. It was very adventurous and we worked our way up to zip lining across a quarry! (OMG!) I managed to give myself rope burn on my arm because positioned my hands the wrong way one of the times. This was by far my favourite activity. After lunch we made our way home on the bus. We were exhausted but very happy! 

 

Junior Cert Results

The results for our Junior Cert came out on Wednesday the 9th of September. All of us TYs came into school at 12:00 and lined up in the hall with the 5th years who were in our classes last year. 

Mr. Kerrigan handed me my results in my brown envelope. I was really excited but sort of nervous to finally have my results in my hands. I opened my results with my friend Kate. We were thrilled with them!

That evening I went out with my friends to celebrate. We were all happy and relieved to finally know our results and we had a great evening!  

 

My First Week in TY

Transition Years in our school started back on Monday the 30th of August. The new, smaller year group made our way to the hall where we had a talk from Ms.Barry, Mr.Kerrigan and our year head Ms. Leonard. 

We were given our class names (Lagarde and Merkel), which were called after powerful women who were making a difference in the world today. I am in class Lagarde with some of my friends. 

On Wednesday the 2nd of September we had workshops on first aid and beauty and etiquette. (It was also my birthday!) In the beauty and etiquette workshop we learned how to dress in a professional environment and how to walk properly in high heels. Our first aid workshop showed us how to perform CPR and how to put somebody in the recovery position.  Both were very enjoyable. 

We started doing karate in the mill for PE on Friday. We learned various forms of self defense moves. My friends and I really liked the Karate in the mill and felt very cool when we did the kicks! 

My first week in TY was action-packed and fun-filled. I was tired on Friday evening after it all but I was glad that I chose to do it.