Juno & The Paycock - yes, Paycock not Peacock

Most of you probably won't know this play ( yes btw it's a play!) written by Séan ó Casey, an Irish writer. It's set in Dublin around the 1920s, so around the 1916 rising and anything to do with that and Im instantly interested! It's about a family of four - Mr. Boyle, or as he would rather be reffered to as 'The Captain' , his wife Juno and their two 'chizzlers' Johnny and Mary. It's all very dramatic - it can be tragic and funny at the same time. But what an explosion of an ending!! CAUTION: if you don't want to know the ending turn away now!

Mary gets pregnant. And Johnny (after losing his arm in another battle) is killed.

Wondering why I'm telling you about this play? Well, inné all Transition Years went into Dublin City to the Abbey Theatre to see this play. It was brill! I'm really into acting (maybe not the best myslef but love to watch actors) and I have to applaud the setting on the stage - I think it looked so cool! They had a stove, and an old bed, old chair which was literally in taters. My stomach started to rumble during the play because Juno (the mother) began to cook sausages for the family for breaky! You could smell the sausages and I never believed before that, that the actors actually cooked the food! Anyway enough about food, that was my last blog! But on our wonderful journey yesterday in town, not onbly did we see the play but we also got to visit the Yeats exhibition and the National Musuem and I'm guessing the National musuem was the highlight of most people's tour with the bog bodies!

I'm gonna post a picture of the bog bodies so if you're squemish probably best you don't look!

This guy was in the National Musuem. Most of the bodies were murdered and then buried in the bogs!

The day was orgainised by all TY English teachers and Mrs. L! Thanks to them for a great day!

I'll blog later today hopefully!

Talk soon xo

Dinner Time! For some...

This is a difficult topic! There is just so much you can write about food. It's everywhere, and almost controls our lives. Every holiday revolves around food in some way - Christmas = need I even say anything?
Easter = chocolate bunnies! (Mmm..)
Halloween = Pumpkins (even though we don't eat them, it still counts)

We wake up to food, we deal with food throughout the day and then end the day with food! It's constantly food, food, food! But what if we didn't have this access? What if we woke up to nothing, had nothing through out the day and fell asleep again with an empty stomach? I bring this up because just recently in Religion class we've been learning about the Millennium Development Goals and their importance - and No.1 is to 'Eradicate Extreme poverty and hunger'. The first, and most important goal is to do with food.

Food is our key to survival. We can survive only a few weeks on water alone and after that food must be consumed. But in countries where the 'tesco' isn't our next door neighbour problems are much more severe. The MDGs have high aims to lower the number of people in developing countries, especially, living in disastrous conditions. By the way, if ever you decide you want to educate yourself on some important topic, I would definatly reccommend the MDGs (sounds like I'm reccommending a movie or book!). But they are very interesting and some statistics are absolutely shocking! But here's a link to a brilliant website giving information on all the goals.

But, back to the point I was making before. Food has such a huge effect on people not only physically but mentally. For example, when I need food let's just say you'll know about it cause I might get a little bit crabby! But as well there are many disorders concentrated on the topic of food. People in most third world countries are starved for their entire life - from the moment they were born as their mother was not given enough nutrition through out her pregnancy. There are so many diffirent effects food can have on people. There is a huge contrast to those living in developing countries to developed. The phisical contrast is unbelievable and it's hard to understand how one country can have such a wide availablity of food in comparision to another that result in famine. Some may question is famine even acceptable in the 21sh Century with all the advances in technology? There could be deabtes that would continue on without ending, but the bottom line is - what is going to be done about it?

Food is such a wide topic, there is so much to write about it, but what I wanted to get out of this blog was to highlight the importance of food and it's diffirent effects. The MDGs are very important in the role of improving food levels in some countries and to get rid of death due to starvation. Like many other things, food isn't shared equally in the world which needs to change.

I know some of you might find this a very boring blog kinda "down in the dumps" but hopefully it will show you that the food you eat every day shouldn't be taken for granted and next time you drink your coffee and leave it to go cold think of the poor people in Kenya who slaved for hours and get less than quarter the profit. Or the next time you let the bananas go brown think of young people, school-going age, who have left anf forced to work to earn some money.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Hope you all enjoyed the blogging today and leave me a comment or link to your piece on food!

Talk soon xo

Things to do.. Want me to write a novel?

Okay so our next 'small' task of TY is to make a list of all the things we have to do! Are you kidding? The list will be NEVER ENDING! I'm going to try to confine my list to less than 10 things.. here it goes.

Numero uno:
Geography Project! Agh, super stressful! I've already dedicated a blog to the project, but just in case you haven't read it: it's an Around The World Trip and we are given €12,000 each to go off and spend on a first, second and third world country of our choice. It may sound easy, but you would definatly be mistaken! Well, that must be done for 3 weeks time! Evn though I know we've had 6 weeks already, TY has been stressful enougt so I've barely had time to think let alone do!

No. 2:
MINI COMPANY! Okay I know I was barking on about the geography project, but after our visit to the Kildare Enterprise meeting yesterday all of us are feeling the pressure. Our idea is good, we think anyway for the competition! We have a meeting today, which is very formal - in the Demo room at 1.20 (remember that girls!). We have an agenda, the minutes will be taken and a roll call! Woo! We have promised oursleves that we will disuss the Mini Company ONLY. Nothing else. For our next Kildare meeting we must have our product (or a good excuse not to have it!!) and from the looks of things we mightn't have the product. We firstly have to fundraise money (hoping to go to the farmer's market on Saturday to sale cakes!) because we honestly need mula mula mula! $$$

Trois:
Okay, I know have it done.. but I'm so proud with myself I have to put this up! WORK EXPERIENCE! This would have been the first tihng on my list, this time last week, but I got a placement for November.. FINALLY! I put so much effort into work experience, and I was getting really dis-heartened when every place I contacted turned me down. But last week I rang a restaurant and they seemed happy to offer me the work! *Weight off my shoulders* And its something Im interested in.. now all I hope is that I'll have an enjoyable week.

We only got FOUR minutes..
Read, read, read! It may not seem like its the top of the list for most people, but from creative writing and english class (and Niamh!) I've been influenced to read. I'm very proud of Niamhy here, cos she has read "Jane Eyre" and boy is that tough! I'm in the midst of reading something atm but I haven't gotten into it properly yet so my goal is to begin to enjoy the books, rather than feeling like its a must.

5 Five 5 Five 5 Five..
MUSICAL MUSICAL MUSICAL! (Just felt the need there to repeat everything!) I have been cast as 'Frau Schmidt' the housekeeper in The Sound of Music. Although it may not seem as a huge part.. the best thing is rehearsals. Have them today!! Woo, I LOVE GOING TO THEM !

Talk soon xo


PS. Orla is beside me right now with her arm around me. I annoyed her. But I said sorry. So therefore we're friends again!

Hmm.. "Trouble in Paradise" ?

There's a weird feeling at the moment in the class. In IT there's usually a couple of quiet converstaions and people whispering among themselves. But today it's different. All I can hear is the clicking of the keyboard as everyone furiously types. And I have a feeling almost everyone is writing about the same thing today: 'The Fun Walk'. Every year we have a walk with the entire school and each year is given a specific coulour, and from that colour they have to choose a theme. As Transition Years we were given the colour yellow, and from that we chose Bananas as our theme.. which may be a bit cliché! We also have to think up of a dance to impress the judges. From rumours the other two TY class are more like cheerleaders rather than doing a simple dance. We've heard whispers of  crowd surfing and "throwing!" a fellow TY in the air! So, we decided to up our game and make human pyramids. Never in my life have I seen something so unbelievably difficult! We're having so much trouble trying to arrange this dance so we can have some shot of winning (the chocolate bars!!!). There seems to be a bit of division arising in the class aswell. I just hope once the Fun Walk is over with, the class will just be 'back to normal'.

Talk soon xo