Thursday 1 December 2011

And the nominees are......

I recently found out about The Edublog Blog Awards :) .
And i wish to nominate Catriona Eves blog for Student award :). Her blog is very creative, interesting and it is clear that a lot of effort is put into her blog!! :)
I also wish to nominate Sarah Kellys blog for best new blog :)
And finniallly i wish to nominate #edchatie for best twitter hashtag

Niamh x

Wednesday 30 November 2011

Book Review for English :)

Hellooo :) Well for English this week we have to write a book review on a book from a list or as we call it  'The List' ( i think when you say it like that it makes it seem really cool or something but that could just be me .... )


The book I am reviewing is drum roll please ........ 
                                            The Book Thief By Markus Zusak :)


Firstly, I would like to start off by saying that I LOVED this novel. In my opinion a great book is a book that make you feel, that makes you feel like your part of the story, a part of the characters. The Book Thief is one of those books. I loved it the minute i started reading it. I could not put it down! . I felt different emotions from each character, i felt their sadness, happiness, joy, and anger. The story made me smile, laugh and even cry.


Now i should really tell you what this book is about, but don't worry i wont say too much.:)
This is the story of The Book Thief, Liesel Meminger. However it is narrated by Death, who visits the Book Thief three time throughout the novel. Liesel is a nine year old girl who is living with her foster family on Himmel Street. It is based around 1939, Nazi Germany. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street and what  happens when the bombs begin to fall. 


Characters: Throughout this novel you meet the most beautiful characters. You meet the most charming, innocent children and  the most heart warming fathers and friends. And you meet people who have a tough outer shell but who are just as beautiful in the inside. It is extremely difficult to pick a favourite character, but I will go with one of my top  :).I've decided to go for the main heroin of the story, Liesel. From the beginning of the novel till the very end we see her struggles, her restrictions, and her changes form girl to women. We see how she copes, how she always has hope and most of all we see her heart. The beautiful relationships that she forms between Rudy, Papa and Max . She is a truly remember-able, strong and loving character.


Style of writing: Markus Zusak in my opinion has created a master-piece. Not only is there a great story line and fabulous characters but his style of writing is really superb!  The first thing you notice when you begin to read this novel is that it is narrated by 'Death' and it works brilliantly! This original input makes the novel very different, a character such as 'Death' adds a unique view to the story.  Zusak takes a different approach than most authors when he tells this story through the eyes of a child, Liesel. This gives a new perspective to the story. The book has the innocence, humour and love that a child has and that sense of unawareness of the great troubles of the world especially during this time ( 1940s) . This innocence and childlike story-line is what makes this novel beautiful and masterfully told. I also like way that it show the hardship of Germans living in Germany, and how it is highlighted that not everyone in Germany agreed with what was going on during this time.


Relationships: At least once in this review I  HAVE to talk about Rudy and this is my perfect opportunity. The relationship that i loved most has to be the relationship between Rudy and Liesel!!
It starts a friendship. A friendship that gets stronger and stronger throughout the novel.  A friendship built on trust and loyalty. In the novel we see many adventures that these two embark on. When things get hard they work together to keep each other going... even if it means stealing from the rich to feed the poor or even sometimes a book or two. 
The other main relationships in my opinion is the one between Liesel and Max ( a Jewish fist fighter) and Liesel and her foster father. Both relationships develop in their own ways by music, love, understanding, trust but most importantly books.


Cultural Context: This story is based during World War 2. A tough time to live in for people in and out of Germany. For the poor people of Himmel Street it was a struggle every day to feed your family. Jobs were scarce and businesses were loosing customers every day. Towards the end of the novel we also see the seriousness of the bomb raids and how it affected many peoples lifestyle and lives. This is a time that many people wish not to talk about and hopefully never happens again. 


I hope that you enjoyed my review and if you haven't read this book yet than you better get cracking!!! It is truely a read you must not miss out on !! :D


Bye for now :)
Niamh 
xx  



Thursday 20 October 2011

Shakespere who?

Yesterday well it was a great day :)
We went to Dublin for and English Trip with a splat of History in their too :D

First of all we went to the W.B Yeats exhibition, to be honest i wasnt to bothered about it at first but i have to say it was very interesting and quite cool. Aswell as all the facts about his life there were pieces of his work ( poems etc...)  and ther was even a lock of his hair, his glasses and his noble prize!
Afterwards we went to the National Museum and it was soo cool! We first saw the Bog Bodies which were found in parts of Ireland. There bodies had been preerved because no air could reach them in the bog so they are in could condition even though there like a thousand years old!!
We walked around the Museum for a while, I loved it because im really interested in really old history!

Finally at 2 we went to the Abbey Theater to see Sean O'Caseys " Juno and the Paycock" We had read the play in class beforehand but i was SOO much better watching it in the Theatre....... i admit i was close to tears at the end :'(  "Th' whole worl's in a terrible state o' chassis! "
Everything about it was brilliant the set, the actors, the music everything!
It was a great day overall :)!
 Slán go foill :D

Niamh xx

Sunday 16 October 2011

I Love You Food :)

Okay first of all i have to put this out there : FOOD IS MY LIFE!
I can eat anytime, with anyone, anyplace as long as it good :)
I always talk about food and i have to say its my awkward conversation topic...... yes when i am stuck in a very awkward place with awkward people the only topic I can ever think about is yes food!
the funny thing is now that i have to talk about food i cant think of anything to write about ....(long pause while i brainstorm about food)
Hmm.... all this thinking of food is making me hungry :P :L
People often say that i have very weird eating habits ... but i don't think their weird at all for example i like to have banana with my mams curry but ONLY my mams curry and mashed banana sandwiches and ham and cheese in croissants... now really how is that weird ?? i probably have allot weirder ones but my brain at the moment is like a mashed potato i cant think.... :L
Now i am just cant stop thinking about how much i want toast right now
So im gonna go now and eat :)
Hope you kinda enjoyed my blog for Blog Action Day
Thank you and goodnight :)
Niamh xx


Thursday 13 October 2011

It actually went kinda good .. :)

Well we had our funwalk last friday ..... and i have to say it went very well :)
The whole school was called outside and we watched all the years dances ( well most of the the tys had to miss the 6th years ) We had to go out early and be traffic guards in other word we had to help people cross the road without being run over by a car..... i saved so many peoples lives... :/ :L
We did our dance and it wasnt the best but it was alot better than we ALL expected. :D !
Needless to say we didnt win.... but we had fun soo all good :)
Slan go foill,
Niamh xx

Thursday 6 October 2011

Fun Walk :)

This whole week our class have been trying to come up with an amazing dance for the Fun Walk :) And I just have to say that ours isn't going to well...... :/ The Fun Walk is held every year to promote friendship week, each  year is giving a colour and they must think of a theme ( but has to have something to with friendship in anyway possible). The colour for Ty's this year is YELLOW and our class theme is BANANAS.... creative right? we also are including a monkey ( our tutor) and two Bananas in Pyjamas :)
The most difficult part is the dance... we get to do a dance for a max 3minutes..... and our is just not working out :/ We are all trying but alot of things we try just fails EPICALLY!! but fingers crossed it works out for tomorrow :/ Wish use Luck :) ( we need it ) :L
Let you know how it goes asap :D

Slán go foill ;)
Niamh x

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Randomly feeding your fish on your blog and playing snake cause you have nothing better to do..........

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Ehhh.......

Time again to write a blog except this time I'm kinda stuck for a topic ........ i already tried last night but i just ended up playing the snake app on the side of the computer and i have to say i have gotten quite good at it. 
Well yesterday we finally got our BT young scientist project submitted! :) now we have to get going on actually completing the project and surprisingly i cant wait to get going :D
The Geography project is getting on very smoothly however the Irish project well we better not talk about that one.......
That's all for now folks :)
Niamh xx

Tuesday 27 September 2011

The Hills Are ALIVE!

Each year ( well most years) our school does a production!  Its sometimes fashion shows, talent shows and this year we are doing a play!! :D It is the Sound of Music which just happens to be one of my most favourite movies of all time!! Once i found out about it i was very eager to get involved !! I got the part as a chorus, nun and contestant in festival... not to sure what i have to do yet but i am happy :) I even get to wear a nun costume :O :D
Ill try keep you updated on the updated on upcoming events :)
(: Niamh :)
xxx

Thursday 22 September 2011

Results!! :O

Okay I know once again I am late on the posts :/.... yes my results did come out over a week ago but heres my recap anyway :)
Well I have to admit I only really started getting nervous for my Juniour Cert results the class before the results ( which was surprising).....well anyway skip the long boring wait :)
We were called at about 12ish down to the hall by this stage I was freaking out!! Well we got our results in the end most i opened mine straight away! I was happy enough :D nobody was too disappointed ... I hope not anyway ....:L :)
That night to celebrate our results alot of us went to a disco called Time :) It was great fun but I think alot of people were still pretty tired after Carlingford :L It was a GREAT night overall :D The dreaded awaking the next morning for most people was probably the worst part :L

Tuesday 20 September 2011

CARLINGFORDD TRIP!!!!!

The usual start to the week would be the painful pull out of the bed in the morning to get ready for school! however his week was MUCH different :D. Even though I did have to get up much earlier than usually I was more than willing to pull myself out of the bed at 6 o' clock on a Monday morning than ever before!! And I have only go one very simple reason for this..... it was because my year was going to CARLINGFORD!!!!

The bus left at about half seven on its way to Carlingford. The journey was a very long and by the time we reached our destination people excitement limits were a full blown high!!
Our first activity ( and by far the best) was LASER COMBAT. We were divided into two teams ( blues and reds) we were given these special guns and a strap to put on your head with what looked like red light bulbs suck onto it. We had to aim and shoot ( lasers) at the persons bulb's........I am very bad at explaining but hopefully you get the idea :D The only downside of it was that long walk up that EXTREMELY steep hill.... it was a nightmare :L

After our lunch we went to the team building activities...twas great fun!! The best was when we had to go through this small maze in the dark ( with 3 floors)  it was hard but we all got through it in the end :)
 After dinner we went on a LONG walk ( stopped a couple of times to play some games) and then we played nightline. Nightline is when you walk through the forest with a blindfold on!! ( you had a rope to guide you though.... thankfully :D

That evening we went to the common room..... our school and another sat around the fire, ate ( well i did anyway) and we had a little sing song :). One of the workers also preformed a fire show.... he said he had only started at Christmas but he seemed like a professional to me :O :)

The next day we did rock climbing and ab sailing.. I have to say ab sailing was one of the scariest things i have ever done.....I slipped about 5 times :O. I was quite proud of myself I climbed to to the top of each section in the  rock climbing :D. Me and my friends also played a game called knock out which meant every time you climbed the wall you got to pick a rock that nobody could stand on... which made it harder on the next person to reach the top :) I won...... well i say i did :)
After lunch we did orienteering which was very tiring because it meant ALOT of walking up the mountain but we finished it in the end :)

On the journey home i think a lot of people were very sad..... i really wished we could have stayed longer!! However i could barley move with tiredness :L I admit I was very glad to get into my bed :)

Thats all for now,
Niamh
xx

Thursday 15 September 2011

The Begining of an eventful week :)

Wow Long time no talk.... its been a while since I last blog :O I better catch up  :L
Well starting from last Wednesday. We had a social development day :). A whole day spent developing... would you guess? social skills..... and i have to say it did work :) I got to team up with people i didn't really know and got to know them a lot better. I learned how you can tell a lot from a person just from their handshake, and we also had a great time playing games and learning new things about people. I also think everyone had a great laugh listening to peoples most embarrising moments :L :D
Overall a very enjoyable day! :D
Niamh
xxx

Thursday 8 September 2011

Helooooo :)
Were are coming to end of our second week now or T.Y :)
Its Thursday and everyones really excited, in the evening we have activities :D!
First we have pilates, which is really fun but i find it impossible hard :L im was such a failure last week lets just hope I improve! :L
Then we have dancing with Ms O R :)  this is by far my favourite activity! We are doing the kinda 1920s dance, its just so much fun!!
Finally we have photography, dont really know much about it yet but it should be fun :D
Hope to write again soon,
(: Niamh :)
xx

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Helloooo people!
I am in Transition Year and this is my first ever blog and I cant wait to get started :D
so far i have only been in school one week and its been great. It such a relief to not have the pressure of state exams!
Im settling into my classes but it can be quite confusing sometimes :S.
Even though  I have only been in school for a short time the projects are starting to pile on in geograph, irish, and home ec! And dont forget the Young Scientist and Mini Company!!!
Class is almost over now , hope to write again soon :)
(: Niamh :)
xx