Mini Company competition

Today we all had our mini-company competition... All the work that we had put in over the past year was finally being displayed.
I was part of the minicompany accessoreyes, and our aim was to provide the Irish market with a brand of interchangeable arms that can be clipped on and off glasses so you can change the colour/seeing of your glasses.
We were working right up until the very last minute as our prototype broke last night so it was all systems go to develop a new idea and mane a new prototype and with the hard work of mr W. (thanks so much sir) we got it done! :D
We had to set up a display stand and do a presentation and an interview and it all went pretty well! However the two judges said that we wouldn't have a product by the next round of the competition so they didn't put us through.
It was a great (but stressful) experience and we learned a lot from it.
We are all a little sad that it's over

Here are the links to our minicompany blog and website:
www.accessoreyes.blogspot.com
www.accessoreyes.webs.com

Book Review- My Sisters Keeper, by Jodi Picoult

My sister’s keeper is a story of a child that sues her parents for the right to her own body. Anna was conceived to be a donor to her sister Kate after she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. It is set over a time of one and a half weeks and documents the journey of the Fitzgerald family as Anna decides she’s had enough and refuses to donate her kidney to her sister.

The narrative of the story alternates each chapter between different characters, this was a very interesting and captivating technique used by the author and made the novel unique. I liked the way we got to see the story from the point of view of many different people and seeing how they were affected by the events that unfolded

There were many different characters in the novel, however I felt the one that I connected with the most was Anna Fitzgerald. She stands out as the most conflicted character of the novel, and the plotline surrounds her struggle as she refuses to undergo any more medical procedures for the benefit of her sister. She wants to be the best sister she can to Kate, however she is tired of hiding behind her sister and wants to be independent, and although she feels awful about the decision she thinks it is the right thing to do.

The character of Sara Fitzgerald was also very interesting; throughout the novel she is motivated by her duty as a mother to keep Kate alive. This however hinders her relationship with her other two children, Jesse acts out by starting fires and Anna rebels by sueing her parents. Sara’s whole world revolves around Kate’s recovery and she becomes stressed and frustrated due to this.

The novel also had many interesting themes; one of the strongest of these is Love. Love between siblings, parents and children, spouses, boyfriend and girlfriend and even extended family members. The love that stands out the most however is the love between mother and daughter, Sara loves her daughter dearly and could not cope with the thought of her dying, she does everything she can for Kate. We also see love between Anna and Kate, Anna has undergone many operations and medical procedures to try to save her sisters life, and when a dramatic twist occurs in the novel we see that even though what Anna is doing to her sister may kill her, she is keeping her sisters best interests at heart.

The ending of the book was very shocking and effective, I felt that it was a huge climax in the novel and that it left us on edge until the very end.

My sister’s keeper is a very well written book about a very striking issue. Jodi Picoult envisaged the emotions of the characters very well and made the story flow very well. I really enjoyed reading it and would highly recommend it. It is now one of my favourite books and it much much better and more poignant than the film

Saint Brigid

Lately we have been learning about saint Brigid... Here are some of the things that I have learned

Saint Brigid was born in 450 AD in co. Louth
Her mother was Portuguese and her father was a pagan chieftain
Her father named her after the pagan god of fire.
Even though he was a wealthy man, he kept Brigid and her mother as slaves
Brigid was inspired by saint Patrick
Her father wanted her to marry as she was very beautiful... But she found her calling with god and prayed for her beauty to be taken away from her.
She founded many convents and monastries in Ireland the most famous in Kildare
Legend says the king of Kildare offered her as much land as her cloak would cover any by miracle her cloak grew and covered the area that is now the curragh
On the death bed of a dying chieftain who was raging... She weaved a cross from the rushes on the ground and legend says that this calmed the man down.
It is now tradition to make this cross on saint brigids day to protect from fire
Another tradition is laying out cloths on the eve of st. Brigids day and her spirit passesby and blesses them

Scene 1 everybody get in your positions, pay attention and listen

Today, we went to mullingar for the briery gap TY drama competition.
The class split in two and we each wrote a script, and assigned actresses. My groups drama was based on the song concrete angel by martina mcbride, it's a really sad song about child abuse.
The main character in the play was Holly, a seven year old girl who was being abused by her mother. She has a close relationship with her father, but he didn't suspect anything and by the time he realised it was too late!
We based the drama on the lyrics of the song, with some of the most poignant lyrics a main focus
Like "the teacher wonders but she doesn't ask" and "she hides the bruises with the linen and lace". The play was seen through the meighbours eyes, as they read an article about hollys death in the paper, wechose to end the play on the lyric "The neighbours hear but they turn out the lights".
My role in our drama was the director, and even though it was tough and there was a lot of work involved, I really enjoyed it, and have all my fingers an toes crossed that weber through to the next round!

Creative writing

On Monday we had a creative writing workshop in town, it was really good and interesting. When we arrived the girl running the workshop asked for two volunteers, she told them to pretend one of them had a crush on the other ones brother... Then after that we developed an introduction to a story based on what they acted and then we had to finish it off ourselves. I really enjoyed the workshop.

Young scientist

On Friday, all of the tys and second years went to the RDS for the BT young scientist exhibition. There were hundreds of projects there, some of them were very interesting. I really liked the one on criminal motivation. There were also projects from our school in the exhibition, they were also very interesting... One of them was on the news and the radio.
There was also loads of fun stuff to do at the back of the exhibition where lots of different organisations had stands, my favourite was probably the analog devices stand, there were lots of games there, like lifesize operation, a laser room, a balance game and a floor piano. Other stands were also very interesting, at the European union stand I learned how hard it is to use a glovebox and at lots of stands we entered competitions...
It was a great day overall, everyone enjoyed themselves and learned something new :)

BACK TO SCHOOL

Well after a long two weeks of late nights and lie-ins, we're back to school and back into the swing of t.y. life.
A couple of things have changed since we were back, we changed options again, and now I'm in art. I'm really exited for art because I picked it in first year but I never got it and I've always wanted to try it out.
We have also changed Thursday activities, we are now doing Zumba, Massage and Music composition, I cant wait to try them all out on Thursday :)
We're also going out on a trip to he young scientist exhibition on Friday to see some of our own schools projects and we're going to a creative writing workshop for English on monday