Work Experience Wednesday !!!!!

This week was the first week that we did work experience. I was very lucky and got the chance to go into the Micro-Biology lab in St James's Hospital. My mam drove me in St.James's, it is in the city centre which meant we left at 9:00 am to get there by 10:00 am. When I arrived I was greeted by my supervisor Ms Barry. She brought me up to her office where she explained to me about what is done in the lab. She also told me to be very careful in the lab and to wash my hands after every time I go in there. I washed my hands a lot more than usual on Wednesday.

 I was then given the oppurtunity to accompany three medical students as they were told about the lab. The three girls were very nice and it was very interesting to learn about all the different bacterias that cause illness even though it semed like they were talking in a different language. I saw how to make a gram stain. You have to do this before you look at a sample through a microscope. I also got to look in a microscope to see if a sample was gram negative or gram positive, this is just putting bacteria into two different categories. 

 After this I had lunch with the med students. After lunch I then went to Journal Club. This is where one person talks about a case study they recently encountered that they found interesting. On Wednesday it was about a woman who presented with signs of a stroke but it was later found out that it was infact a brain aneurysm. They were still unsure of the cause but some people thought that it was because she had gotten a tooth pulled out and this led to the aneurysm.

 After journal Club I went back into the lab to learn about how to test for susceptibility in bacterias. This was very interesting but again I felt like they were speaking a different language but I undestood some of it. 

 After this part of being in the lab I then went into the office where i was given lots and lots of papers to scan into a machine and then put it into the system so when a person wanted to know about a test that had been done in James's they could ring and give there code and all the information on the pieces of paper that I scanned would appear on the screen of who ever looked for it in the hospital.

 I finished my day at 4:00pm. It was very interesting and busy aswell. I can't wait until I go back next week.

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                                                            Thanks for Reading 

                                                                     Aoibhin x

Shower in the 'Fountain of Youth'

This week we went to Carlingford on Monday and Tuesday. We had a very early start, we all had to be on the bus at 7am. We arrived in Carlingford about two hours later where we were assigned to our rooms and then went straight to the beach to put our wet suits on and get into the water. I was in group B. This meant that I did kayaking it was lots of fun even though we were not able to go in a straight line. When we were finished we had lunch and had some free time.
         After lunch group went to the laser lane where we were given our camonesies (camouflage onesie) and we headed up the hill with guns in hand which may have scared a few of the local people. When we reached the top of the hill we had lots of fun trying to shoot each other. After laser tag we went down the hill to have dinner. We were all were very hungry so we couldn't wait to get our dinner. We then had free time until 7 which was when we were going to do our next activity, nightline. Nightline was when we walked up a hill in the dark while being blindfolded. We had one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us and held onto a rope with our other hand. It was very fun but also very scary.
     The next day we were up bright and early to go back into the water. This time we did canoeing. This was very fun we went out to the sea trampoline where we jumped into the sea. After this we went to the 'fountain of youth'. We climbed into a dark tunnel where we had freezing cold water thrown over us. We then tied all of the boats together while Peaches, one of the instructors brought us back to the shore with the speedboat while we sang a song about a bird with a yellow bill.
    After lunch we went to the challenge course, this was about team building. I thought that it was very fun. After our challenge course we sadly had to go home. We all got on the bus and made or way back home.
        The next day we were all very tired and had very bad colds but we luckily had a day of workshops which was a lot of fun. We had an etiquette workshop, a personal development workshop and a workshop about work experience which I will be starting next week, I am very excited and nervous for it .
 We also went to NUI in Maynooth where we had a presentation about our mini company. I am very excited to get started on that aswell.


                                                      Thanks for Reading
                                                                       Aoibhin x    

Receiving Results

      This was the week that many of us were waiting for. Most of us were dreading it but we were still waiting for it. We got our Junior Cert results on Wednesday 10th September. We all gathered in the hall and lined up in our base classes. We were given our reusults in a brown envelope and were then allowed to leave. I was very nervous to open my results but once I did I was happy with my results. It was good to see how all of the hard work over the past three years was worth it. That night most people went out to celebrate. It was great fun, I really enjoyed it. However I did not enjoy the next day. We had to go back to normal. School started at 9:05 am and everyone was expected to be present. The TYs went around the school looking like zombies.
             
     Next Monday and Tuesday we are going to Carlingford. I am really excited because I have heard thatn it is very fun. I will write about all that we did next week.

                                   

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Thanks for Reading 

                     Aoibhin x

  
      

Let the Fun Begin.......

Last week was our first full week as TY students. This meant that we had our first workshops. On Wednesday morning everyone came into school dressed in our full school tracksuit. My class, Class Aurora began the day with a first aid workshop. We learned many things from how to tie a sling if you hurt your arm to how to preform CPR. The workshop was very interesting.

   

    After our break we had an etiquette  workshop. The two ladies told us all about body image and body shapes. After this we brought our heels and a book to the second year mall where there was a red carpet set up for us to walk on . We started by walking in our normal shoes. We had to keep our heads up and shoulders back. Then we moved onto putting a book on our heads and not letting it fall off. We then put on our heels and walked the runway.When we returned we talked about tights and many other things. We ended the workshop by exfoliating our hands and putting moisteriser on. We all left the workshop with hands like babies bottoms.

  

      After lunch we went to our last workshop of the day which was called Positive Parties. This was a very fun workshop. We got lots of sweets and did lots of dancing to happy positive music.Although it was a party I learned a lot of things about being positive and how to stay positve. We were told to listen to  happy music,exercise or dance, laugh , watch a feelgood film or read a positive book.

  I really enjoyed these workshops and I cannot wait to do more in the future.

                  

                Thanks for reading

                                Aoibhin x