Hotel Rwanda

In religion we've been studying the Rwandan genocide the last couple of weeks, and as part of that study we have watched 'Sometimes in April' and 'Hotel Rwanda' which are both films dealing with the genocide. I had never heard about this issue before, and my ignorance was only highlighted when I realised how recent it has been, as it only happened in 1994.
The movies we watched dealt with the conflict between the Hutu's and the Tutsi's and the UN's attempt at intervention. It was shocking to see how many innocent victims were killed and the films were definitely moving. I think it's really important to educate young people in the history and current affairs of the world.

The Book Thief

We were given the reading list for ffth year in english a few weeks ago, and my english teacher gave us the task of chosing one book from the list and reading it before easter. The first difficulty I encountered was actualy chosing a book, as there were so many that I'd like to read. Some girls in my class recommended 'The Book thief' to me and I had began reading it some time before but had found it very hard to get into. I decided it was a good reason to attempt it again so I started the other day and I am now on page 135 :D You may think that's good progress but this book has nearly 600 pages! :L
It's a really interesting story, it's set during the second world war, about a young foster child named Liesel. In an unnconventional twist, death narrates this story, but I think this gives it a unique touch. I'm enjoying it so far, and I''l keep you posted as to how it's going :)

Gaisce Hike

This weekend myself and 13 other girls from school went on a Hike in the Wicklow mountains for Gaisce :) We had to hike 25km over 2 days, so we stayed over night in a youth hostel. The hostel was lovely and the rooms even had an upstairs :D We arrived on friday and dropped our bags into our rooms, then we went for our hike with an instructor. We did 10km uphill, and another 10km down within 3 hours. I thought it was going to be really hard, but we were surprisingly fast and most of the hard work was done in the first day :D
We got back to the hostel, and then we made our own dinner in the kitchens provided. We watched a movie in the tv room, and then we went to bed because we were all wrecked! :L
The next day we were up early and we went orienteering to make up our final 5km. We were divided into two teams and there was some friendly competition as to who would finish first, my team did of course ;) After that we did archery and 'low ropes' which are lots of tight ropes you have to walk across. Then we did some team games and after that we got the bus home! It was a really enjoyable weekend! like a mini carlingford :D

Jabba Jabba Jembe

Our music teacher organised a percussion workshop for us last thursday, and we had a brilliant time :D Jabba Jabba Jembe is a percussion workshop focused on jembe African drumming :) There were loads of different types of African drums and we all got a chance to try them :D Dave, who was doing the workshop with us, showed us lots of different beats and when we put them together it sounded really cool! We also saw a video called the rhythm project, about African music :)
Here's a link to a video of our workshop ;