Geography project - (1) Enid Blyton

Enid Mary Blyton was born in East Dulwich, London in 1897. She is one of the most successful children's authors in the world with her stories being translated into over 90 languages.
Enid Blyton became an English teacher for 5 years and then married Hugh Pollock in 1924. They had two children ,Gillian and Imogen, but they divorced in 1941. She re-married in 1943 and even changed her children's name to prevent any contact with her former husband. She became afflicted with Alzheimer's and died in 1968, aged 71.
Since her death and the publication of her daughter Imogen's biography 'A Childhood at Green Hedges', there has been much speculation over her personal life. She has been depicted as emotionally unstable and even malicious. Her daughter Imogen has been quoted saying "The truth is Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her."
Other negative views of her novels have been voiced by critics as too old-fashioned, portraying unsuitable stereotypes regarding gender,race and class. Some of her publications have been altered to suit the modern readers and what is considered politically correct.

Despite these views Blyton's work still remains very popular and is considered some of 'the classic' children's tales. Personaly I grew up reading Enid Blyton books all the time, and they were some of my favourite stories of all time. She can be known for her 'Famous Five', 'Secret Seven' and 'Mallory Towers' series. Also her stories for younger children like 'The faraway tree'.
A documentary of her life was made by the BBC last year, with well-known actress Helena Bonham Carter playing Blyton.

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 ;

Rte 2 :D

On wedensday we were divided into two groups and given camera and sound equipment. We were told to shoot a 3 minute programme and write the sript and act in it ourselves. It was a bit of a challenge but once we got ideas going we wrote a script and started filming. We decided to do a skit on a crime show, and we got to shoot on the fair city set. I was the scriptwriter, and an extra in the show. It was great fun to do and we definitley enjoyed it! Using the professional equipment was really cool, and then the team director edited it.
We were off on thursday because it was st. Patricks's day, but we wer in again on friday our last day :( In the morning we went to the newsrooms and were shown how they broadcast the news. In the afternoon we watched our edited films, and we had a brilliant time laughing at them :L We were given a goody bag with a copy of our programme, a photo of us al together, and rte pen and kiering and an account of the week we wrote ourselves :)
In my opinion it was one of the best work experience's you could possibly do! :D

Rte Work Experience :D

Last week I had the privilege of doing work experience in rte for the week :)I was unbelievably lucky as I was one of 18 students picked out of a draw of about 300! Rte do a special T.Y work experience programme, and it began on Monday where I had to report to the t.v. reception at 10. There were 17 other T.Y. students from lots of different schools and by the end of the week we were all good friends :). That morning we were given an introduction and then brought around to all the different studios on a tour. We saw the set of fair city, the daily show and the late late show :)

We were also brought to the rte publications section, where they publish the rte guide. They showed us how they photoshop the cover and gave us a talk on the interviews they do with people. It was all really interesting, especially because I'd love to work in media when I'm older, especially editing or journalism.

The next day we spent the morning in radio. That was one of the highlights of the week because we got to listen in on Ryan tubardy's show and he came out and talked to us :D (our first celebrity of the week :) ) We also sat it on Pat Kenny and Marty Whelan's shows. Then the band Aslan came and played live on the Rick O' Sé show, and we got to sit it on the interview with them too :D