Another majestical week.

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Hello, Dia Dhuit, Hallo, Ciao, Bonjour etc. :)

So, as you might tell, I've really gotten into the habit of updating my blog every single week. So far, I'm really enjoying it. I started this blog in 2011 and, seeing as I was around 14; my vocabulary, depth of knowledge and also ability to write about one topic for several pages, was quite small.

My very first blog post didn't even have a proper title. It was just the first line from the blog. It was barely a paragraph and I felt that it went on for pages. Well, it's probably because I was such a slow typer. 

However, I want to tell you all about my week this week, (with pictures, woo!)

On Monday, I wasn't in classes as the Cycle against Suicide event was being held in the school. We painted a poster, well I didn't, Maeve who's artistic did, we all just watched.

 We were given permission to use the art room and we were just closing the classroom door, well, it slammed actually and eh, how do I say this? 

THE FIRE ALARM WENT OFF. Yes, the alarm went off as soon as we closed the door. Not just the usual fire alarm. A huge whirring, speeding and noisy alarm. Usually, everyone in school ignores the alarm, we'll probably all burn to death if there ever was a fire, but this time, people actually evacuated to the safety check points. 

Our principal went on the intercom, practically screaming ''FALSE ALARM DO NOT EVACUATE, FALSE ALARM, DO NOT EVACUATE'' it was reminiscent of the messages the previous principal would announce. The Vice-Principal then came running into the art room, we were still painting the canvas, trying to be calm and not become permanently deaf, shouting ''THE DISTRESS ALARM CAME FROM IN HERE'' 

We were sitting there and staring, saying ''Sir, we've just been sitting here painting'' so he ran off again. The alarm was going off nearly consistently for nearly 20 minutes. 

To top things off, there was Junior Cert home ec practicals, Leaving Cert orals and also Leaving Cert music practicals. So it wasn't really that good. 

However, the Cycle against Suicide, was excellent! We were student leaders and met many well known people, Jim Breen, Colm Hayes (they both remembered us, I think it was the hoodies!) Roz Purcell, Paul McGrath, PJ Gallagher, Anne Doyle and lots of the cyclists!

There was several speakers, all of whom were simply brilliant. The entertainment was by students of our school and really impressed everyone. 

On Tuesday, an article I wrote about when we were in the Radio Studio's was published in our local newspaper, it even included a photo of us 'jumping 4 joy' with Jim Breen, (man behind Cycle against Suicide)

But seriously, if you're in Ireland and see the cyclists, salute them and give them a round of applause, they are doing it for such a great cause. Together, shoulder to shoulder, we can break the cycle of suicide. 

A photo of us all in the Gym (the painting in the background is the one we painted during the fire alarm)

Maeve and Caitlin with Roz Purcell, an Irish model!

Project Smilier with Anne Doyle, an RTE news-reader!

The poster we painted!

Caitlin and Maeve dancing on one of the benches !

Alice from the Colm Hayes show, Roz Purcell and the comedian, PJ Gallagher!

A photo taken by Joe Dixon of the crowd, comment if you can find me in it! (It's like Where's Wally xD)

So that's it for another week everyone, I'll put links to all the relevant places below! 

Stay strong, fearless and you,

Aveen xx

Cycle against Suicide Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CycleAgainstSuicide?fref=ts

Cycle against Suicide Twitter https://twitter.com/CASuicide

JDPhotography (Joe Dixon) http://www.facebook.com/jdphotography2012

Cycle against Suicide website http://www.cycleagainstsuicide.com/


PS, I've just checked, I've gotten over 1100 views! Thank you all so much, asdfghjkl. xx

Another week of adventures!

So this week has been very random if I say so! I'll tell you all about it sure!

On another note, I just saw that I have over 1000 views on my blog! This is just incredible! Thank you so much everyone. I really appreciate it. 

On Wednesday the Guidance Counsellors (they give you guidance about various things, like your career or if you're having problems) organised a trip to Trinity College and UCD for the whole of Transition Year. We visited Trinity first. We were brought into a lecture hall and watched a presentation about the various difference options should we decide to go to Trinity after the Leaving Cert. 

One of the PhD students then gave us a tour of the campus, being honest, it's actually kind of smaller than I expected! They aren't very big into their sports, just academics, as we could tell by their pitches. Their courses look excellent, but I just didn't like Trinity! It's just not my place to be. I have a theory on why I didn't like the college, (one in particular cannot be discussed on my blog in case some TCD students happen to read it, if you're from TCD, HELLO!) 

Afterwards we travelled to UCD. I know a few people who go there, my cousin and some of my brothers friends who are also my friends. As we were all simply starving, we first had lunch in the UCD canteen. They had a great selection and it caters to a diverse range of people and tastes. 

Everyone from my school took over a corner and all stuck together, the place was packed! After an hour of lunch, we were all rejuvenated and set out to a lecture hall to be shown a presentation on UCD.

We all filed in and I, being a Twitter addict, instantly connected to the UCD wi-fi, (I got a great connection if I do say so myself!) and sent a text to my friend Jess, who's studying Law in UCD. 

''OH MY GOD JESSIE I'M IN A LECTURE HALL IN UCD, are you around today?'' 

The presentation was great, they even handed out iPad's so we could all like the ''MyUCD'' page! It was really good for interaction and interest. They have such a great range of courses. The Student Union Ambassador's were so funny and kind too. One was even from the county  as us! 

Afterwards we were brought in groups of around ten to view the campus and have a nice look around. Out tour guide even attended our secondary school! It's such a small world. I loved the tour, Ciara was really funny and told it how it is. Sadly I won't post any of her comments, some may be offended! 

The trip lasted an hour and was a long walk. We visited nearly every building on campus and learnt about what happens in them. Some of the lecture halls were HUGE, like ''Oh my god if I fell from the top row and landed on the bottom would I still be alive?'' huge. 

Ciara the tour guide left us outside one the buildings with the rest of our school. We were chatting away about UCD and courses and someone comes up behind me ''Hey Aveen!'' I turned around and it was Jessie!! I squealed and hugged her, it's been ages since I've chatted to her. 

Turns out she was on the way to a law lecture at 3.30, it was 3.25 at this stage, so we said our goodbye'. Everyone in TY was like ''Ehh, how do you know someone in UCD?!'' Some obviously considered me a very shallow person to have friends in college, but as I explained she was in my brothers year in school and we played badminton together. That shut most of them up! 

On Friday, 25 of us went to Croke Park! (If you don't know what Croker is, then you clearly aren't Irish) for a ''Leaders on our Level'' event organised by Terenure College. 

It was actually quite good! Lots of people who had achieved something in their life, eg. successful business/ career or job. They came in to talk to us and give us advice and guidance for our future careers. They included: 
Bobby Kerr
Enda McNulty
Microsoft
Fr Peter McVerry
Anne Boden
Mark Pollock
Google them seriously, they are all such inspirational people. It was a truly great experience to hear them speaking about their past and present day. 

A 7 seater bike in UCD!

Croke Park <3

Rhea and I meeting The Gooch! 

Nadine meeting The Gooch

One side of the pitch

The other side of Croke Park (couldn't walk on it, it was being watered)

Thought I'd include this, this was taken at my Aunty's 60th birthday party last Sunday. The chocolate ones were simply delicious. 

This is from Home Ec, we calculated how many sugar cubes were in a bottle of Lucozade. 

My friend Maeve with the sugar cubes in a bottle of Strawberry milk. We kept saying ''Want a sugar cube?'' like Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games.

Here's my friend Maeve, check out her amazing blog at http://maevesfashion.blogspot.ie/ I took this photo in the UCD lecture hall. (If you look in the background you can see a Project Smilier hoodie!) Comment if you find it! 

Wow, that really was an interesting week, I hope you're not all exhausted reading it! Talk soon! 

Stay strong, fearless and happy, 

Aveen 

xxx

Some bad news.

As you may know from reading some of my previous blog posts, I'm part of a group called Project Smilier. :) 

Project Smilier was created under the Young Social Innovators programme. ''Believe in it. Act on it'' They encouraged young people to raise awareness of social issue's. We aimed to promote positive mental health and remove the stigma towards depression and other mental health illnesses. 

We achieved a lot since October. We met an author, Clair Swinburne, made a presentation on mental health at the launch of a local charity, had our YANA (You Are Never Alone) campaign, our Suicide Or Survive packs, we made various media appearances and so on. 

We were recently at the Speak Out and compiled our report on everything we achieved and planned for the future. We were in the Step-Up category, as we were a continuation of Project Smile. Project Smilier, get it? ;) 

Alas, we received feedback from YSI and discovered we didn't make it to the final, the Showcase. We are allowed to design a poster which will be in the exhibition and we're allowed to be at the Showcase, but, in the words of Danisnotonfire, IT'S NOT THE SAME. 

It's not the same as performing for three minutes in front of the judges on stage. The nerves, tension, heart racing, adrenaline rush that you feel in the days before hand. Rehearsing for weeks on end and still doing more to promote positive mental health. 

Our group, our brain-child, is gone. I feel as though someone I loved and known all my life has passed away. I feel numb. I'm hurt. When I heard we didn't get through, I cried for the entire afternoon. I couldn't/can't understand it. We worked so hard and achieved a lot for a Step-Up project. We even went to Gambia and Italy on school trips to promote positive mental health?! I'm so surprised and shocked. 

However, life is just like that I guess. You work hard and don't get what you wish for. Maybe that's the lesson I was meant to learn from Project Smilier, firstly, your mental health is so important, it's more precious than your physical health and should be well cared for. Second, you can work hard and not get the results, but that's life and there's nothing you can do. Just make the best out of the opportunity. 

To make myself reminisce and feel a little better, I'll post some photo's of our time as Project Smilier. We're still doing a few things in the coming weeks, (like being on the national airwaves on April 22nd!) and Cycle against Suicide. 

With Colm Hayes :)

With Jim Breen, organiser of Cycle against Suicide

With other Student Leaders of CASuicide

Colm jumping for joy

After our Speak Out performance

A photo received as part of our 'You Are Never Alone' campaign

You ''moustache''and write YANA on your wrist!

One of our posters

A quote we used in our Speak Out. 

Another photo sent in for our YANA campaign. 

Obviously I couldn't upload too many photos of the group, sorry!

Stay strong and fearless everyone, 

Don't worry, I felt a lot better after listening to The Script, Paramore, The Coronas and had some Ben and Jerry's! ;)

You Are Never Alone,

Aveen 

xx

More majestical adventures!

And now another blog in the series of My Life!

I love how excited I sound in that sentence. Not much has occurred this week. I went back to school after two weeks of Easter Holidays. To my surprise, I was actually delighted to see everyone! I was so hyper on Monday. At lunchtime I also got my Bruno Mars CD from Michael Dwyer for winning a competition on the local radio station, (thank you!) so I've spent the last couple of nights listening to the album. 

Nothing much happened for the rest of the week. On Tuesday I went to DTP (Desk Top Publishing) for the first time because of all the Project Smilier stuff I've been doing. It was fine though because the teacher is also my ECDL teacher. I made a calendar and put quotes, Converse, Vans and Danisnotonfire on it. It was beautiful!

On Wednesday we had a workshop to ''prepare us'' for Fifth Year. The only thing I can recall is how someone asked the question of how do you put the fig into the fig rolls. No, I'm joking, it was alright, we were taught different study methods, learning methods and also a new way of thinking. I've learnt a lot of that in Transition Year, I think so much differently than I thought last year. 

Today (Thursday) it was a pretty boring day. I had ECDL, then History. My teacher signed our credit sheets and she gave me 20/20 and a glowing report so I was thrilled. I was gone from the first class of German as I was helping another YSI group with their paired reading programme. Sarah and I came back to German and handed the teacher our credit sheets. My German teacher doesn't really like me, but he still gave me 17/20, one of the highest marks in the class, wooo!!!

Afterwards I had double PD, we watched a movie, ''Saving Private Ryan'' it has Tom Hanks as the lead and was filmed close to where I live. Tom Hanks even stayed in a hotel in town! So we were watching the movie and I got a text from my Mam and it said ''You have received a big envelope from Communication Unit, Houses of the Oireachtas'' For those not from Ireland, it's basically Parliament or the Senate!

I, being me, started squealing and texted back ''OH MY GOSH OPEN THAT AS QUICK AS YOU CAN ASDFGHJKL'' Turns out over 250 entries for the Seanad Eireann competition were received but I didn't make the top 45. They stil gave me a certificate so I was delighted. It's something to hang on my wall and bring to my end of TY interview!

So that's about it really! The YSI results are out tomorrow apparently so we're hoping Project Smilier gets through! I'm also visiting UCD and Trinity College on Wednesday so no classes that day! Happy Days for me!

My certificate from the Seanad! (Senate or Parliament for non-Irish readers!) With my name blacked out for obvious reasons! :)

Until next time, 

Stay Strong and Fearless,

Aveen x

Majestical Adventures

So today, Project Smilier went to RTÉ Radio Studio's to pre-record an interview for Cycle Against Suicide. We're helping them and the cyclists (the cycle is a 14 day trip all over Ireland) will stop at our school as one of the main stops. So seven of the group went up and we discovered that other schools from Dublin, Cavan, Galway and all over Ireland were there, in total there were over 30 Transition Year students running amok around RTÉ!

We were given a tour of the radio studios for 2fm, Radio 1 etc. Dave Fanning was live and we all went in and talked to him (My Dad was listening in and heard us!) We also saw Marian Finucane presenting live (her show is very serious so we weren't allowed in)

We watched some moving videos that will be shown throughout Ireland on the cycle. They nearly had us all in tears, it really hit home how serious an issue suicide is and how we have to break the cycle of suicide. We met another radio presenter, Colm Hayes who is taking part in the cycle. He loved our apple green hoodies we wore, Project Smilier stood out instantly!

Afterwards we were led to a large studio and began recording. There were 4 speakers, one in particular, Rob, has us in tears after his story. We were all emotional wrecks! Soon afterwards, we began a discussion (being recorded obviously!) about young people and our futures prospects, emigration and more.

Somehow, we got onto the subjects of cyber-bullying. Colm asked who has been cyber-bullied. I was sitting in the front row with my friend Maeve. I raised my hand. They pounced on me. Colm asked me about my experiences, and I recalled some incidents and things from First and Second Year, how I received abusive messages from people. I mentioned how I went to my parents and Year Head and it was all sorted.

I spoke of the fear. The fear I would be bullied again, it lurks like a bad smell. You're always scared it will happen again, I spoke of how I used to avoid the perpetrators. But, I'm scared. I'm scared I said too much on the radio.

I know I might be edited out, but that's highly unlikely as afterwards Colm went over to me and said well done for speaking out against cyber-bullying and they weren't expecting anyone to say anything. Subsequently we all spoke to him about our project, gave him one of our YANA wristbands and even got him to jump for joy!

We toured the Fair City set (It's tiny!) and some other television studios. We all left around 3, after being given RTÉ goodie bags and after having a photo taken with Colm in the studio he regularly presents from.

It was an excellent day and we really got Project Smilier out there. But I'm still afraid of what they'll edit me as saying. I saw a quote after the show that read, '' A wolf doesn't lost sleep over the opinion of sheep''  I think that basically sums it all up!

A photo of all of us with Colm Hayes (I'm the tall awkward girl on the far right with 'A.K' on the jumper)

Us in RTÉ Radio Offices sitting on someone's desk!

Colm ''jumping for joy!'' off the steps at the Radio Centre! 

Have fun reading, I really appreciate you all viewing my blog! Comment and follow me if you wish, it would make my day! :) 

Easter, Tumblr, YouTube, Scrapbooks etc..

Just thought I'd update you all on my life this week. 

So since I came back from London over a week ago, I've, in a nutshell, done nothing. I've slept until midday, watched The Walking Dead, read books and fangirled on Tumblr over Danisnotonfire, AmazingPhil, Divergent filming, Princess Theo, Mishapocalypse's, TFIOS, Ed Sheeran and THG. 

I've also discovered you can NEVER read Danisnotonfire fic's at 1am. The horrendous storylines, grammar and punctuation just give me nightmares. Also, Tumblr in general just gets me extremely giddy and hyper, not the best way to fall asleep.

So I'm typing all this madness, on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (listening to 'If I Die Young' by The Band Perry if anyone's interested) and looking up at Doctor Who on the television (The Bells of Saint John, watched it twice so far) 

I've also been doing my scrapbook for TY. It's a nightmare, you have to mention everything's that's happened in TY all year. I eventually got up to date, last week I was doing the NUI Maynooth page. I came 4th in the NUI Maynooth Mandate for a better Ireland competition in the cyber-bullying section. Only the top 3 were given awards, sob! I still was inspired by the speakers at the ceremony, Joan Burton TD and Legal Editor for the Irish Indepedent, Dearbhail McDonald. They were both excellent, and were so nice and kind. 

This afternoon I was starting my London page, so I've finally caught up! *Party time* I'm including all my Tube tickets, photos and even plane tickets (teachers love when you include all that sort of stuff in the scrapbook) 

On Easter Monday I was also entertaining children at my cousins birthday party, (he was one!, awwh!) the next day my aunt texted my Mam saying 'You should be so proud, Aveen will make a fantastic teacher'' because I kept all the children under control, happy and entertained for several hours. 

Hearing my aunt say that about me, made me feel so happy, it's nice to hear good things about me instead of the blatant lies and deceit I hear usually. It's nice to be appreciated. 


Sorry, I kind of disappeared, my neighbours visited, and left me an Easter egg?! GOOD TIMES :)