Home Ec

Afew weeks ago, our home ec teacher assaigned a project to us.
In pairs, we had to pick a country which we were both interested in. I was put with Laura so i was happy :)
We picked Mexico for our country because we love Mexican food :D
As part of the assignment, we have to complete three traditional dishes from that counrty.
The first dish we prepared was traditional Mexican Chiken Enchilladas. They were delicious and everyone loved them! However, if we were to make them again, i would add more sauce and perhaps make more as we only got three each :)

For the second cookery class, we made a traditional mexican double chocolate cake. This didnt turn out as succesfull as the enchilladas. We didnt realise how long it took to cook the cake and up until ten minutes before lunch, every time we checked the cake in the oven, it was still soggy! Finaly we took it out of the oven and it was huge! The next disaster that happened was that we didnt have enough time to leave the cake to cool down before we put the icing on top and so it melted.
However, besides how messy it turned out in the end, it was still delicious :D
This week, me and laura decided to make tradtional Mexican Chiken Fajitas :) They are simple to prepare so we are hoping we will be able to make them right haha.
Our project is due on friday so we have also been working on our slideshow which we will present to our class. Our powerpoint is very colourfull and has lots of information about Mexico so hopefully Mrs Mc Ardle will like it :D

Desert Flower

"Desert Flower" is the title of a book by Warris Dirie, a Somalian woman.
It is a true story and is based around the fascinating childhood she had and the difficulties she had growing up.
The way in which Warris describes her life is heartbreaking and extremly upsetting. I would recomend the book to all girls in secondary schools and also to women in general as these are the people who can relate to Warris and can understand just how much pain she went through.

As part of TY, we decided to read an extract from Desert Flower as our teacher, Mrs Leahy recomended it.

There are many events that happen in Warris' life that make it fascinating however, there is one event that tops them all;

In Somalia, the belief is that there are "bad things" between a girls legs and that she is considered "dirty, oversexed and unmarriageable" unless those parts are removed. A special ritual happens to a girl when she is about ten years old in which these "bad things" are removed by a local gypsy woman. The wound is stiched up leaving a tiny opening and a scar.

This part of the story is extremly upsetting and disturbing and made me feel very sad. It was awfull to think that this still happens to little girls in Somalia today. I don't believe it is right to perform such a ritual.

My favourite part of the extract we read in school is when Warris runs away and finds a tree to sleep under miles away from home. She wakes up to find a huge, hungry lion staring her in the eyes. He licks his lips which shows how hungry he is however, Warris stays still. Eventually the lion faces the fact that she is two small to fill him up. He slowly turns around and walks away. I believe this is a beautifull and extrmely meaningfull part of her life as it suggests that God had a mission for her to do and thats why she survived.

After all the terrible, heartbreaking things that happened to Warris Dieri, her life finaly began to turn around when she moved to england and made a friend who stood by her and wathced over her. One day a famous photographer spotted her and was amazed by her profile and beauty. He gave her his card and told her to call him. After a few weeks, she arranges an appointement with him. She gets beautiful photos taken and this is the start of her new life.
After reading this beatiful biography, i have became more aware of how unfairly women in our world are still treated today and it has made me think lots about how lucky i am. I give my full respect to this fascinating women for what she went through.

She has started her journey of changing the world and making it a better place for women and i stand by her on this desicion.

She truly is, an amazing woman.

Briary Gap Drama Competition

So the day finaly came when we were to perform our very own play infront of a judge on a big stage in a theatre. We were all so nervous but very excited!

I am in the group that performed "Time of Your Life". There are about ten people in our group and together, over weeks and weeks of script writing, acting and choreographing, managed to pull off a great show.

We were told abput the Briary Gap Drama Competition about two months before christmas and we got to work straight away. First of all we were realy interested in a commedy act but soon discovered that it would not work :L

Next we decided to go the route of "over the top" drama. We wanted to impress the judge with a tragedy that would have an impact on her and the audience.

We knew a death would be hard to pull off but we decided to keep our heads down and realy focus on getting it effective.

First of all we needed a script.
We came up with the idea of a girl who just started college and is finding it hard to make friends and settle in. Our play was to focus around the difficulties in her life and how she trys to overcome them... if she does.
We named our main character Sophia.

When we had developed all our characters, we decided on who worked best in each role.

We decided Zoe, would play John, Sophias boyfriend who gradualy becaomes dominant over her ending in tragedy, and i was to play Sophia.
Ciara played James, one of Johns friends who flirts with Shophia.
Fiona, Laura, Grace and Jessica play friends of the main characters.
Daniel and Sarah would play Sophias parents
and finaly, Kellie was to play a college lecturer.
Rachel was our backstage/prop/scene chamger and Elaine and Aoife were in charge of music and lights :).

After weeks and weeks of practice and preparation, the day finaly came when we were off to Mullengar :D We were all very excited. We knew our lines back to front and everyone had great outfits :) We arrived in the school at 8:45 and were on the way by 9:10. The journey was realy fun because Rachel had a camera and she was taking lots of pictures and videos :)
It took us about an hour to get there.

Finaly we arrived and started to get ready to perform. We got changed and put on our makeup. The girls who were playing male roles painted on realy good beards and made them look like boys :L ha.

Before the competition, we got a chance to go onstage and practice. However, we quickly realised we were talking way to low for anyone to hear us. It was a challenge for us to raise our voices without shouting however we got it right in the end :)

The judge was realy nice. She was an experienced theatre acctress and was very profesional. She gave us tips before we performed our drama for her.

Soon, it was our turn to go onstage. Now we began to feel the nerves. However as soon as the schoolbell rang and we were to walk onstage in a college scene, all our nerves seemed to dissapear and we performed realy well :)

The last scene of our play is the most tragic and effective and the judge told us we did it realy well. The scene is set in Johns appartment. Sophia and John have a fight over a different guy and John eventually looses his temper.

Not realising what hes doing, he strangles Sophia and she slowly falls to the ground. In the background we played Rhianahs song "Love the way you Lie" because we thought it tied in very well with the scene and the overall message of the play. John soon realises what he did and regrets it straight away. He bends over and kisses her forehead as the music gets louder. It is filled with saddness and the play finaly ends as her parents find her dead and cry over her body.
Believe it or not, it was the first time we performed that scene without laughter :)
When we finished performing, the judge asked us to sit down and she went up on stage. She had nothing bad to say about us and was very impressed by the level of acting skills within the play :)

After St.Wolstans had finished all the performances, we got to leave the theatre and go to find somewhere to eat in Mullengar. I went with Jessica and Rachel. We found a small cafe that looked lovley. We went in and ordered lovely wraps and sandwhiches. After a few minutes, Ailbhe, Leah, Micheal and Jessica M, walked in and so we all sat around one big table and ate lunch together. It was realy nice to sit with them and talk because we never usualy have lunch together :)

After an hour, we went back to the theatre where we took our seats in the audience and got to watch two plays from a school in Donnegal and two other plays from a different school. I found that the two plays from Donnegal were realy well performed. I also loved listening to their accents haha.

Over all, our trip to Mullengar was realy successful and i enjoyed every minute of it :) We havent found out yet if we got through to the next round or not but i really hope we did :)

Katie :P X x X