I was shown what to do on the floor with dishes, coffees, food etc. I met all the members of staff who were all very friendly and made me feel very comfortable working there. I started off by taking coffees to customers to the right tables, and cakes etc. I followed around one of the workers for some parts of the day named Lucy who showed me things to be done in the cafe and how to do them, she helped me take peoples orders by helping me what to say. 

As the day went on I started to get a lot less nervous there and was a lot more relaxed as I had an idea of what I needed to be doing. On my first day I was mainly just serving food and drinks and clearing and sanitising the table after people were done, but as I go on and do more days I was told I would get to learn more and more things like making coffees and taking more orders.

Towards the day Celeste told me about getting a summer job there and maybe work some days over some weekends once I get better working there which was great. Overall I really enjoy working there and I’m very happy I went there for my work experience as it’s a nice place to work☕️🤪

For the first trip in T.Y went on a bonding trip. We all arrived at Tullan strand at 9:00 and got into 4 groups which the surf instructors had picked (group A,B,C,D). We then went onto the beach in our wetsuits and the instructors showed us how to surf on the sand  or those who hadn’t surfed before, before we went into the water. We all carried the surf boards down to the water and went in, it was hard but u got the hang of it towards the end.

When we got out we went up to the top and had our break and got changed out of our wetsuits to go back down to the beach. Once we got down we played games on the beach, most of them were games in two groups where you had to work as a team to win. By either running, memorising pictures, racing to finish before the other team to win. There was also some games to get to know others, like a would u rather games.

We then went for our lunch and met back at the main beach Bundoran, we put back on wetsuits and went bodyboarding, we swam on the body boards over past the diving boards. We then went to the diving boards and jumped off the rocks and swam in the water. 

The rafting was the last thing in the day that we did, we went over to the Thrupenny pool and we’re put into 2 teams. We were given two plastic barrels, rope and planks of wood. In your team we had to try to build a raft that someone in the team could sit on and go across the water as fast as u could with your team pushing the raft. I was put on the raft in my team, we lost the race but won for the most creative and sturdiest raft. After that we walked up to the car park and we all got picked up at 6. 

Overall I think everyone really enjoyed the whole day, it also helped that we had a good day for it and the weather was nice. It was a nice experience for the whole year to have fun together in groups and it was a good laugh. I think it was good being put into groups by the instructors as we weren’t all put with our friends, I wasn’t with my friends but I still enjoyed it so much as it got me talking to people I wouldn’t talk to as much in the year. It was very fun and I would definitely like to do it again some time.🙃

We then led our way to the Rougey cliff walk  and walked all of it. We also saw some dolphins in the water during the rougey walk which Miss fox pointed out to us.

Once we got down to Tullan strand some of us were given oranges, with these oranges we were going to use them to see what direction the current in the water would drag the oranges and how far they would go in a minute.

 We then walked down to the water and split into two groups. We threw the oranges into the water but it turned out that it didn’t end up working. We then had to get the average wave frequency by counting the amount of waves that came between the two poles in a minute, we did this 3 times abs then got the average.Once we were done we all walked back and got to talk to our friends which was fun, Also we did get to take a few tik toks on the walk back to school 🍊🌊🏖 

On Thursday we went golfing in the great northern, at the start of the day we were all split into groups. I was in the first group, we walked down and got to the great northern, Mathew the instructor showed how to hold the golf club, how to stand and what to do when hitting the ball. 

We all got to get two practice runs in the group to get the feel for it as most of us hadn’t been golfing before, I was very bad at it and kept missing the ball when trying to hit it, But towards the end I started to get it.

 Once we had all done the practice run we played a game, in the game our group was split into two teams with three on each team. The game was that we had to try hit the golf ball between the two poles. Our team won!🏌️ It was a great day and it was a good experience as I hadn’t done it before😁

On Monday we did the selfie race game, we were given riddles that we had to figure out what place we had to go to. The aim of the talk was we had to race against the other teams to all the places and take selfies in each area which had to include every teammate as fast as we could.

 The whole year was divided into 6 groups, we started off figuring out the riddles and there were a total of 7. They took us first to Lidl, then dizzy's den, salty shel, the stone you look through on the promenade, seaweed baths at waterworld, a car park and the foxes lair. This took our team 21 minutes which meant we had won with the quickest time and correct riddles. We won two boxes of sweets and a bag of chocolate bars.

Then we got another selfie game where all teams went outside and had to try to create the most creative selfie which had to consist of all the teammates on each team. My team made a pyramid with all of us and took the selfie with the person on the bottom. They were both really fun games and I really enjoyed them.🥳

On Tuesday, Michelle bell came in to do a dance class with us. We were split into two groups, I was in the second group. We were brought into the hall and copied Michelle doing a warm up and stretching. We then learned how to do turns and split jumps by copying the dancers. 

We then copied Michelle and learned a dance to a song where we learn the dance moves. It was so fun and was one of my favourite things that we have done so far. I loved learning the dance and doing it with the whole class, it was so much fun 🤩 

On Tuesday we had a man come in from the lifeboat's safety, he talked to us about the job, how it’s voluntary and things he had to do as part of the job. There were questions we had to answer to win a lifeboat T-shirt with questions that actually taught me important things that I would need to know if I was ever drowning in the water such as floating etc, so it most definitely did teach me something.

He then asked us if we had ever saved someone in the water, the whole class then talked to him about personal situations where they or someone was in trouble at sea.

He seemed to really like his job as he explained he loved being able to save people. He then told us about some of his experiences while being part of the lifeboats, he told us he had had to lift a dead body before which is horrible.

Overall it really did teach me things I didn’t know about the water and what to do if you or someone else is endangered in the water, so the whole thing was very helpful and might help me someday🚤🏊🌊

About half way through the class we then started to go through the dance we had learned from the week before. Once everyone had remembered the dance, Michelle then started to teach us more to the dance.

By the end we had all learned a full second part to the dance we had learned the week before. Again this week it was such good fun and I really enjoyed learning the dance and all the rest.

At the end of the day we all went outside onto the pitch to play the games. One of my favourite games was a water balloon game, the aim of the game was that Mr. Riley called out 2 names as we surrounded the table with the bucket of water balloons. He called 2 names and they had to grab a water balloon and throw it at someone while everyone else ran away. It was very funny but I ended up being soaked.

Another good game was, we all got into a circle and Mr. Riley handed about 1 egg to 3 ppl in different parts of the circle. Then once he started a timer the eggs got passed around the circle clockwise and once the timer stopped the people that had the eggs in their hand had to crack them on their head. No one knew if they were raw or hard boiled. My hair was disgusting after the game but it was such fun. 

I had such a laugh playing these games, it really got everyone having fun messing around and I think everyone enjoyed it. I think it got everyone talking to different people as well which was good. 🎈🥚💦

 We had to somehow try to bring them down the big church hill which was such fun. We had to take their pulling hand truck with us to take down the pumpkins back to the school. It was sooo funny and we got so many stares which to be honest I’m not that surprised of. We got a few photos of it though which is good 😂

It was very funny and I think the boys set it up well, I was down to three lives on my first game. The first game we had to stack cups in a pyramid in 18 seconds, some people got it first but others like me had the cups falling everywhere😂.

Next was limbo which I got first go, after that my lives went very quickly. I will admit they weren’t that easy, there was a mix of some that were very hard and others that were a lot easier.

I think the boys did a great job at organising it it was definitely a really good part of the day and everyone had fun, they were very good games and it was organised very well by them.

On the last day before Halloween break we got to spend the last few classes of the day carving pumpkins. We all got to take a pumpkin and Miss. Higgins told us what to do. 

We started off looking up ideas on our phone on what design we could carve out on the pumpkin, then we had to empty the pumpkin to be able to start carving it.

It was good fun, we got to play music on the speakers whilst doing it. I enjoyed talking to everyone while doing it and I think everyone really enjoyed it as a last thing before Halloween, we all got to bring our pumpkins home.🎃 

We then did the same as the other weeks and went into groups copying the dancers with tricks they did and giving our best attempt at it. I find this the best part, its funny watching some of the boys trying to do all these turns and leaps copying the dancers.

This week Mr Reilly decided to join our dance class and did the activities with us which was funny watching him do it. 

Half way through we started to learn a new dance which was a lot easier then the one we had learned the past 2 weeks. It was a lot earlier as there were just a few things you had to do , which we then had to just repeat over and over again. I found this more fun just as we got more of a laugh out of everyone doing it with an easier dance. This week was definitely the best week so far it was very funny.