SUMMER ADVENTURES // back to school & lunch with friends

Last week I headed back in to my old school to give a little talk to some of the Sixth form about applying to university, UCAS and what to expect when attending university. I was joined by four other former pupils and we talked about our experiences and answered their numerous questions for almost two hours. It was really interesting actually because all of us have gone (are going) to really different universities, From Royal Holloway (myself) to Oxford and from Cardiff to Bangor so we all had different experiences from our first/second years at uni. Once we finished we went for a little tour around the school because so much has changed since we left less than a year ago. They have new buildings that are very fancy, the reception has changed along with the staff room and the canteen.

Most people hate their school dinners but there is something about them that you just can not dislike. They hold so many memories, they remind me of conversations I've had during lunch time, the laughs we've had and just the memory of school in general. With that being said we had to go and grab lunch in school before we left for home. We all had our school's legendary roast dinner - turkey. stuffing, gravy - the lot! We saw loads of our teachers and spent most of our time just having chats about what we've been up to since leaving school. It was so nice to see them - our teachers were so nice and sometimes I miss them because in Uni you are totally left to your own devices and don't really have that close relationship with your lecturers. Sometimes I do miss school but I'd never go back there.

Yesterday I went up in to town to have lunch with Ruth. We haven't seen each other in soooo long because she goes to Cardiff uni, I go to RoHo and we've been so busy with exams and stuff so it was so nice seeing her. We had a lovely meal and saw some more teachers from school as they were out in town for their lunch break. We sat there for ages just talking about things, catching up on life and talking about some possible awesome things we might be planning soon :) We then ventured out in to town and grabbed a Starbucks from the uni cafe. While walking back to our cars we passed the school so we decided to go in because Ruth hadn't seen some of the teachers in ages. After we visited some of our teachers we went our separate ways but I'll be seeing her soon later this week.

 

 

GO GO GO GETTIT

Yesterday was a strange day. A good, fun, but very strange day! Myself along with the other head prefect went in to school (now our old school!) to have a photo for the local newspapers. After the photo myself and Ruth went to see some teachers. Walking around school was strange! However, it was really nice to see some of our teachers before we left for uni! After our trip around school, we headed for lunch in town. We let our food settle for a bit and then we headed to the gym! I didn't really feel fresh in the gym yesterday as I've been out on the bike doing 20+ milers nearly everyday this week so . . . ! I arrived home but before I had a chance to sit down I was out on the road again to see the grandparents!

Walking around school yesterday reminded me that I hadn't posted the photos of our last official day of school back in June. So here they are!

CELEBRATE!

Yesterday I had my A-level results . . . and I'm going to Royal Holloway (nr. London) to study History! I had an A in History, A in Geography and a B in English. Woooooohooo. Now I can actually start to buy stuff such as sheets for my new room at university!  Also, all of my friends had the grades they wanted and got in to their university of choice, so double celebration! Before that though I'm off to V Festival in Stafford to watch bands such as the Killers, the Stone Roses and the good old 'Voice', Sir Tom Jones! As you can see I'm already packed and ready to go! See you when I get back! Lets festival it up!

IRELAND, IRELAND . . .

On Thursday myself along with 35 other pupils from school headed over the Irish sea on a rugby and hockey tour. We stayed in the Clarion hotel in Limerick for 3 nights and it was lush! On Friday morning at around 7:15am Carwen, Nicola and myself headed down to the gym for an early morning workout. After a shower and some lovely breakfast we headed over to a local school to play a game of hockey against them. We lost 2-1 but it was, in my opinion, by far one of the best games of hockey we have ever played! We looked very professional in our new hockey kits and everything! Lunch was then served in the school canteen and after a short but hilarious walk around the streets and shops of Limerick Carwen and I headed back to the hotel for a swim, sauna, steam room and Jacuzzi session! Nice! After all of that we had a four course meal in the hotel and ended the night with a picture with some of the munster players that were staying in our hotel i.e O'gara (what a turd.) and I shared a lift with Donncha O'callaghan!

Saturday after breakfast we headed out of Limerick to an adventure/team building place! At first I was like "I am not climbing up anything" but after putting on my harness and helmet I ended up being the first to climb the high ropes challange and even went up for a second time to have a gladiator match against Rhian! Then we went on to do the team building challange, which was rather hilarious! We ended up in the same group as the teachers and I'll just say I have some crakin' videos of the day! If that wasn't exhausting enough we then raced back to play another game of hockey against Limerick hockey club. This time we wom 2-0 no thanks to their ref! Jee-wiz she was an angry woman! Later that night we went to have supper at the University of Limerick and then headed to Thomond Park to watch Munster V's Leinster! Although Munster lost it was an amazing experience to be in the mist of such passionate fans and great players! Once we arrived back at the hotel we had to pack ready for our departure the next morning. Even though the teachers said we weren't aloud out of our rooms after 11pm, myself along with the rest of year 13 (6 of us) headed down to the bar and the teachers were fine with it (kindof). Whilst sitting there Nigel Owens (the referee) came to talk to us once he had arrived back after refereeing the Munster leinster match. He is such a lovely man and took time out to talk sit and talk to us for a while!

With everything packed and all the bags on the bus we had a group picture outside with the teachers and Nigel Owens. Whilst sitting on the bus waiting to leave the teachers pulled the mother of all April Fool's that involved a bill of 1000euro! On our way back to the ferry we stopped to watch the boys play rugby against a local school - they won by like 9 tries, all converted and a penalty against 2 unconverted tries! For the whole 60 minuites Myself, Rhian and Sophie ran around kicking and passing rugby balls like there was no tomorrow! Gosh I was tired by the end! The parents of the players made sandwiches and cakes for after the match and once we had eaten so much we could burst we headed for the ferry! Our ferry wasn't leaving 'till 9 and we arrived in Rosslare at around 7 so to pass the time Carwen, myself played tag rugby with some of the boys and did a lot of sudoku's! And i mean a lot! I didn't stop (with the help of Carwen!) that's all I did on the ferry really was lie down and work on sir's sudokus! We finaly arrived home at around half 2am! after laughing the whole way home from Fishguard! I'm sure people we annoyed with Carwen and I but I literally could not stop the giggles!

WHAT A GREAT TRIP!

Why hello there!

Over the last couple of days I have been sooooo busy. 

My exams are nearly over. I am incredibly nervous for the results already as an university place depends on it! So that's what I've been doing for like 5 hours every day is 

revising, revising, revising. If you've read my very firs posts you'd see that that is what

I've been doing for over a month now - just revising. It really does stress me out - big style. So to kind of release the huge bundles of anxiety and stress that build up inside me I take Hendrix for walks. So as you can imagine I have been going on so many walks recently it is unreal. It's weird really because it really does work - exercise calms you down. Even though I've known this for a while as when there are no exams, I have rugby training twice a week along with a game on Sundays as well as hockey training and games with my school and county. I know that all of this training helps me relax about my huge bundle of school work that just keeps increasing! So yeah I love exercising for the fitness, feel good factor, socializing, de-stressing and for competitive reasons. I think it's good to be involved in sports as well as school as it helps you to organize and prioritize. 

I'm sorry if I've bored you with my stressed out talk! 

So I'll get you up to date with recent going ons. 

Last Thursday (18/1/2012) I interviewed First Minister Carwyn Jones which was kinda' crazy! Let me just say I didn't interview him on my own I interviewed him as a part of the BBC School Report as I am one of four Editors in the project. It's cool really that he took time out of his, what I can only imagine is a 'busy schedule!' running a country to talk to us and be so patient. So, Diolch Mr. Jones! 

Monday I had my A-level English literature exam! I was (again) so nervous! My hand was literally trembling when I was opening the paper, but soon i settled down. By the time I finished (we had 2 1/2 hours) my hand was so sore! The exam was on Chaucer's 'The Wife of Bath' and Shakespeare's 'King Lear'! I hope I did well! 

Over the past couple of nights I've been on the laptop discovering new (to me) and awesome music which I'll update you on in another post with my top 10 songs of the moment! 

This is a picture of me and the Welsh rugby captain - Sam Warburton! Woohoo! 

Olympics 2012.

So I guess there are (at the time of writing) 

187 days in till the London Olympics of 2012.

Last October I went with my school 

as a part of my Geography A-level course to London

and to visit the olympic park

in the East End. 

Also on this trip we went and saw

The Lion King on the West End - AMAZING!

(Which by the by was quite a random thing

to be doing on a Geography trip! But I aint complaining!)

Before we came home we also ventured to 

the new Westfield shopping center in Stratford. 

It was huuuuuge - so huge we had 3 hours

to spend there and we only 

got round to visiting around 4/5 shops! Or maybe 

that was just us spending ages in Forever 21!

The report of our trip was featured in this month's 

school monthly news letter. 

Here it is. 

Outside our hotel - which had the most extraordinary view of the Tower Bridge!
I'm somewhere in the back right of this photo - I think you can see my hair!  

Just Chillin' by the Olympic Stadium!
From Left: Cerys, Me, Savannah, Nicola, Bethan, Ruth and Matthew. 

  X

Lights, Camera, action . . .

Yoooooo (:

So I'm back in school and my exams begin on thursday! Arghhhh! It's an English literature poetry and drama exam - 2 and a half hours of it! I'm actually looking forward to it in a way because as soon as I'm finished with my exams I can relax and I'm going on holiday!

Last week on friday morning I went up to town in order to do some filming for a welsh childrens news programme called Ffeil. I also did some filming with them at the beginning of the year because my friend - Carwen- is a platinum ambassador for sport in Ceredigion and they were interviewing her about the 2012 olympics.

Here are some pics {which i took off of of my TV} of the last time I was filmed for Ffeil with Carwen.