Positive Mental Health Week 2015

So, my school had its second annual Positive Mental Health Week this week, and it was awesome. Sadly, I missed two days of it because of the conference (Evolve Biomed), but here's what went down. 

Every morning, students were handed sweets on the way into school, and pens, tea and cakes were distributed during some classes (especially Maths). Each year also had various talks, which meant that I missed my Sciences double on Monday and Tuesday for Mental Health talks (not my favourite thing - I probably would've preferred Physics and Chemistry). Students also told really stupid jokes over the intercom, which I enjoyed. Stuff like:

Oxygen and Potassium went on a date together. It went OK. 

That joke has been on a poster in my school for ages now, but still. I love the effort. 

I missed Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, there was a Teacher vs. Teacher Lip Sync battle that the teachers took really seriously and was all top secret. Apparently it was amazing. My year voted for Head Girl nominees on Thursday. I'm glad Sarah Kieran got nominated, I plan to vote for her. 

Instead of just continuously painting white over the graffiti on the bathroom doors, art students painted really nice designs on them, like these:

On Friday, the school went all out. All it said on the schedule was "Fair Day for the whole school", and we know there'd be an ice-cream van selling cones for 70c, but that was about it. 

So that was today, and it was awesome.

In English and Maths, we were given tea and biscuits and just chatted, it was very relaxing. I was talking about how bad my eyes are and Grace gave me (not) the best compliment ever: "Elle, if I had no eyes, I'd take your eyes." Chemistry was our only actual class, where we made ethyne. Here's a video.

During Chemistry, we were burning our samples of ethyne and Laura (holding test tubes) said "I can't wait to set fire to all my little babies", so that was funny. 

After lunch, it was time for the Fair. I'd agreed to help out with the Chess Department and set up giant human-sized chess pieces on the chessboard courtyard. Unfortunately, Alex, Niamh, Safia and I (plus some helpers) went on a wild goose chase around the school and did not get the chess pieces. 

It was okay though. People still came over to the chess tables even though it was only small chess. We set up sprint chess, where you have to make a move, then sprint over to the clock and then back to make their next move. Now, at first I was reluctant because sprint chess involves two things I dislike: chess clocks and exercise (you should see how much I panic when the chess clocks are brought out. Not my thing). 

I taught some people how to play chess, and watched my little sister beat various teachers. Very proud. Also, her friend Niamh beat the school vice-principal. Go chess club!

I got ice-creams for myself, Moya and Niamh. I feel bad because I skipped the whole queue which I never do, but in fairness I thought it was the senior queue (you're allowed skip Juniors when they're in your queue) and had a job to do for chess. Shut down a cheeky first year. 

It was really sunny, and we had a nice time. 

A teacher did tai chi with some students, and though I won't post pictures for fear of expulsion, it was entertaining. 

Towards the end, I discovered the Karaoke Caravan and bounced around in there for a bit (excluded between a group of TYs and 6th years so that was a dampener, but oh well). 

Carnival games: 

I then went in and Laura started facepainting me, but didn't get to finish.

Positive Mental Health Week is a really great initiative and has only improved since last year, so congrats to Mr. Keenan and all the organisers. Dorkiness aside, I love my school.