Yearly Review

This is the fourth and final installment in a reflective series on this blog leading up to the New Year.

28/12/14 - My Faults
29/12/14 - My Strengths
30/12/14 - New Year's Resolutions
31/12/14 - Yearly Review

I'm going to do this in chronological order, because I need somewhere to start.

Source

January

I spent the first seven days of 2014 finishing off that year's Young Scientist project, and then spent the 8th to the 11th exhibiting at the RDS. I got a Highly Commended ribbon and my friend Anna won the whole Biology section, so that was cool. I also met a bunch of friends up there.

 It was a stressful but pretty incredible experience, and so I immediately started working on my 2015 project. I read buckets of research papers in January and February trying to get acquainted with my topic, and I'm glad because that work really paid off later on. 

In late January, the Mullingar regional semifinals of Briery Gap happened. Briery Gap is an annual light entertainment competition that the TYs enter, and our entry was called The Evolution of Music. We all performed as one famous musician from each decade (50s - 2010s). I was Madonna. It was so much fun. Oh, and we got through to the finals! 

February

If I recall correctly, I broke up with Cahal at the start of this month.

I did a lot of work experience in February - three weeks, actually.

I did one week in The Irish Times (big national newspaper) from the 10th to the 14th, which was awesome. Because it's such a big place we didn't really get to do any work of consequence, but we got shown around all the departments and had a lot of fun. We got to doorstep Ruairí Quinn. There were nine of us there that week but I only really talked to one guy - Cian. At lunchtime we sat off in a separate table and he talked about poetry and philosophy and how money is a flawed system. It was all very romantic. And by the end of that week, I had a huge crush on him. Pity he lives in Galway. I thought that was the last I'd ever see of him.

During the Irish Times work experience I pulled a big navigational faux pas by taking the wrong bus and going an hour in the wrong direction. I was an hour and a half late for "work" and completely soaked. Around this time I was also teaching my brother (who was in first class) how to multiply. He loved it. I should start doing that again.

I then did two weeks of work experience in a local analytical chemistry lab, Fitz Scientific. I can't be sure, but I think it was from the 17th to the 28th. I really enjoyed working there, because while it wasn't as glamorous as the Irish Times, I got to actually do stuff - dilutions, colorimetry, stocking shelves (has to be done), locating samples, pH tests, precise measurements, etc. It was really good basic lab training and it's stood to me.

I did miss two days of the Fitz Scientific work experience: one for a different work experience, and one for Briery Gap.

On the Thursday I went to Trinity College to do a one-day work experience in Astrophysics. It was alright, got to have a lecture in Schrodinger's Theatrre, make a fake comet and do a sunspots activity. I remember meeting some nice girls there but unfortunately lost their numbers so will probably never see them again.

On Friday myself and the Briery Gap girls went down to Cork to perform our show again. I'm proud to say that we came 3rd in the whole country and our Mad Scientist Aoife Dunne won Best Individual. The bus journey up and back took like eight hours and I had DMCs with some unexpected people at 3am while everyone else was asleep. Amazing.

I look a bit more normal here. I'm in the front, second from the right. You can see Niamh and Jayne holding prizes.

I wrote up a proposal and sent it to Trinity College and Intel asking for lab space for my Young Scientist project. I had a Materials List and Budget drawn up as well, and Fitz gave me some chemicals I needed. 

March

According to Facebook, nothing of note happened to me in March. I did start working for Stein Study as a Rep, though, which gave me €20 a month for liking and sharing all their posts on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and trying to convince people to sign up to them. I resented the way it clogged up my newsfeed. And I really disliked the fortnightly updates I had to send because it felt like I was laying myself at their mercy. I'm not good at working for other people.

I did a synchronised reveal for Kim Curran's Control after her publicist Caroline contacted me about it. It felt quite special. 

I failed to qualify for the national round of the Linguistics Olympiad.

In mid-March I made the shortlist for the Drogheda Young Innovators competition and was invited to a conference at which the boy who came second in the 2014 BTYS spoke. It was cool. 

I also did the Coca-Cola debates. We lost, but I was still sassy as hell up there and it was fun. The topic was awfully weighted against us, though - an all-girls school and we had to argue that it's no longer a man's world and that sexism is a thing of the past.

Myself and Anna went to DKIT this month to get medals for our involvement in the Young Scientist and then talk to kids about our project. Don't really know why, but it was pretty cool. The co-founder of the YS, Tony Scott, came to talk. 

On the 20th of March, we went to an army barracks near Dublin which was pretty cool. 

Look, it was lashing.

We spent three weeks in March working on our Mock Trials thing. I was originally solicitor/Team Leader but after I missed one day I was dramatically banished. I was completely distraught. However, I then went on to enter in the individual category, as a journalist. And this is really petty, but:

We went up to the Courts (early April) and I was the only one to win anything! I came third in Ireland for my article after they kicked me off the team. Revenge is sweet.

Around this time, a girl in my class won a nationwide journalism contest and I was so angry because, though I wrote it, I missed the deadline to send in my entry. She got so much publicity and ... Yep, I was really jealous because I knew I could have won it. Guess that teaches me a lesson.

April

The Mock Trials in the Criminal Justice Courts kicked this month off. It was a pretty cool experience, and winning was nice.

Yearbook had been steadily heating up over the past few months and now, with two months left in the school year, it was frenzied. People quit, got kicked out, joined up, brought pizza, started fights, ended friendships ... It was a very chaotic part of TY. 

In mid-April, Prof. Georg Duesberg emailed me back and said I could meet him to discuss the project and possible lab space. I was elated, but terrified. However, he was away on holiday so I didn't actually meet him until much later on.

My sister's birthday was on the 18th and my best friend's on the 20th. That was nice. The pictures are awful though. Like so:





Cliodhna looks lovely though.

Towards the end of April I joined a new literary magazine for teens, In It For The Long Scrawl. It's kind of faltered now, but I'm not sure I agree with its tagline - Serious Teens. Serious Writing. It seems awfully pretentious, and I hate when people act like writing is sacred. It's fun, but it's only human. 

The Yearbook went to print at the end of April/start of May. Phew. 

Derek Landy also replied to me a few times, woo!

May

In early May, there was the Drogheda Young Innovators competition. I just entered my Young Scientist project (the gift that just keeps giving) and won Individual Science. I got €50 and some vouchers. It was nice. Smiling for all the photos got sore after a while. I'm glad it gave me a lot of practice in speaking about my project though, because that came in handy in June.

I met Prof. Duesberg and Nina, and then a little while afterwards met Sinéad. 

My sister came 5th in the All-Ireland under-18s Chess Championships - proud.

On 22nd May, we graduated from TY. It was a hell of a year. A very gay one too. Literally.

On May 31st I submitted an article to Listverse for the first time and get rejected. Many rejections followed. I also tried to join a hell of a lot of content mills but usually couldn't because I'm not American or over 18. I'm glad now, Listverse and TopTenz are a lot better. I also submitted to Cracked.com but got rejected. 

June

June was huge. I went up to Trinity a lot (as I did in the months before and after). Morgan (friend from primary school) found this picture of us when we were like 10. It's so adorable. 

On the 15th of June, I got my very first freelance article accepted. It was "Top Ten Historically Important Notebooks", and TopTenz.net gave me $50 for it. I was so thrilled that I went out and bounced on the trampoline. That whole week was pretty incredible, actually.

On the Thursday I worked on presenting my project, and then on the Friday I went to Belfast for the Sentinus Young Innovators Competition (basically the N.I. Young Scientist). The project was the same but I'd gotten a hell of a lot better at communicating it, because I got 11 judges rather than 3 at the YS. I won the 2nd prize overall plus the Queen's University Award for Mathematics, and Anna won first prize overall and will be going to America in May to represent Ireland. Our teacher also won the Educator of Excellence Award and will be going to America too. I was meant to be going to England to represent Ireland but sadly can't as I'm not an N.I. citizen. It was a huge success for the school, going there and taking the three top prizes and another besides that.

Yes, I know I look insane. But look at the pretty trophies rather than my hair.

July

I joined Codecademy, sold two more articles to TopTenz and one to Listverse (!!!). But the most important part of July was my beloved CTYI, and there's a whole post about that here which you should definitely check out. I was still going to Trinity every week this whole time. It was fairly hard to co-ordinate.

But you'll never guess who I saw sitting in the CTYI canteen - that guy I'd had a crush on in February in the Irish Times. I could not believe my luck, it was like something from a book. I got an even bigger crush on him during CTYI and he turned me down. Oopsie. But anyway, I had an amazing time with my friends, and I love and miss them all so much.

August

August was sad, because CTYI was over and I missed it so incredibly badly. I couldn't write that whole month. My best friend there this year lives in Cork, my crush in Galway - even the closest ones lived an hour away in Dublin. Myself and Cian started dating, the family went on holiday in Donegal, we met Dad's girlfriend. 

My 16th birthday was on the 11th so on the 9th my friends Morgan, Ciarán and John Joe came down to help me celebrate. We had a lovely relaxed party in my garden and got our faces painted. Then on the 11th I went to see Cian in Dublin and Jerry, Ciarán and John Joe came. It was wonderful. Ciarán and I held hands in the morning and I thought we would go out, but then that afternoon Cian gave this dramatic speech and told me he was in love with me. I was too easily swayed and went with Cian. I regret that now, because I hurt Ciarán's feelings and ruined the prospects.

That was the best day.













I also started using Duolingo as my French was rusty, which was a great decision.

Oh, and I started this blog.


September

This month, I got back to writing my 1000 words a day. I also went back to school, and found 5th Year pretty damn overwhelming. I went up to Dublin a few times but really nothing much that month.

Oh, but I did find out I'd qualified for the National Finals of the Science Olympiad. So I started studying Biology like crazy.

And I was still working on the Young Scientist project, and feeling under pressure.

Very photogenic, I know.

October

Working on Young Scientist and studying Biology for the Science Olympiad.

I got another article published on Listverse.

My school Open Night happened, the last one I'll be around for. It was poignant and lovely, and filled me with school spirit.

I also joined the school Chess club. I was bad at it then, I'm still pretty bad at it now. But I quite like it. I started to enjoy Physics and settled into school.

November

The Science Olympiad was on the 1st. I didn't qualify for the International team, but I'm proud of how I did because I got a huge amount of the questions and at least it motivated me to study Biology. Oh, and I saw Jack, Gráinne and Andrew up there.

I went on a week of work experience up in AMBER. It was meant for TYs but as I was up there working on Young Scientist they invited me to come along. My favourite part was going to St. James' Hospital where they have a nanotech research lab in the basement, where I met AJ who's a translational neuroscientist and is pretty awesome. I also had a lot of fun with PJ (a CAT who I'd never spoken much to before) that week, we got on like a house on fire pretty much immediately. People alternately thought we were siblings and shipped us. Incidentally, hospitals have a lot of cool things in their basements. Blackrock Clinic has a particle accelerator. We also went to the Tissue Engineering lab in RCSI, which was cool.

I finally completed a Codecademy course (HTML & CSS), which I'm pretty proud of even though it's an easier course. Maybe I'll get up the nerve to try Javascript again at some point.

Cian and I broke up somewhere around now, I think. Or maybe it was October, I can't remember.

In good news, I won the local heats of the Soroptimists Public Speaking competition, and advance to the Regional Semifinals in Athlone in February. Woo!

Saw friends in Dublin too.

Also, my book blog passed 10,000 total views and I won NaNoWriMo.

And I was extremely stressed about Young Scientist.

December

Three words: Young Scientist stress.

I started updating this blog daily, and found it's doable. Really heavy emphasis on Young Scientist this month though. I finished this year's novel, so I don't have to think about that for months.

And now we're here. Today itself has been pretty shitty, but I'm sure things will turn up.

Happy New Year! 

Christmas Book Haul 2014!

This Christmas I got six books (and let's face it, I'm going to "borrow" some of my brothers' ones, because they have tons. The 7-year-old got like 17 from Santa.) At the moment I'm "borrowing" The Knife of Never Letting Go from my 7-year-old brother. Anyway.

Here's what I got from Mam. Just one book and it's historical fiction which I don't usually read, but sure I'll give it a go. My sister got me a gorgeous notebook too, and I LOVE notebooks. 

This is everything I got from my Dad. It pretty much exactly matches what I asked for, which is predictable but cool.

I also have the books I bought secondhand a while ago (already blogged about), plus my brothers', which include The Knife of Never Letting Go, Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (think I've read it before, but it's worth another re-read, it's pretty funny) and the entire Series of Unfortunate Events. I probably won't be reading that last one, but when you add in the review books I have (if they ever download properly), I'll have tons to read over Christmas. 

I've been waiting for this book FOREVER. Well, okay, since late August, but whatever. I'm on page 51 right now and apprehensive to see how the series will end. It's not encouraging that the cover has the protagonist's skull on a bonfire, but hopefully it's just Derek messing with us. 



This is the final book in Dan Wells' Partials trilogy (you can read my reviews of the first two, Partials and Fragments here and here). It's been so long since I read Fragments and unfortunately I got it as an e-ARC so I can't reread it, but hopefully going back over the reviews will help. Anyway, I adored Fragments so I'm looking forward to this.

Another sequel to a book I adored (and reviewed), this is the second book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. It's lucky I have Christmas and people to buy gifts for me, because otherwise I'd never bother to buy sequels. Anyway, this has phenomenal writing, stunning twists and an original plot, and I can't wait to get back to it.



Finally, the start of a series rather than a sequel! I've wanted this since I read a review by Aylee, and I finally have it. The plot seems compelling, and I really should read some hard sci-fi if I profess to be such a sci-fi fan. 



Honesty time: I got this because of the film that came out recently, because I didn't really know it existed before. I saw a Tumblr gifset of her boyfriend talking to her and it was just so adorable ... I'm only human, okay? I did find a pirated copy on the internet accidentally (I swear) but it's all good because it's been properly paid for now and I only read a couple of pages. I really dislike the apparent spoiler in the TITLE of the second book (Where She Went). I mean, honestly. Don't ruin it in the title. 



The book Mam got me is historical fiction about Lady Elizabeth, Henry VIII's daughter. It's not top of my priority list, but here's hoping it'll be an unexpected gem. 

I "borrowed" my brother's The Knife of Never Letting Go (don't worry, he's fine with it). I'll be honest, it's not really my thing so far. I can't stand phonetic spelling (at least there's only a little - it was AWFUL with Blood Red Road, I couldn't finish that one). But I'm two chapters in and I'll read it after Skulduggery Pleasant: TDOTL, if just because of all the rave reviews. 

Have any of you read these? Feel free to comment below with your Christmas book hauls

I did it! 100-4-100 complete

For the past 100 days, I've been in a challenge over at the Go Teen Writers blog where you write 100 words every day for 100 days (with one day off per week, and one week off per challenge).

I just completed it today (23/12/14) and thought I'd share my thoughts. Unfortunately, don't have time for a long entry (Young Scientist write-up frenzy), but still.

• Was it a good experience?

It's nice to know that I managed it (and did another writing challenge in the middle, NaNoWriMo), but I wouldn't do it again. I normally have a pretty stringent 1000-words-a-day rule, but I felt trapped by having to do the 100 words every day, so much so that I feared stopping more than I should have.

• What are the pros and cons of the challenge?

Pros: sense of camaraderie amongst the Go Teen Writers community was strengthened, bragging rights (though only to a small group of people who'll care), made progress in the novel on days when I didn't feel like it.

Cons: sense of obligation, added to daily to-do list, had to keep it in the back of my mind all the time.

• Narcissistic question: what does this say about me?

I am the queen of FOMO (fear of missing out). Honestly, I knew how much I had on and yet I still took this up. I am unable to resist a challenge. 

Some mixed feelings, yeah, but I'm glad I gave it a go and succeeded. I wanted to do it at least once and now I have.

December Update

 Oh well. I have more topic posts forthcoming, but here's a little catch-up since I won't be doing a monthly review at the end of December, I'll be doing a yearly review.

I finished that novel

In my Deadline Drag post I said I'd finish it within two days, but I actually finished it the day I posted that. Not saying that's particularly impressive, but the ending was a lot shorter than expected - 100 words rather than 1000. It's fine, I think; the novel was getting stale dragging on so long, and I'm glad I don't have to worry about it for six weeks now. I am still in the 100-4-100 challenge, though, so I've started another novel. This one is just in the planning stages though - thankfully, the 100-4-100 counts outlining as part of your 100 words a day. I am really awful at keeping up my wordcount spreadsheet, but I've managed to keep a reasonable handle on it so far.

Hang on, I just realised the challenge finishes tomorrow, the 23rd (or today, since it'll be posted then). Hell yeah.

Young Scientist season is well underway

I was in yesterday, I'll be in tomorrow, and I have a ton of stuff to do today at home. It is weird though; last year we were in pretty much every day over Christmas, but this year it's way more relaxed. I get the feeling a certain teacher will snap/freak out soon, and I'm aiming to have as much of the write-up done as possible before that happens to shield myself. 

Sadly, there is essentially nothing else going on. It's three days til Christmas, I have an article due for TopTenz soon and I've started work on that new novel to keep me in the 100-4-100. Honestly, Young Scientist is just taking up the whole month. Ah well. Hopefully it'll be worth it.

Some nice Twitter conversations to round off the post: my current favourite author (apart from JKR) replied to me several times.

Yeah, I'm fangirling. What of it?

This was extra-cool because her book's been reviewed in approximately ALL the high-profile outlets. 

Love you, Derek.

Review: Foster by Claire Keegan

A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. In the strangers’ house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. And then a secret is revealed and suddenly, she realizes how fragile her idyll is.

Publisher: Faber & Faber
Pages: 89
Rating: 2 Stars
Source: Borrowed

Given to me by my English teacher, on the recommendation that it won some book prize worth 100,000 euro or something. The rating is especially subjective with this one.

In Short: A prizewinner that I just didn't 'get'. At least, I assume so.

thoughts:

There isn't an awful lot to say. Foster is written from the POV of  a child, so Keegan has an excuse to do that thing literary writers love to do, as in write in a painfully innocent, astute way. I do it too, sometimes. But I'm convinced no kid is actually like that, it just looks impressive in a novel (and reads beautifully, yes). 

Keegan is very good at painting pictures using few words (and she'd want to be - the book is under 100 pages). She also captures rural Irish accents very well, though they're really rural, i.e. "bogger" accents, and I'm afraid outsiders (mainly Americans) will think all Irish people speak like that. I like the sense of love she communicates between the Kinsellas and the child (who is never named, as far as I can remember). You do see the relationship dynamics clearly, and the author chooses her words well (unlike me).

The low rating is because I just didn't get it. There's something that happens in the middle that sounds like it'll start an adventure, or at least be a mystery to solve, but it's never mentioned again. There is no exciting plot, it's all just nicely-described mundanity. The ending is far too ambiguous for my tastes, and I left feeling unsatisfied.

I also felt misled by the blurb; the "secret" isn't that big, and certainly doesn't threaten her "fragile idyll". With the great description and use of language, I can see why English teachers would love it, but it didn't engage me in the slightest.

Another example of literary novels not being for me.

I'll probably reread it at some point; hopefully I'll see more then. 

Fifty Day Streak on Duolingo

So today I reached a fifty day streak on Duolingo! I've been using it to learn French since the end of August, when I realised that the three months of summer had rusted my French skills. I've had a couple of good streaks so far; a 30-day one was my best before this, I think. I discovered Duolingo through Tumblr, so I guess the timewasting was good for something. 

In recognition of this momentous (okay, only for me) event, here are some things I like about Duolingo.

1. It's Fun

Being on the Internet and not something students are forced to use, Duolingo is smart to make its user interface friendly. The whole site is decked out in vibrant primary colours, with a bird mascot and pleasant sounds when you get a question right. In short, it's designed to make learning French as fun as possible, and it succeeds as nothing else I've seen does.

2. Its Reward Scheme

I don't know if this is the right name for it, but see the ticked fire icon in the picture at the top? Seeing that tick and hearing the triumphant sound when you do another day/finish a lesson respectively brings an endorphin rush. They say something on the website about how it's been engineered to work so seamlessly, and I believe it.

3. Lesson Structure

Oh God, I sound like a teacher now. That's what Duolingo manages to avoid doing. This links in with #1, but instead of normal French (i.e. memorizing phrases and looking at long boring tables of verbs), you learn by being asked to translate things. You can hover over words you don't know to have them translated for you, but usually you can guess because it gradually builds. I personally always learn better by testing, but I think this is at least more engaging than normal language-learning for everyone.

4. Lets You Choose Skill Level

By the time I started Duolingo, I'd been learning French for four years. So if it had forced me to start from the beginning and work all the way up to my current skill level, I wouldn't have had the patience and would have quit. But it let me take a test at the beginning, like a streaming test. 

5. It's Free!

Knowing how great it is, I couldn't believe this. Duolingo is totally, 100% free. Translations and lessons are drawn up by volunteer bilinguals, and the only ulterior motive Duolingo has is that one choice for exercises is translating Wikipedia pages from your native language to your chosen language. Everybody wins.

There are some qualifiers: Duolingo primarily teaches you to read and listen to French, so your oral skills aren't as improved (you can choose to have oral skills tested, but this doesn't work well unless you have a good computer microphone, so I opted out of that). Also, it is still language-learning, so you have to come back to it often (preferably every day), even if you just do one lesson a day.

I 100% recommend it. Give it a try.

Town with Lauren

Lauren, a friend from school, invited me to go into town with her yesterday and - glad to have some semblance of a social life for once - I went. We'd planned to go shopping, but come on. We pretty much just went to bookshops. I love nerdy friends.

We went to Waterstones and then three or four second-hand bookshops. Honestly, second-hand shops are incredible. Lauren showed me one I'd never seen before where they had children's books for 50c, paperbacks for €1 and hardbacks for €2, and it's for charity! We stayed in that shop for at least an hour and played the Fifty Shades game (open 50 Shades of Grey on a random page and read out the first line you see). It was pretty funny, and a bonding experience.

Eventually I bought three books: Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie, The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult and the first Series of Unfortunate Events book for my little brothers' Christmas present. I'll get them the other ones they're missing if I get a chance to go in again before Christmas.

Sadly I was too lazy to actually take a picture of the physical books. New heights of laziness here.

S


In another second-hand shop I got a Legally Blonde DVD for my class Secret Santa. I've never spoken to the girl, but Legally Blonde seems pretty good so hopefully it'll go down well. Lauren bought some clothes and we went home.

I guess I just really liked it because (a) being asked into town was nice (b) it was a really awesome bonding experience (c) we didn't talk even in four years of being in the same school and this is an awesome friendship that's developing.

Also, she shares my boy preferences. Tall and nerdy.