Ms. Muldoon

     Ms. Muldoon has been my English teacher for two years. For those two years I hated her.
     She had a seating plan for as long as we had her, meaning I never sat with Ruska. It wasn't that bad though because I was sitting beside a cool girl called Niamh, who I always talked with in English.
     Now, Ms. Muldoon is a really bad English teacher. English is meant to be creative however, she doesn't let us be creative with our answers. She gives us sample answers we have to learn and when correcting our work she changes what we want to say.
     Also, she has a tendency of repeating herself and cutting into people's sentences. For example, she would ask someone to read something and then would cut in and start talking while they're reading.
     Another thing, she is almost always late for class. Now, I'm not complaining but she shouldn't give out to us for being late when she is usually like ten minutes late. Once, she was half an hour late and class lasts forty minutes.
     Furthermore, she takes very long with correcting our work. We get work to do over night and she gives it back after like two weeks. Near the end of third year she was giving us back work from second year. She is very unorganized and quite forgetful.
     I could go on but I don't feel like ranting (I'll leave that for Ruska).
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Your master, Weronika


     I like Ms Muldoon, I know she can't teach but I like her. She can be annoying, never letting me and Weronika sit beside each other and yes, she does limit our creativeness in class but as long as you go into the exam thinking 'she's never going to see this, I can write what I want' you'll be grand. She really likes W.B. Yeats, I find his stuff a bit dull. I don't even know why I like her, I could list all the bad things about her but I wouldn't be able to say what's good about her. Now the homework thing, that bugs me. We get given a two page essay to do in one or two nights, we expected back a few days later, we won't get it back for at least a month. I gave her a long poetry answer in mid April, I still don't have it back. I like the fact that she's never on time, its like a little catch up session for me and Weronika. The cutting through other people talk would annoy me if I hadn't learnt to ignore it because there are members of my family, who will remain unnamed, that do that quite a bit. That's basically my comments on what Weronika wrote, she didn't affect my school life all that much after all.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Pump Up the Volume

     I think that 'Pump Up the Volume' is my favourite Christian Slater film. In it he plays an angsty teen, Mark Hunter, who is a bit of a loner and starts his own pirate radio show under the name 'Happy Harry Hard-On' where he basically confronts his ridiculously corrupt school and starts a bit of a rebellion against it. Of course there's a nice little love story fit in there. It's a really good movie and if you don't mind getting 'Everybody Knows' stuck in your head for a few days you should definitely watch it. Actually I don't care if you don't want it stuck in your head. GO WATCH IT. IT IS AMAZING.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Star Trek Into Darkness

       I went to the cinema to see the new Star Trek movie with my dad, he was really excited cos he's a bit of a Trekkie but I was a bit dubious as to how good a sequel could be. I mean name one decent sequel other than Back to the Future II & III. We went one Thursday straight from school so I was still in my uniform and really bloody hungry. The film itself was amazing, I haven't been so into a movie since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2) came out.  Benedict Cumberbatch makes a really wonderful villain, best villain I've seen for a long time (I'll never be able to see him as Sherlock again). The other characters were really good too but I don't think there was enough of Bones, Scotty or Chekov but that's probably just because they're my favourite characters. I think the Admirals daughter, Carol, should have had a more central role in the film. Overall this film was amazing, funny, sad and a really good sci-fi movie all packed into one. One of the best films I've seen and I definitely recommend it, watch the first one too, it's really even better than this.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

My 'Bad Time'

     17th of December 2010, exactly a week before Christmas, my parents sat me down and explained to me that my dad wouldn't be coming on our Christmas holiday to Finland because they were splitting up. This came as a huge shock because there really had been no indication of them growing apart obvious to me. It was Saturday morning, about 11am, when they told me, I immediately fell into a state of shock, my brain trying to comprehend what I was just told. My whole life turned upside down in a matter of minutes. By the time I went into school on Monday I had, kind of, accepted the fact and had switched into this 'I don't care' mode. I always do this when something bad happens to me, I go into a state of shock, where I feel numb and really out of it, until my brain has figured out what's going on and then, once this has happened, I block everything out and try to convince myself that it hasn't effected me at all. I can only keep this up for so long and then I'm forced to deal with it, usually I manage to do this by myself, at home, but this time I couldn't and I ended up having a breakdown in French class about a month later. I was sent to my guidance counselor, who I've learnt to hate since then. I actually remember very little of my first year in secondary school, that one day is my most vivid memory of the year. I was a bit of a loner back then, with one friend, who I'm actually still great friends with. It was through her that I made all my current friends. I became best friend s with Weronika after we both had a stupid fight with her at the same time. We were friends before then but never as close as that. Near the end of first year and start of second year I began to fall into depression and I stopped sleeping very much. It got to a point where I would sleep maybe 6 hours a week if not less so I was constantly numb to the world. I spent most of my second year like this and became really suicidal for a few months, once my parents figured out (after I was caught mitching school for three weeks) I was sent to a psychiatrist for a little over a year. I was officially discharged about two months ago. I've made amazing friends and lost some not so good ones over that last few years and I'm finally happy with where my life is at. Next year is going to be hard without Weronika constantly by my side but I know I'll be able to cope with it now.

     Goodbye my munchkins,

     Ruska

 

Ms Forde

      Ms Forde taught me, what is easily my least favourite subject, Irish. Now the language itself is actually quite nice and I've been to the gaeltacht (Irish speaking camp) twice now, but the way it’s taught in schools is atrocious, having an awful teacher doesn't help much. I honestly hate Ms Forde, she’s no good at teaching, she’s condescending and she’s just horrible in general. I could rant on and on about her but I won’t. I will rant a bit though. Since Irish is compulsory to everyone who’s been here since a certain age, if anyone moved to Ireland after that age (about 9 or 10) they don’t have to do the subject but they do have to sit in the class, they just do homework or something. In my class there are two non-Irish speakers, Ms Forde will, quite often ask them to do her a favour, like to get something from the photocopy room or something, but she hasn't bothered to learn their names, no, she would say ‘Foreign girl can you…’ or sometimes just point and say ‘You, get me…’ I’m generally quite quiet and wouldn't answer much in class, about halfway through second year I answered a question and she said ‘Aww, shy little Ruska answered’ that was the last time I willingly gave up information in her class. I hate her more then I knew I could hate someone I barely know and I haven’t learnt a thing from her class. Next year I’m dropping down to ordinary level so I’ll never have her again, that makes me very happy.

     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

My Sincere Apologies

     Hello munchkins, I'm sorry for neglecting you for a while but I just really didn't feel like writing because of my mysterious bad mood. I'm probably just missing school a lot now. Anyway, I'm going back to writing now, so please to read and give some feedback because it really will make us extremely happy. Here's our e-mail; themunchkinblog@hotmail.com .
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Your master, Weronika

Ms Kelly (Treacy)

     Ms Kelly, now Ms Treacy, has been my geography teacher and year head for the last three years. She was a really good geography teacher, even if she did lull me to sleep on occasion (my own lack of sleep may have contributed to that though). She was fairly strict and had no problem with making you feel ridiculously guilty for not doing but she wasn't overly strict. As my year head she was pretty amazing and she's always been there when I was going through a bad stage in my life. If I needed to talk I had the option of going to her and she understood me better than any other adults I've had to tell about it. I really hope that I have as year head next year as I'm honestly going to miss her. I regret not saying thank you to her when I left the school on the final day of my third year (and last Junior year) there. I still call her Ms Kelly because I think it suits her better than the name she took when she got married.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

     Ms. Kelly is one of the most awesomest teachers. I didn't have her in first year and during that  time I hated geography and wasn't too good at it, the only thing to keep me going was my friend Bobo who I made loads of ridiculous theories with (like the creation of mermaids). In second year, Ms. Kelly became my geography teacher and I fell in love with the subject. I started doing really well in class and put a lot of effort in. This is thanks to my marvelous teacher, who manages to get facts stuck in your head. I really will miss her. She took care of all of us and had this thing where when she gave out to you, you didn't mentally curse but felt guilty. The only minus was her talking about 3L but I guess it was a form of motivation for us to try harder. On a different note, I got to know her as Ms. Kelly and forever Ms. Kelly she will be (no matter who she marries).
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Your master, Weronika