Ireland

 A group of running friends and I went to Ireland in May to race in the Waterville Trailrunning Festival (WTF). 6 women and 2 men.  The women all ran the 43k race and the men did the 27k race.

We flew into Dublin and split into two groups. One headed straight towards Waterville and rented a car down there and the other group stayed overnight in Dublin before heading down. We walked through Stephen's Green. 

We checked out the pubs and saw live Irish music.

We then drove straight down a major highway (then closer to town some roads that were about 1.25 car width-it was a hair raising adventure. With lots of sheep. Sheep is a huge export in Ireland.

Down in Waterville, we explored where the race would start and grabbed our bibs and souvenir t-shirts and got trackers attached to our backpacks.  There's one aid station half way through the race and the weather was amazing the entire week, which we were told was unusual!

We got to the start line and chatted with other participants.

The race had two major hills.  The first one was pretty rough and you ran from post to post, it was difficult to discern where the actual trail was. Much of our race was on the Ring of Kerry and we followed the markers most of the way.  There were also stiles (little ladders to climb over fences) as much of the race was through pastures (mostly sheep-lots of sheep-Ireland is one of the largest exporters of sheep besides Australia).  There was mud, sheep poop, etc. (my shoes smelled horribly).

At the top of the hill the view to the ocean was amazing!  

We ran down the hill and to the halfway point where the aid station was 

and then tackled the second half including the second hill. It was a more established trail but the hill seemed to never end! After the second large hill it was downhill until the finish line. Around that time I started hiking up the hill with an Irishman who chatted with me. We caught sight of an American woman and I leap frogged her several times.  When we got to the top of the hill the Irishman who had completed the race the year before and helped immensely with navigating the race (every year the race is run in the opposite direction so he had done the route backwards) was hurting and we saw her back below us and it was downhill. He whispered to me, "go for it" and I finished strong down the hill, I passed lots of people on the way down.

The race cut off was 8 hours and I finished in just under 6. So I was the 54th finisher, 10th female finisher.  Another woman in our group came in 50 minutes after me, then another  1 hr 10 min after me, the rest came in around the 8 hour mark. There were 112 participants-33 women 79 men.  The race was hard but I was very happy with how I did.

After the race, we were given an Irish stew and potato meal.  The next morning we woke up early and went to Doolin to catch a ferry to the Aran islands.  

We decided the best money we spent was upgrading to ebikes on the islands. We barely had to pedal to get around.  On the island we biked around and the main attraction was Dun Aonghasa, an ancient stone fort on the ocean.

Then we stayed in Doolin.  Some in our group toured a whiskey distillery. 

After Doolin we went to Tullemore.  On our way, we stopped off at Athlone castle.  

  2 of us borrowed bikes from the hotel in Tullemore and rode along the Grand Canal to see church and castle ruins. 

Shra castle ruins:

Killbride Church ruins, 

Ballycowan Castle ruins

Then just outside Dublin we visited Wicklow forest. There's not a ton of trees in Ireland (our run was quite open and unshaded) so it was a good contrast to what we'd seen in the towns. 

We took in a hurling match back in Dublin:

Clip of warm up before game

Hurling game clip here

Back in Dublin, while part of the group went to the Guinness tour, 2 of us toured churches.  St.

 Michen's crypts:

St Audoen's church, 

St. Patrick's Church.

Viking museum (interesting but didn't take pictures-but bought it as part of a combined ticket with the church) and Christ Church:

Dublin Castle 

 Trinity college and Book of Kells and library tour.   

The Book of Kells Exhibit: 

Examples of pigments used in the coloring of the pages

 

More Dublin:

We finished our trip off at the pub listening to more Irish music, at O'donoghues (same pub as before, different band).

Update on H and V

 In May we took H for an in person interview at the school we'd applied to in the previous post.  During the interview it was clear on both their side and ours that the school is not going to be a good fit for H next year. The school's main focus is not just learning disabilities but reading disabilities which is not the kind Henri has.  There would be a possibility for him to assist during their morning reading program for a mentor credit.  The other thing that we did not realize is that they don't offer Academic credits.  Here in our area (note this system is rumored to be changing) there are two streams kids are put into-Academic (university-bound) and Applied (typically those who are going to trade school or working after secondary school.  The school only offers applied credits.  H has been in the academic stream as he'd like to attend university and work with computers.

So... the current plan for him for next year is that he will not take a full load of classes.  Typically students take 4 classes a semester here. H took 2 classes in summers before high school so he had those spots available in his schedule and he's already taken one semester where he took 3 classes and his grades were better.  He can be in the learning resource room the extra period working on homework.  Our universities typically look at specific classes in Grade 11 and 12 (he starts 11 this coming year) so by taking less classes he has a chance at doing better this year and homework is more likely to get done if he can do it at school rather than home.

V has had a psychological education assessment done now.  She started exhibiting some interesting traits like running up and down our hallway.  I took her to Hs pediatrician and asked about ADHD and the doctor asked her some questions and told me to take her for an autism assessment.  We coordinated with the Metis nation and the psychologist that did Hs assessment helped us get her in since they'd seen our family before.  Her assessment came back with ASD, ADHD (both types) and extremely gifted (she's been in the gifted program after an assessment by the school district after her Grade 3 testing).  The psychologist said, "if there's 100 people in a room, there MIGHT be 1 person smarter than her."  She'd been complaining about her memory and the psychologist explained that her memory is in the normal range. Because her brain is operating at such a high range, she's likely frustrated that her memory is at a lower level.  Her processing speed tested low but the psychologist suspects it's just that her very smart brain with ADHD is operating so fast that there's a bottleneck in the processing trying to process all her ideas and thoughts.  We will use the suggestions to keep her engaged as she starts high school next year as the gifted program finishes up in Grade 8.

January-finishing the current chapter for the new start

 While January is usually a fresh start, in our house this year, it was the finishing of a chapter.  At the high school the 1st semester ends the last week of January with finals week.  Students either have a final exam or a culminating project to wrap up and when February starts, so does 2nd semester. 

In our house this meant a lot going on.

For C, the oldest, it meant finishing up his extra semester at school.  He wasn't ready to go on to post-secondary and wanted more time to figure out what he wanted to do next, so he did what's called here-12B.  Ontario used to have a Grade 13 for students going on to University (as opposed to college, tech school or just graduating-here college is generally understood to be a 2 year program, university a 4 year program).  Then, instead of Grade 13, they developed "tracks."  Students are generally on an "Applied" track, which will then lead them into college or trades or working right after high school; or they are on an "Academic" track, which will prepare them for University.  Also interesting to note here is that rather than how grades are viewed in the US as a whole over your entire high school career, Universities are usually looking at just a few key classes and how your Grade 11 and 12 years went.  For instance, the local University one town over required a 70 (%) or higher in 3 key mathematics classes you'd take in grade 11 and 12 (on the academic track) as well as an overall 80% in your 5 highest classes during grade 11 and 12 to be accepted.  What this means is kids have a little more time to adjust to high school as grades 9 and 10 your grades don't really "count" as much.  But it does mean you better not get Senioritis and slack off your Grade 12 year.  C's Grade 12 year was extremely stressful and full of very hard classes rather than filled with classes he just needed for graduation and to fill time.  This may have contributed to him feeling like he needed a bit of a break/gap year.  It may have also been that really he only went to high school for 2.5 years, missing 1.5 due to the pandemic.  He didn't seem really a fan of school, so I was a bit surprised when he opted for another semester.

Anyway, all that to explain he took a pretty relaxed course load. Auto maintenance, construction (woodshop) and a free period, then we picked him up 3 x a week to go to a co-op (like an internship-this was due to him still not having a license. Fingers crossed it will happen in April).  The co-op was in a local computer repair shop where he learned, "I don't want to work with retail or with customers."  When January finished, so did the co-op and school.  

He did however apply to the local college as well as a backup one a little further away.  Here you can apply to 5 school programs (max 3 from each college) for one application fee (currently $125).  The requirements are a little lower for the math-you just needed to pass them (he got 60s, so the university won't take him).  He did do very well in his computer science classes (the programs he's applying to) and did complete the math classes required, so hopefully he will start college in September.  He's hoping to start on a 2 year program that has an extra year extension option.  Until then he's planning to spend some time teaching himself a new, free online game design platform to build up his resume as well as hopefully finding some sort of job that "doesn't require retail or working with customers."  For now he's helping Hubby and I at the curling club. But that will end in April.  He'd be able to continue next season though with the evening and weekend schedule and so far doesn't seem to not like it, just that he needs to dress a little warmer for the 40 degree workplace.

H is moving forward as well.  After a hard working January to study for exams and complete culminating projects and finish the homework he probably should have done over Christmas break but did not (he's been very burnt out at school) he has completed semester 1 of his Grade 10 year.  He's started semester 2 off well.  He's taking a food class period 1, 2nd period is spent in the learning resource room taking a computer class online through the school board, 3rd period is math with a teacher who student taught at his elementary school, so he knows him a bit and 4th period is History with "a pretty laid back teacher."  So far so good.

The other big progress is H's application for school next year is complete.

All 5 binders are the same, so a committee can review his application.  The school is run by the Ontario Board of Education.  This means the school doesn't have a fee associated for the school, room, board or transportation to or from the school each week.  Yes, it's a school where he will attend Monday to Friday and come home on weekends and holidays.  It's about an hour and a half from our home. Because Ontario is very big, there are students who fly in to school each week. They leave after first period on Friday, go home for the weekend, and fly back on Sunday night.  

To qualify for the school the student must have a learning disability.  Over the last year, H has been diagnosed with 2 learning disabilities (one associated with math fluency and one associated with written expression), ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  Students cannot have an intellectual disability as the program is quite rigorous. ADHD and ASD do not prevent him from attending. Medication doesn't prevent him from attending. However, the school needs lots of information to make sure he qualifies for the program and will be successful, so there's a lot that goes into the application.  This means that while the school is free, the application is not. We've paid for a hearing test, a speech evaluation (which he aced-95th percentile for vocabulary and he finished off the testing materials which the evaluator had never done before), a doctor's note (all which probably wouldn't have been needed otherwise).

There are 3 locations, but only the one closest to us has high school classes.  Students generally stay one year, it would be rare to go for 2 years.  The school claims to assist students in increasing the students skills in the area of learning disability 3 years in the one year of school.  Teachers apply to teach there, generally teach 2-3 years then go back to their home school board to share what they've learned.

There are 8 teachers-2 resource teachers, 1 technology advisor, 1 Education Assistant, the rest of the teachers are general teachers working with the students. This means a ratio of 5 teachers to 1 student. If they were at full capacity they'd hire 2 more teachers. They currently have 41 students, which means most students have their own bedroom and bathroom (typically they would share).  There are 43 applications for the 50 spots for the 2024-2025 school year. A social worker is at the school 2 x a week, counseling is available, speech and language therapy is available 2 x a week, a child and adolescent psychologist is there 2 x a week, a psychiatrist 2 x a month and a student health services/nurse is there all the time.  Dorm supervision is 4:1 and there's no place for supervisors to sleep, they are working when they are there.

Dorm supervisors meet with class teachers at the beginning of the day to debrief each other while students meet in a morning community circle with a counselor. The school not only works on learning skills but life skills with the students.

The school day starts an hour later. Students wake up, have breakfast, can call home and then have school 8:45-3:20 with lunch in the cafeteria (the campus is shared with a school for the deaf).  After school they get an hour of free time where they can use phones, ipad, etc.  then an hour of homework.

Dinner is at the school, then an hour of free time.  After dinner they have learning skills type workshops Monday and Tuesday, Wed & Thursday is organized recreation (right now badminton and dungeons & dragons are popular) and Friday after school everyone heads home for the weekend. 10pm lights out, no devices. Once a week, they can go into town with counselors in the evening for shopping or field trips like bowling.

Follow-up is done the following year to make sure students are doing well with their new skills. There are consultants at the school that help with the application process as well as with transitioning to the school as well as going back to their home school the following year.

There's less focus on electives but high school students are encouraged to do electives for credits they need to graduate as all classes at the school qualify towards graduation.  There's no French requirement (H is already getting an exemption. HS students must take a minimum of a 1/2 year of French in HS to graduate but the requirement can be waived by the principal and is not required for post-secondary school.  He struggles with foreign language and his continuing to take the class wasn't going to serve him in any way going forward, so he will take something that will serve him instead.)

There are laundry facilities, but usually just used for biweekly linen washing-most students bring home dirty clothes.

V is still working towards swimming goals and lifeguarding but is at a bit of a plateau so we will likely change her spring class for a break, then swim team in summer and have another go at the lifeguarding classes in fall.  She still loves her gifted class and has picked classes for high school next year.  She was just approved for private ASD testing so that she should have results before high school begins so over the summer she can work on some social skills that are needed.

Hubby is continuing to learn and improve his ice making skills at the curling club and really enjoys making the ice and curling on it and figuring out ways to make it better and better all the time. We are about 2/3 of the season through and our competitive team that we curl on is in first place!  Ice making also allows for some extra practice time.

I'm starting up another training cycle for running.  Goals this year include a 100km race in May, another try at getting a Boston qualifying time in a fall Marathon as well as other smaller races this year. I'm going with friends to do a trail marathon in Ireland as my last big run big run in early May before the 100k race.  Though we had a rough 2 weeks of cold like the rest of the continent, other than that the weather's been pretty good for winter.  Some photos of the 2 weeks of running in snow!

This is in our local provincial park-shorthills. Because we got lots of rain, then the big freeze, the waterfalls were all huge and frozen.

A friend who lives up near where H would go to school asked if we could from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario  for her 40th birthday (44km, so just over a marathon in length) along the Welland shipping canal path.  It was just before the storm for the snow and ice was starting. The canal water is low so they can do maintenance and there's no boats, but it was interesting to see what's normally under the water level.

On to February and new beginnings!