The Surprises Duke of Edinburgh present to you

Dear Reader
Recently (but not really) I went on my qualifying Duke of Edinburgh Bronze, there's not really much to say about that other than the fact that it was much better, and probably easier. The highlights mainly consisted of  darkezrules randomly falling over a rock while trying to record a video. But i made a big thing out of it and I was like "OMG ARE YOU OKAY?" and goth chick turned around and was like "OMG WHAT HAPPEND"? and darkezrules was just there lying on the floor like a rug....and she was like...."sorry guys, not sure how that happend.." I was just like "WTF! You're the one who fell! Why are you saying sorry?" Strange child...Anyways we got lost on the first day, totally blaming the inaccuarte map dated from 2008. WE found we went around in a circle and wasted about two hours...it was truly pitiful. But in the end we got to the place we were supposed to be with goth chick navigating, but then we got lost again at 'Rock Farm' a name we all learned to hate. Also on the way there we had to go through a herd of cows, it was pretty....scary, but it was chilled as I remembered I was a Hindu and I love cows. They all stare at you as if they're eyes are saying "you eat tons of us, but you look pretty tastey too, I might sit and fart on you to cook you into a human burger."  Then we finally made it there is felt amazing! However the strange thing was that there were a bunch of REALLY LOUD PEACOCKS there. It was strange since my first thought was like : wtf is peacock doing somewhere in the peak district but the place we were was very fancy with a games room and a shower and everything. General opinion also said that the bus here was also very fancy. The expiditions become much better in quality. The second day mainly consisted of us running away from sheep and being very adamant that we were going the right way, although we were sure to yell at the map maker - Patrick and we named the map Matthew and didn't forget to name the route card Jimbob - that was My idea.
While we were resting me got surrounded by sheep who also started pissing in goth chick's face, she was properly insulted. They were lambs so they were too young to know we were a threat....we quickly ran over a style. They were surprisingly scary i seemed to find them more scary then cows much to bookworm's disgust. We actually reached there half an hour early despite the inaccurate and stupid map (Patrick), so we started taking pictures of the plants in town, for comparison. (not really). Everyone slowly appeared as I helped myself to a hot chocolate and some danish Pastry. After buying potterfan101 and goth chick some chips from a fish and chip shop. potterfan101 was particularly greedy as she wouldn't share with me even though i was the one who bought the chips in the first place. Then I went to stand on a Bridge in the town square, underneath which was a beautiful fountain made out of the river, it looked natural and it was very nice.

 We got onto the Luxury Bus once more, and I felt the entire thing was surreal.
The most annoying thing which i had to experience was the fact that in three days I had to take my GCSE History test on Hitler and Germany. They expedition's timing was terrible, but admittedly the overall expedition was pretty good.
However I admit if you want to take part in this i will give you some advice dear reader and it is your choice whether you wish to take it.
10 Pieces of Advice

1. Keep the Mood happy and light. If everyone is sad you will find it difficult to keep going
2. Sing your favourite songs with your friends along the way. 
3. If your Finding the pain unbearable trying concentrating on something very specific e.g taking the next step, play a song in your head or even the sticks and stones around you. 
4. Bring 50 million breakfast Bars you will need them when you get hungry - eat them even if you feel the slightest bit of hunger
5. Nominate some to be the navigator and an assistant navigator (that was me!) and also a leader to stays ahead and makes sure you are going the right way.
6. Moss grows on the North side of tress - this will help you the same way as your compass
7. Put your water bottle in someone else's rucksack, so you don't have to awkwardly reach around your bulky bag. And Drink whenever you're even slightly thristy
8. Keep a constant pace, this will actually speed you up as you won't need as many rests
9. If you get ahead of your team, then wait at the next landmark for them, don't get out of sight. 
10. Pack as light as it is humanely possible

hope you find this useful future DofE-ers

byeee 

xoxoxxox

The Duke of Edinburgh - Sandi Edition

As many of you know, being a teenager is pretty difficult, it takes a lot of guts to survive throughout this stage. However most people do, they get out of school, just to be awarded with more school in the form of university ;/. What you gonna do?
Anyways one of the many important things I've been doing include Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. An good qualification. This is the first award in the award scheme and recently my school had the practise expedition. Which after everything was still fun. The expedition basically consits of camping and walking. You walking for 10km, and eat lunch in between, then you rest at a campsite for the night and continue for the rest of the day.
At the beginning it was actually very nice we sang songs and made mistakes by going the wrong way and such. I was navigating. After a while it seemed that we were all getting tired except for goth chick who continued to go straight ahead, not tired at all. I think it was scary how she never got tired. After a while me and darkezrules decided that she should be called robot overload, cause she was better at navigating because I kept looking for shortcuts,  and also because she wasn't almost dead from the weight of her 30kg rucksack. But then again I was weak and even if we all had the same weight rucksacks, it would be harder for me. Plus I have to carry my own body weight which was a lot heavier than most peoples (unfortunately). However on the way we saw a dazzling display of sheep and cows. The cows seemed a lot bigger in person, which may have been why everyone, when they walked passed them, became seriously quiet. We didn't want any bulls charging at us. That may have killed us and we all had to get to the end to pass, cause there's only four of us. Also the cows seemed to have this way of staring at you. It was quite scary, like you ran away if you got too close (actually goth chick seemed to scare them away, I knew her scary face would come in handy someday :)) The cows started at you as if they were going to talk to you, I actually found it scary. But I was rest assured that I was Hindu so I protected them, kinda. The walking was fun at first, but after a while carry 30kg takes it toll on you. We sat and ate lunch in the middle of a wood, it was nice and shady but there seemed to be  surplus of bugs where we were. We all had pasta cause pasta was nutritious yet filling. Or because we all kinda couldn't be more creative with our food.
Then we walked and walked for hours on end. We always seemed to get lost whenever I navigated, but you know whatever. We got to the campsite a little while after most people, but at least we got there. We had a lot of fun at camp, we played a sort of strange merge of every sport we knew how to play. We hit a football with a cricket bat and ran around four posts. (football, cricket, and rounders) it was quite fun. I was just gonna watch but then i ended up playing anyway. Then we toasted marshmallows and played Harry one spot, it was a good game but it was one of those games you could only play with like 15 people around a campfire, and we were tricked into playing it. We could only play if we swore not to back out again, because if you got it wrong, then you would have a spot drawn on you, then two spots and then a moustache. it was hilarious. And strangely the same kinda people were drawn on. Luckily I wasn't drawn on, but a small part of me wanted to take a picture of me with a black spot on my face. ;) For dinner we had noodles in our lunchboxes and of course marshmallows. :) And then for breakfast we had sandwiches which i had made. Annoyingly no one really ate them. But fortunately for me, it was goth chick's turn to wear the douche cape, (this was a bright, florescent yellow waistcoat two out of four had to wear so cars could see us) so she took my still heavy lunchbox and I wore the douche cape a second day.
Anyways the second day was definitely better because i was listening to my iPod, i could take my mind of the pain. But i needed to more because everyone seemed to finish my plasters for me. It was quite surprising how many plasters Pottergal needed in one go. Even though it was after a whole day. It turned out we were walking faster this day, and we didn't get lot either, maybe because goth chick was navigating and not me, although i did try to help as well. i was second-in-command to navigate. We got lost near the end though, in a steep hill which was annoying. it turned out we had to go up and down the hill which was annoying, but luckily we made it. Annoyingly to other groups caught up with us, The Inbetweeners and The Incredibles. You gotta love the incredibles, as a group name but Dumbledore's Army was the best group name ever. It has to be said. Anyways We actually got there second, but a couple minutes because we were adamant we were going the right way when in fact we weren't. Shame but the very worst part was at the end. The was a huge hill which we had to go up at an approximately 40 degree angle. And I should mention, that we had to go up a hill before this as well, then we went up the evil hill that was 100ft (and i wasn't exaggerating-really)
I was close to tears at the end of it, and so was Pottergal. We then walked REALLY slowly the rest of the way because we were just too tired. I basically died. Actually getting there was amazing, we literally lay there for ages!!! But only because we knew the bus was gonna be a while. The chip shop, to goth chick's annoyance was closed. It closed literally the minute we got there, which was disappointing. I borrowed money from Mr Holmes to buy a drink, but then I gave it back for two reasons, I didn't wanna owe a teacher and i could really find anything I wanna buy. the ice cream was too ordinary.
Anyways the bus journey home was amazing, we played would you rather with the people around us. Although I may have grossed them out. Darkezrules was sitting next to me and she fell asleep rather awkwardly, as in it looked really uncomfortable. I felt bad waking her up when we got there.
On arriving it turned out we reached at 5:30 when i told my dad i would be there at 3:00 but he got my previous text saying we'd be there at 5:15 and came at 5:15. We had to go inside and hand in our camping equipment. We had lost our compass, but some other group had found one so luckily we didn't have to pay for one. And we stole some other group's fuel for the trangea. We literally ran out of the school! I ran to my dad who took my bag and was shocked that i carried it for 20km. But even though this was a practise i was really proud of myself for actually surviving. I went to bed at 7:00pm that day and woke up at 8:00am. That was 13 hours of heavenly sleep in my awesome bed with a memory foam mattress. It felt pretty good!!

ok imma go now byeee xoxox