https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgVoZXrShqU
Here is the link to the video! Enjoy!
When I signed up for the Bronze International Award at the beginning of the year, I had no idea what to expect, although I was especially excited and impatient for the hikes!
I had some goals, such as improving my/learning useful skills like first aid, navigation, camp cooking and route planning. I also wanted to improve my sense of direction, and get closer to nature/the outdoors. Last but not least, I wanted to make more, memorable memories with my friends! I definitely achieved ALL my goals, because, for example, we saw herds of deers/chamois sprinting in front of us, which I loved and will remember for the rest of my life. Also, there were some funny moments, like melting one of our plastic forks on the stove and me face planting while sprinting in the middle of a field, and just lots of little memorable moments that brought us closer together. My group had very few conflicts, which was great, and the international award was one of the best/main ways I got closer to some new students that were in my group. This is why I am extremely glad I did the International Award, thankful for all the teachers who worked hard to make it happen, proud of myself for achieving my goals, and eager to continue/move up to silver.
However, since this was my first year of the international award, there were some things that didn’t go entirely as planned and hoped. For instance, we didn’t realize the precision, that had to be put into the route cards for us to “survive” the two days of the hike. On our practice hike, we didn’t make our route card precise and detailed enough, which made us have some difficulties following what we wrote from time to time. Another mistake we did was that we spent lots of time videoing, taking pictures or even admiring snails and what not, without realizing how much time we were wasting. This is mainly what made us arrive at the campsite very late. However, we didn’t give up or let it bring us down at all. We learnt from our mistake, got up and left early the next day, and had lots of fun while not wasting too much time. At the end of that hike, we were very proud and learnt a lot of new things that we evidently took into account when planning the second, real hike. We improved a lot on the second hike because we arrived at the campsite very early on time, which we were very happy about!
I can’t wait for Silver, and all the new experiences, lessons and memories that lay ahead!