PGL

I cannot physically fathom all my thoughts on PGL because I have so many things to say and not enough patience to organise it properly. I know it's been over a month since I've been to PGL but I started writing this post the day I got back and have been adding small bits to it whenever I can and that's why it took so long, I'M SORRY OK, haha! However, can I just say, PGL was bloody amazing and I loved it a lot! I would recommend anyone to do it. If you do want to get involved with NCS and find out what it's all about, click here. Just to give you a rough idea, I'll write what we did in our time there.

DAY 1: Sunday 27th November

Starbucks swagfag white gals yolo peace

Feet(..)

We all arrived at the train station with our suitcases that were too big because they were packed to the brim with so much junk that they wouldn't even wheel properly, ugh; and piled on to the coach. Ash bought lots of sausage rolls and pasties which kept me and her busy for the whole coach journey (yes, coach journey not train journey ok). On the way, we got a 45-minute break at a service station where we ran to Starbucks and sat there acting like hipster swagfags haha! Also, Marita's Dad works in KFC and she had lots of vouchers where we got free food so we got free snack boxes with popcorn chicken and chips yay!

CXK NCS Team (Kent)

When we arrived at PGL Liddington, we were taken to a big room where we put down our suitcases and waited for the rest of the CXK NCS team to arrive from various parts of Kent. After they all arrived, we all had a small talk about the rules; the do's and don't's and we were left in our teams to sort out rooms and exploring the building we were staying in before meeting back in the hall for evening 'entertainment' which was a quiz.

I shared my room with Ash, Fajita and Mary and the room consisted of an en suite bathroom and two bunk beds. I shared one bunk with Ash with me being at the bottom and Fajita and Mary shared the other. I don't actually have a picture of the room but believe me when I say it was far too small a room for four people.

The face I woke up to every morning (Mer)

The quiz helped us to get to know our team members a little more; understanding each other's strong points and weaknesses etc. I'm pretty crap at films, music, sports etc so I wasn't exactly much help but it was still quite fun. We were by far the loudest group there. We cheered and made noise at every answer we got right or wrong and probably pissed off everyone else, but whatever #YOLO haha! (sarcasm ok). After the quiz, we were named the 'Noisettes' which became our team name. 

That night we spent our time in our room talking a lot about lots of different things. I think it made me understand my friends even more than what I knew about them from knowing them for about 6 years or so.

DAY 2: Monday 28th November

The raft carrying it's creato

Our first activity was raft building, and it was one of my favourite activities! We put on our bikinis and lots of layers over them, and made our way to a room where we sat in groups and planned what our raft would look like, how many barrels and ropes and logs we would use, how we would put it together etc. We finished deciding first so we were taken to a shed where they gave us life jackets and a big ugly red coat and other bits and bobs like helmets and oars etc. After getting kitted up, we dived straight into making our raft and getting it on to water. It was freezing but we loved it! (Ty didn’t though, she got off it early haha). Our team leaders gave us small challenges competing with the other two teams on who gets somewhere first, but mainly, it was just about splashing other teams and trying to make them lose their balance! I FELL IN ONCE, JUST SAYING. It was simultaneously terrifying and fun but my team pulled me back up so it wasn’t too bad as I don’t even know how to swim!

Wet and hyped-up and hungry after raft building; waiting for lunch  (Me, Fajita, Ash and Mer) (from the left)

Jacob's Ladder

Team games (Queen Fajita being carried)

Our second activity was Jacob’s Ladder and the pictures are pretty self-explanatory on what we had to do. 3 people. One ladder. Climb.

For our third activity, we played quite a few team games. Balancing on some wood thing with all 12 of us on it. Standing in a circle, putting your hand out and grabbing someone else’s hand, and then trying to unknot ourselves. You get the jest; basically, it was fun.

The evenings were the best bits. On this day, we had the Have-a-Go-Show and it was the most fab thing ever. The whole batch was split up into two lots (I never found out what the other batch did to be honest) but for us lot, we were piled into a lecture hall and told to take our seats and sit in our groups. Being the noisy, bossy ladies we are, we got hold of the best seats in the house- the front row. One of our PGL leaders started calling up volunteers one by one, with only giving us vague ideas of what the challenge was going to be. For example, for one of the challenges, he asked for “someone with quick reactions and someone who is nice”. Pairs were formed and decided from each of the groups and sent to the front. Then, they were asked for the person with the good reactions to kneel down on a piece of paper and for their partner to stand behind them. He explained the challenge as this:

“The person standing is going to throw a piece of paper from above you and the person kneeling down has to catch it. Blind-folded.”

He made everyone have a practice go without, and then with blindfolds. Then, he said:

“Ok, now to make it more interesting. One random person will get a £10 note thrown down instead of an A4 piece of paper. If you catch it, you keep it.”

This got everyone pumped and the volunteers were blind-folded and ready. Just as we thought it was about to start, our leader swapped the standers around and then swapped the pieces of paper in their hands with buttered toast! The rest of us were in shock and awe. It was a bloody clever amazing idea! You can guess what happened after that. The toast dropped. The people caught it. Bam. Buttery palms. Yum.

Innocent unsuspecting victims thinking they're catching paper

Innocent unsuspecting victims catching buttered toast lol

Prabin the pig stuffing his mouth with a whole orange

That was only one of them. There were quite a few other challenges. One was where one person was given a song and they went back to two people from their group and gargled the song for them to guess, haha! Another was where one person was made to believe they were blind-folded because the challenge was to blow out a lighter flame and it would get further and further away so you’d have to blow harder. And what do they do? Bring out bowls of flour to blow into of course! Oh, and Fajita and Ash took part in one too! A person who likes oranges and a good friend were asked to go up (Fajita being the orange-lover), and then, they had to kneel down and eat an orange without the use of their hands, ha! It didn’t matter if you left the skin out, but it was hard to try and leave it out without using your hands so most people ate it anyway (bleurgh!) and this includes Prabin who ate the whole thing and couldn’t chew it! After Fajita ate half, she went and spat it out and Ash ate the rest and we beat Prabin who had been first to shove the whole orange in his mouth, but the last to actually swallow it, bless him! (Yes, we kind-of unknowingly cheated but w/e :P ). 

Poor old man with the moustache we felt sorry for

In the end, the winning team (Ashford team- Laje, Prabin etc) got to choose one of our team leaders for a 'surprise'. We all had to go and stand outside in the FREEZING cold thinking of the worst scenarios of what this 'surprise' was going to be, e.g. we thought PGL would provide the Ashford team with water balloons or something and they were going to come and drench us, ahah! But thank God that didn't happen. Instead, the chosen team leader was publicly humiliated. He had to kneel down whilst our PGL leaders put shampoo, toothpaste, porridge oats and all kinds of weird stuff on his hair and then made him eat cake. It was funny-ish at first and then we all started feeling horrible because the chosen team leader had a moustache and was old; and who doesn't feel bad for caking and drenching an old man with a moustache with oats and toothpaste and shampoo?! Exactly. 

Later that evening, we went to watch a film (Leonardo DiCaprio's face is the only thing I remember and nothing else, sorry) but I was scared that I might get a migraine because bright lights trigger migraines for me so I slept through a lot of it and then the rest of them got bored too, so we went back to our room. Me and Fajita were really tired so we went to bed whilst Ash and Mary socialised and made friends with this Pakistani/Arabic/Spanish/(WHATEVER OTHER BLOOD HE HAS IN HIM) guy called Ruhul (who we tried to find on Facebook but failed so if RAHUL (:P) ever reads this, then hi.)

DAY 3: Tuesday 29th October

Today's evening was better than the day so can I briefly mention it and skip please? Thanks. 

Zip wire tower

Yours truly being swaggy

We did zip wire. Get your harnesses on. Wait at a shed. When it's your turn, get a black rope (which is attached to the zip wire above you) given to you and run/awkward walk it to the zip wire tower nearby. Hit the rope on to the tower and when you hear "Thank you!" from above, let go and go inside the tower. Climb some steps. Wait. Get called. Go up. Awkward un-funny talk with the PGL staff whilst they clip you to stuff. Jump. YOU'RE ON A ZIP WIRE. The end.

Hannah and Ash (from the left)

Mary and her boottaaayyy omg ahah

Low ropes itself was boring but me and Mer being the hilarious people we are, made it brilliant. I'm not sure if a specific challenge was even set but the equipment was all this stuff you'd find on a normal park and you had to go around the course.

Crate Challenge

Crate challenge. 3 tasks. One to provide crates for the climbers. Two to be the actual climbers who stand on crates. Three- the harness people. It was okay. Not my fave, but that might have been because it was cold? Idk. 

THE EVENING WAS ONE OF THE BEST EVENINGS I'VE HAD SINCE FOREVER. EVERYTHING WENT VERY WELL AND VERY SUPRISINGLY LOVELY FOR US AND IT WAS LOVELY AND DANDY LIKE CANDY. lol wut am i saying. idk. 

Bonfire (Dipa and Chungla toasting marshmallows)

The evening started after dinner where we were told that we were going to have a bonfire and we all had to meet outside our rooms and then we'd be taken to the PGL field where the bonfire was. So, after buying two packets of marshmallows from the PGL shop, we got dressed as warm as we could and went. It was very dark and the idea of bringing our torches had completely gone over our heads so we had to make do with Ash's S3 torch so we didn't step on a huge muddy puddle or something. When we got there, we thought it'd be a little more cute and lovely with everyone sitting around the fire but nope, the grass was way too wet for that so someone brought some logs and we sat on those but there was so many of us and we didn't fit so some stood around, some sat on the grass, etc. Then, everything got under way and we went up to the fire to toast our marshmallows (first timer, here!). It was very sweet and sickly but nice. Then, someone put on music and we all started dancing! Prabin was proper going for it with his dougie, haha and we all danced and sung for ages and before we knew it, it came to the very last song and we were leaving. It was such a nice night and we were all too hyped up to go to sleep so we decided to walk around the building before getting tired of it, and sitting down in the PGL's Common Room.

While sitting there and fangirling and talking about stuff, the Asian guys that we had seen around for the past few days came and talked to us. Prabin, Laje and Sachin, specifically (Galbu didn't). They were so friendly and we all had a really nice chat (a lot of banterrrrrr); and then they left. Then, Ruhul came to us and chilled with us before we all decided to play cards with loads of Ruhul's friends (Kacey, Aaron, Maqeeb and some others but I've forgotten their names, woops!). Then, Kacey showed us some of his crap card tricks and it was just so fun talking to completely new people and making friends so quickly, as bloody cheesy as that sounds. The other people who had come to PGL through CXK (the Kent team) made friends within the group, whilst we talked to people who were there from different parts of the country. After Kacey, Ruhul etc had left because they had their group bedtime at 11 (aww), we walked around and talked to a group of much younger kids aged from about 5-11 and it was so funny because they were from London and they all talked, well.. what's the word, "ratchet" ahahahaha and it was so unfamiliar to us but they were cute and kindly invited us to their mini party with popcorn and marshmallows but we politely refused before wandering again.

Slow kids playing Snap!

We were met by Prabin and Laje who were actually looking for us(!!) They asked us if we were free to play cards, and indeed we were, so we played cards for the rest of the night infront of their room with some other people in their Ashford group (Galbu still didn't come to meet us because he was so shy, bless his heart!). We started playing Uno but more than half of us including me, didn't know how to play so it got boring, and then we decided to introduce Snap to them and it was so fun- as gay as that sounds. We'd been playing Snap for the whole trip between me, Ash, Mary and Fajita but playing with the guys was so fun too, because Laje was awful and so was Mary, haha bless them two!

That evening was the most eventful evening I've ever had in my life. There are some absolutely hilarious and embarrassing moments that happened outside what I've typed up here but I guess, there's no fun saying everything. Some memories have to kept between us four because they were those 'you had to be there' moments.

DAY 4: Wednesday 30th October

Me and Mer on the giant swing 

Giant Swing (which had no seat)

The next day we did two activities. One was immediately added to one of my top 3- the giant swing; whilst orinteering was awfully boring. The Giant Swing is.. a giant swing, ha. I was paired with Mary and we screamed through our chance but Fajita and Ash definitely screamed the most. It was hilarious.

Cosy place we found while hiding from orienteering

Orienteering is when you're given a map, and some paper with different points on it and you find those points and there's like this hole-puncher thing attached to each point and you punch holes on each box on your paper (the holes are in different patterns) to show you went to each one. We're a girls group so do you really think we took part properly in running around and finding stuff in the cold? No, obviously not. We took the piece of paper and wandered around the woods and went back right at the very end of the session after finding about two points. Not the best end to our time at PGL, but still, lunch time was fun enough so who cares.

We initially planned to sit with our newly found Asian friends (lol) but their table was full so we sat down at another table but Galbu (one of the Asian guys) was late so he didn't get a seat so he went over to their table to realise there were no seats, but the rest of them were just about to shuffle along and make some room when Fajita invited him to sit with us. Okay, Galbu is incredibly shy, but so adorable. He didn't know what to do after being put on the spotlight. We all joined in and said he could sit with us, and when we looked over at their table, all the guys were like,

"Oh my god, are you dumb?"
"Oi! What are you waiting for?"
"Go sit with them!"

So eventually, Galbu did. He was so cute and shy and adorable and couldn't really start conversations so we left him to talk to Arun (one of our friends) sitting next to him, and Galbu was more comfortable with that. Well, until the point of Arun asking him his name and if he has Facebook (which I admit, was a little creepy for a boy to ask a boy :P). We finished lunch and headed outside, when Prabin asked us our numbers (lol) and we partly said our good-byes and waited to be called to get our bags and pile on to the coach. That's when everyone started taking pictures, and Prabin and Laje came over to us, and we all took pictures too (which later got the most likes out of any of the PGL pictures on my Facebook, idkw :S).

(from the left) Sachin, Prabin, Mer, Fajita, Ash, Me, Laje and Theo

Coaches : ( (Arun at the front)

THEN WE ALL SAID BYE PROPERLY AND PILED ON TO THE COACH AND EVERYONE TOOK MY PHONE TO REPEATEDLY LOOK AT ALL THE PICTURES I'D TOOK BECAUSE WE WERE ALL INSTANTLY MISSING PGL SO BLOODY MUCH. Then, we got off at a service station and saw the Asian guys again, and said our byes for the third time, haha!

THEN IT WAS PROPERLY OVER.

PGL is probably the most fun experience of my life. I had so much fun and really enjoyed every single bit of it. It's definitely one of those things that I can see myself talking about even when I'm an old grandma (especially to Mary. I can imagine us meeting up at Starbucks (ahah) and talking about PGL even in our 70s!). I loved it and I would recommend it to any living soul. I am so happy that I went in the Autumn and I went with Fajita and Ash and Mary and not in the summer and not with anyone else; because I wouldn't have wanted to share those exact memories with anyone else on the planet apart from them. I believe I understood them even more in those 3 days than I have in knowing them for about 6 years. I learnt if I had Marita as a room mate in the future, then I would get very fat because she literally does not eat anything. If Ash lived with me, then we would probably split up in about two weeks because she's so clean and tidy and I'm, well, basically a whale (I don't know why I said whale. I mean, I'm very untidy and Ash isn't so she'd never be able to cope with me :P). And I learnt I'd be able to live with Mary pretty easily because she's just as untidy and retarded as I am, but I'd probably have to have extra money on me at all times because you never know when you'd need it with Mary (she knows what I'm on about :P).

I loved PGL. I thank Jesus for such an amazing opportunity. I am so blessed. 

PGL- A Fresh Start

PGL is a residential camp part of a programme called the NCS (National Citizen Service) and I am going away for roughly a week tomorrow to take part in adventure activities and make friends and live with strangers and do all sorts of stuff (I'll explain what NCS is for anyone who wants to know in my next post once I'm back).

For me, taking part in this programme isn't just the fun I get to have with friends while doing it (two of my best-friends are taking part with me) but it's one step closer to my independent life. It means a lot to me. A lot more than what it is for many. For a lot of people, NCS is just another point for a paragraph they can babble on about in their UCAS application, but if you delve deeper into the true meaning of doing this project, there are so many valuable lessons to learn and it's so sad that so many people miss out on what NCS actually is all about and I won't let that happen to me.

This week will mark a break for me. A break from the hassle. I'm not going to relax. I'm not going to lounge about in a bikini on a beach. I'm going to test myself to my utmost limits and destroy any fear that decides to bubble inside me. I will be spontaneous and I will come back energised and ready to tackle my dreams and goals with determination and drive. I will, I will, I will.

Delhi

Delhi. That one word alone has not brought so many images and feelings and emotions and thoughts to mind than any other word I know. Delhi. Delhi. Delhi. The home of my wonderful childhood.

For the past few days as I have been talking more and more to a new-found friend from my summer holiday to India this year who lives in Delhi, my mind has been very rough and jagged with thoughts. I really miss Delhi. I don't know if it's the thought of what I may have turned out to be if I'd never left, or if I miss the fun I had while I was there with some awesome people. It's weird to think I would know them much more and be a part of them if I hadn't moved. Whatever it is, it has formed a new, stronger love for Delhi in my heart.

I was talking to one of my best friends a few days ago about what I should do when I feel so overwhelmed with emotions and he advised me to write it down. He said write down everything you need to write down and it'l feel like you've got it off your chest. So, I'd like to write about the best day of my childhood.

Holi
Holi-the festival of colour. My first experience of nervous, yet happy butterflies was probably the day before the first Holi I remember. Laying on the one bed we had, in our 2-room flat in Lodhi Colony whilst Mama cleaned the room up a bit and my babysitter getting ready to sleep in the room next door (I always wonder where she is and if she remembers me as I was the first child she babysat, hmm). Anyway, my long, white kurta and a pair of faded denim shorts would be messily folded and placed on our coffee table along with my precious water gun next to it. Water guns wear the thing on Holi between the kids. I vaguely remember mine being orange and blue and one of the best in the colony. I would fall asleep dreaming of the fun I would have the next day and as any 6-year-old, also dreaming about all the showing-off I could do with my new water gun, ha!

The second I was woken up by my human alarm clock, my lovely mama, one of the best days of the whole year would start. I would run and brush my teeth and eat my chapati and drink my milk as quickly as humanly possible by a 6-year-old. Dragging on my kurta and my shorts whilst my mama told me to calm down and tried to make my Papa's choice of boyish/mushroom haircut look as nice as it could. I would run out the house and into the hall of our flat where I'd be met by my 'gang'. Mridul, Madurima, Jubin and I. That was my so-called 'gang' haha! (And sometimes, Mridul's and Madurima's cousin would join us when he visited them). On our level of the flat, there lived 4 families. Two far right, two far left; with the stairs going down and up in the middle. We lived on one side with Jubin. Jubin was a South-Indian Malayalee like me who lived with his Dad, Mum and a little sister, I believe. He was one year older than me and he was Muslim. I'm guessing he may have been my first crush but I doubt I ever thought of him in that way at the age of 6 so I don't know. Our families were very friendly with eachother so we often played together. I still remember watching Bob the Builder in his house, sitting on the floor with him before I got called by someone. Right now, I also remember a time when I got a blister once and I was so scared that it might hurt, I treated it as a huge thing. I went to Jubin's Mum and she told me to pop it. And I remember sitting on their bed and popping my water blister and laughing because it didn't hurt haha! Ok, now Mridul and Madurima. They lived on the other side of the hall with their Mum and Dad and I remember that it was their Mum that was in the police (the flats were provided by the Government for people in the Delhi Police force with families) and I was so surprised that it wasn't their Dad, who was a software engineer. That must have been my first experience on equality; and I must have subconsciously fed into my brain that women can be just as good as men. And I am very glad that happened. Also, Mridul and Madurima were the first people in the colony to own a computer in their extra room on the terrace and playing Paint on it was my first and foremost experience on the computer. Oh, how I longed for a computer those days! The other people who lived in the flat next to Mridul's and Madurima's was an old Punjabi Sikh couple with two grown-up sons who didn't live with them and I don't really remember them except from the typical Punjabi face of a man with a beard, and a motta (fat) lady wearing a colourful salwar with her dhupatta (shawl) partly covering her head.

Back to the story, we would meet half way between our hall armed with water guns and small shoulder bags filled to the brim with unfilled water bombs. Then, we would run to the nearest tap and empty all our water bombs on to the floor and start filling them one-by-one whilst our bags started filling up one-by-one. After the water bombs, our guns would be filled. And then usually one of us would initiate the first flick of water on to another and that set us off straight away. We would run everywhere pelting eachother with water bombs and full blast water shots until we were dripping. As soon as we'd re-stocked, we'd run downstairs to the middle of the colony where the fun was just about to start. Everyone would come and throw packets of coloured powder into the middle and as soon as a small pile was made, the naughtiest kid in the colony would make the first move to tear open the plastic and empty it out on his friend. That one move marked the start of the whole day. No one could be stopped after that. All the boys and men dive for the packets whilst the women and the girls squeal and try to run eventhough they are soon caught up by someone and a huge handful of holi is brushed on to their cheek. Arre wah! The beautiful array of colours. Wow. As the colouring is in full swing, the teenagers usually ran up to their balconies over looking our central courtyard and filled every bucket in their house to the top with water. They lined them up and together, at the same time, drenched every person in the courtyard with water with one arm swing of the bucket. God, I would do anything to experience Holi one more time. 

That night, I would have the best sleep I've had all year. Despite the half-wet hair I'll be sleeping with, and the coloured powder probably still stuck behind my ears or behind my neck even after all the scrubbing my Mama would do which will probably all end up with her lovely white bed sheets turning rainbow-coloured by morning, or the fact that our house will basically be a little flooded and the whole colony will spend the next week or so trying to clean the mess that was made by that one day. God, was it worth it. 

This is why Holi is my favourite festival and my Holi memories are my favourite memories and that day is my most favourite day of my entire life.

Sponsored Walk 2013

As slightly chilly the weather was, Friday was a very needed break from the hustle of daily life. It's an annual event at my school for everyone to have a day off-timetable and raise money for a charity by dressing up and doing a sponsored walk in a nearby farmer's plot.

As sixthformers and the upper part of the school, our role was to marshal; basically, sit in one spot stuffing our face in food and mumbling the occasional "Woo! Well done! Keep going, you're nearly there!" to anyone who walked past panting whilst we had a mouth full of pot noodles. This is why it was fab ok.

Fab view compared to the muddy and smelly surroundings others had

Many people were assigned spots inside the woods where the mud was unbearably wet, or in spots right next to the farmyard animals where the surrounding mile radius smelt like manure. Luckily, our spot was on top of a hill and it was beautiful.

Being fat and cosy on a hill

One of my close friends accompanied me as my partner and we had gone to Tesco early morning to buy a bulging bag of fatty, artery-clogging food that would keep us busy while we were 'busy' marshaling and watching Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani on her tablet.

Minnie Mouses

Thinking time :-)

First post!

I have made two blogs in my life. One tumblr blog for reblogging mass numbers of ‘hipster’ photographs or stupid teenage quotes; and another I made around last year on blogspot which was just used for ranting during exam season. But now I need a fresh start, so. 

For a few months now, I’ve come to that stage in life- that teenage stage in life, specifically, where I have no clue in what I want to do in any aspect of my life. So many thoughts and nowhere to organise them! And that is the sole reason for the start of this blog. To organise my thoughts. To write. To organise my thoughts by writing. And I hope I get to do just that.