Hey emkate,

Just wanted to say hi.

Lol it's cool, I know what you mean about being crazy busy. I've been too. Our homecoming was actually kind of a let-down this year. We lost to a team we were supposed to cream. And then I don't go to the school dances because all they are really bumping and grinding. I hung out with my friends all that night though, so that was fun. :)

Thanks for the pro comment! There are certain large races where if you skate a good enough race, it qualifies you for a pro level in every race. I made the cut by 6 seconds, totally killed my best time with 1:14:42 I think. So yeah, pretty exciting!

I've been pretty busy. Our soccer team is decent, but we keep losing games by one. I think we're 4-8-3 right now, something around there, but the most we've lost by is 2. It's partially due to our conference too. We played the number one seed of a AA Conference (bigger school level than ours) and we won 6-0. So it was like,"Wow, our area must be really good." But yeah, that, homework, and other things that like to pop-up have zapped my time. How've you been?

Hey sorry I've been crazy busy lately, no time to get on. For soccer I don't think we'll go that far, even though we're a decent team. We just don't have that drive this year to finish up things, so I just have the feeling that even if we make it to the championships, the other team will want it more. Lol and no, I hope it ends up being a great weekend for you. Everything has something that clicks for them. The running "boost" is definately one of the reasons I still do it. Same thing with skating. Gotta love that. :D

School and soccer have kind of been running me ragged lately, like there's been no time. I'm sort of used to it though, I just feel bad about getting back to people so late. But yeah, our homecoming is this weekend, so I'll be hanging out with my friends, and then the US Chamionships for speed skating (ice) are in the Cities on Saturday morning, so I'm gonna go watch. It should be fun, especially being a mix of a hockey player + pro inline skater. (oh yeah, I went pro last weekend)

Hah yeah, me too on the ambitious part. I want to get into Provo, but I would definately be happy going to BYU-I. The U of Min. is actually pretty prestigious here, but there's so many people and heard all your classes are like done by video because there are just too many who go there. Plus then you have to worry about drunks and partyers and all that. I think my order is BYU, BYU-I, and then somewhere else. :P

We lost our game today, but we've been doing good. We played an undefeated team after six games and only lost 2-1, just missing a header with two minutes left. But out of our last three games we've had two wins and a tie, so things are definately turning around. It's intense, I've been getting moved around though. Like one game I'm playing forward and the next I'm back on the last line of D. It's kind of confusing. I like the front, you get to score goals. :p

Yeah, the church does seem to pump out a lot of NHS hours for me too. Like this coming weekend we have a priest-laurel where we'll be doing service four about four hours before moving on to anything else. So that'll give me a good head start. I have to miss the dance afterwards for a soccer game though. :-/

Those are good colleges to apply to. Odds are that if nothing else BYU-I will take you in. They have a 97% acceptance rate, and if you have at least half-decent grades you could probably get in. Plus you're in NHS and stuff, so you should have no problem. Not really sure about the U. of Maryland, but Provo is quite a bit tougher. BYU-I I've heard is just as good if not better than Provo, so getting accepted there isn't like a bummer or anything either.

Haha no, the service thing is cool. I'm doing NHS this year too. (I should've had it last year, but I fell a couple hours short of the cut :-/) And yeah, the difference for me is close to the same. Like, I have two friends who have been my friends since we were literally about one, but they've grown up to be star athletes so everyone hangs out around them too. I used to be more timid around the people with a higher reputation for some reason, but now it's just, I'm not afraid of everybody. I don't know why I ever was. And now it's like all the people I used to consider "popular" are the ones I'm joking around with in the halls and stuff. It's cool.

What colleges are you looking at? We just had the BYU fireside thing roll through here the other day, so I got to go to that and it was cool. Lol, you pretty much have to try not to get into an LDS college, even some of their more prestigious schools have like a high 90's percentage acceptance rate. It's cool.

School's been going pretty good. I've got it worked out so that I've got my hardest classes in some slacker classes, so I'm hoping that I won't be overwhelmed with school this year. And my hardest class right now, Chemistry, is actually looking cool, so it's all good. I don't know what it is, but people are telling me I'm a lot different in a good way this year? I just give them the thumbs-up and am like "thanks," but hey, I'll take it as a compliment lol.

Soccer's turning up a little. We're still 1-3-0 I think, but one of those losses was a 2-1 loss to the second place team in state last year, so as a team we've still got our heads up. Hopefully we can turn things around.

What about you? (same question you asked me lol)

Lol maybe. Well I dunno, I can hit all the notes and the drifts and all that stuff, but I don't consider what I have to be a blowaway voice. That's what it sounds like your friend Lindsey has. Does she have like anything on Youtube or something like that? You kind of made me interested to hear lol. But yeah, even if I do, I'd probably just keep my stuff to myself. I used to be in a band, and I sung back-up for like three songs, and those got out on a Myspace. Even though some of my friends said they actually thought my voice was pretty good, it was so weird just hearing it on a recording. So yeah. It's strange, but that's me. :P

Now if I had a blowaway voice, I'd be recording stuff like crazy and sending it everywhere. I don't know, I'm too much of a perfectionist I guess. I'm sure it's the same way with your paintings? Like say for running, I don't consider myself good until I'm matching a world standard, like these NCAA guys who run 4-minute miles like it's for breakfast. Or in skating, these guys who can skate a marathon in less than an hour. Just more of my strange way of thinking. :P

Yeah, that's a good one to have as favorite, Jason Mraz is the man. I've been a fan of his for a long time, and I actually have this pre-recording he made that I had on my iPod about two months before the 'I'm Yours' that you hear on the radio now came out. So I've been listening to that for a long time. :P I can sing it well right now, I'm just more of a perfectionist, so I'd have to be amazing before I sang it in public.

Sports are pretty big around here too, can't compare based on the fact that I haven't seen where you're coming from, just not so much my ward. My school's football team is actually dominant, like we go to state pretty much every year and win it about every third time or so. Same with track, and swimming, and girl's soccer, and hopefully soon to be hockey. Then we're awful at everything we don't go to state in. :P That stinks for your hockey guys. We have our own hockey arena in town, about five more within a 20 min. drive. Then there are maybe 18 more outdoor rinks within the same area.

I'm borderline on music. I'm in choir, used to be in a band (like, a garage band), and still make techno's and stuff for the heck of it, but I'm no David Archuleta. I might sing Jason Mraz next year for EFY, that's sort of where my voice falls, but yeah, I'm borderline. Any solo singers like that you like to sing to or anything like that?