Region Swim Meet

Wow! What else can I say other than wow! Region swim meet was one of the best days of my young highschool life! I dropped time continually, and i was awarded 3rd place in both the fifty freestyle and the one hundred freestyle. My relays took third (the 200 free relay) and second (400 free relay). My best fifty free time now is a 22.91. And my new hundred time is 50.4. AMAZING!!! But my favorite part about the meet, was the two boys i swam against in all my events. Tyler Condie, and Joseph Nelson are two of the most inspirational people I know. Joe has been a really great competitor, and i was so thankful to race against him. He said a prayer with me before our fifty free, and that to me is absolutely amazing! Tyler Condie is an amazing sport. He's a junior like me, so i'll see him again next year, but he works so hard and he is SO FAST! I learned from these boys the benefits of hard work and sportsman ship. They make me want to be a better person as well as a better swimmer. Tell you what Condie, you beat my be a .01! Keep a wary eye over your shoulder buddy I'll see you at state!

Life altering...

Have you ever had to make a choice? A choice so profound that it had the ability to change your entire life? It seems so important that it can't wait and you desperately try to push it to the back or your mind because you dont want to feel the pressure of decision? I have been presented with a decision. Starting with a very very good swimming oppurtunity. The reason i was introduced to swimming, was when a colleague of my Dad's saw me swim and said "Get him into swim." I doubt she knew that within a few short years i'd be swimming on a state level. Her name is Cazz and she has recently offered to private coach me. A former BYU swimmer she knows the ins and outs of swimming. BYU is renound for its fantastic sports programs, and I know that i'm going to be worked over. While discussing the work i was going to go through over the summer, i began to wonder about my future, if swimming was something i actually wanted to persue in a colligate level. I was talking about it with my parents, Swimming and winning on the levels i have achieved implies that I could be scholarship material for BYU. The Y as most know has gotten progressively more and more expensive, and my goal for attending the Y seems to be getting slowly harder to achieve. But to reach this level, i would have to endure a period of training unparalleled by any highschool coach. But the decision gets hairier. If i were to persue, and succeed swimming on a colligate level, i would (as my competative nature promotes) rise to the top as quickly as possible. This meaning that i would probably have a shot at the olympics. On the other hand, i could stop swimming after highschool and focus soully on school. Get on my feet. But for some reason i cant seem myself in an everyday job. If i found one that never betrayed my interests then i would be fine, but it has yet to manifest itself. I love swimming with all my heart, but I dont know if i could endure the hours of time and effort it would take to make it to a competative colligate, much less an olympic, level. Granted it would fulfill all my dreams and i would have accomplished something absolutely amazing, but would this decision keep me from more important things? Like my mission, or future spouse? Where do my priorities lie in this possibly life altering decision?

Insight

Our lives are built on perspective. Our lives revolve around how WE see things. Naturally we see things differently than others, but in the end we as human beings want to believe in the world as we see it hence the birth of Opinion. It's actually an argued idea that if you were to look through someone else's eyes, still having the knowledge you already have, your vision would literally be different. For intstance, if i were to get into your head and look through your eyes with my own the color you see as green (though you've been taught to say its green) could very well be brown or red to me. We've all been taught to say its green, but in reality there is absolutely no way of knowing if what i see is the same as what you see. So what does that say about reality? We all see it differently, see it the way we want to see it. So in other words we basically create our own realities, and I think we have opinion because someone else is trying to force their reality on our own, and no body likes to be pushed around! As a part of our manufactored realities, we have succumbed to certain truths because we've been taught that some things are just the way things are. But flashing back to the "looking through someone elses" eyes theory, simple truths are still simple truths but we decide on how we see them. This is one of the beauties of mankind, the gift of discernment, opinion....and insight.

Due To Nagging.

So, due to numerous naggings of a certain Jackie Eborn. I am being forced to write (against my will) So I will extend my sentances about nothing for as long as I can, with lots of commas and probably a series of run on sentances which are grammatically incorrect and for which my english teacher would put her fifty dollar pedicure square in my rump for doing! (try and say that whole last bit in one breath ha ha!)

OK ok, on a more serious note, You ever feel that romantic nostalgia? Dude its been freaking plagueing me lately. Personally (well usually at least) I like being single and I love playing the game. But lately, I've been craving that womanly infatuation that I guess has recently become part of my fiber as a human being. However when ever I try to go for a girl, they always have problems, or they are huge drama queens, or they play me for a sap. So despite how much I miss Girls, I've recently come to be very wary on them. Because I've found that there has only been one, ever that was normal! A girl that didn't play me, that didn't have numerous problems/issues and didn't thrive off of drama! Why can't girls be more like her really is that too much to ask?

Everytime you're with someone you love, you chop off a little bit of your soul and give it to them. So just make sure it's someone you trust.

-Ashley Sparks

Quote:

Love Isn't reserved for the old.
-Jackie Eborn

Embarressed...

I decided to swim in the most advanced lane for the rest of the year, so I would be better prepared for the Region and State competitions. Near the end of practice coach B had us doing starts/ fifties in the pool. When we were doing the fifty free, Matt Krambule (my main competition) Made a bet with coach that if he beat me at the fifty free practice, for him, would be over. Coach said only if he gave me two seconds head start...Matt beat me all the same, and the entire team saw. I've not felt so ashamed of myself for a long time. Never again Matt, never again!

NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

Well, I do suppose I spent my New Year in good company. I spent it with the Roylance family. Yes the young lady I went with to the Christmas Dance. It happened to be Ashley's birthday and I was privilaged to share it with her and her family. Delightful people all of them. We went to go see first night which was cool, saw a cool fire dance, some samba and we actually spent some time Swing dancing and we were invited to go dance some time at a place run by the people who sponsor www.swingutah.com. Might actually take em up on that. I have so much in store for this year, hopefully I'll actually progress in my swim career and get off this plateau, get that Davis record under my belt. Happy New Year!