I'm sure your parents are very proud of you Mel, you obviously listen to what people say to you, and are very focused. I have no doubt that you will be very successful in whatever you choose to do, good luck with the job and dont give up, we are all behind you.

Cheers
Grace

Awwww you people are so sweet!
Thanks Samba, and everyone! xxx

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Well, you be careful - you don't want to ruin your GCSEs.

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Or Annabel will come and get you!!

I won't do, I promise. I believe that skating would help to build me a zone away from academia. I need somewhere to let off steam and to relax, nobody can study 24/7. They need some way to have a break. It'd also put me in the greatest of moods, and give me more activation to study.

Ill finish this later, my tea is ready. xxx

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I absolutely agree about the skating - why, I encouraged my daughter to take what was then Novice Free in the middle of her A levels! You do quite definitely need a break from studying, and taking exercise in your breaks, whatever you actually do for exercise, is even better. It's just that - well, in my daughter's year, the girls (she was at an all-girls school) who had jobs in the Upper VIth mostly did cr*p in their A levels, although everybody had, and was expected to have, jobs in the Lower VIth. I don't know what happened to those people who had jobs in Year 11; I expect they did all right, though.

Enjoy your tea - I must go and make ours soon. Butternut squash and mushroom risotto - yummy!

(P.S. This conversation must be utterly baffling to many of our American readers! Feel free to ask for a translation).

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

Yummy, Mexican tortilla wraps.

What I was saying. I don't intend to let my studying down. As much as I hate it, it's not worth it. I need a back up if my skating falls through - which is why the a levels etc, but surely that doesn't have to be my main focus? I want it to be my BACK UP. If all else fails, I can fall back on my a levels or whatever. But it seems that I can't have my first choice.

If a job/skating was too stressful on my studying, I'd cut down, to how it is now. Resume when it's over.

...Just one tiny little chance, if I screw it up fair enough...If I don't, then I have a profession that I love. I don't wanna be stuck in an office everyday, waking up and thinking "God I hate this." You only live once and I want to make the most of it, and have the best life I possibly can. I want to do something I love. I could do al my work, get a job, work all my life, have a midlife crisis maybe...be bored to tears and be one of those "I hate everything" kinda people, grouchy etc.

Life on the ice would be a whole different tale. I say would, it probably will still be would tomorrow. And every day after that. I'll wonder what it would have been like. I'll probably never know.

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Mel - good luck. Just talk to your parents like you are speaking with us. Dreams are vital, but so is reality.
You also need to know that very very few skaters make it with just skating.
Right now you are young enough to prepare for and give yourself a chance for both skating and a university degree.
All the best!

Ta chucks!

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