Dear Sanna - yes!

I can commit to a chunk of time where I will blog every day, this has just been an extremely busy (and wonderful) week for me. It's funny how working through the holidays makes me oblivious to the new year and everything going on. I haven't even thought about new year's resolutions or things like that. I'll get to it... but this past week has been really great. Work is really intense, because we are working on the program for our next performance, and it's been a while since we did it.

Our teachers are being more demanding with the first piece, so I am working harder trying to get it exactly right and even better than before. Then, the director has been asking me to learn everything lately. I think I am finally winning over the director. There is a pas de duex I am supposed to be learning that is really crazy and unclear. The director made a more experienced dancer come learn it with me, but I am very shy around him, and his English is also limited. It is very hard for me to pick up the choreography, and I asked another dancer who understudies the part for help. She basically said no, she doesn't know it very well, why do I want to learn it, ask the main girl. I am reluctant to ask the other girl, but I might work up my courage tomorrow. It's a sticky situation.

Then I was thrown into two more sections in this piece, where there were somehow spaces. These parts are nothing special, but it's nice that the directore thought of me when there was a space to fill.

I am also in the first and third parts of another piece in the program, which is a lot of dancing, and I am now understudying the middle piece, a pas de duex. Again, I am working with the same guy, but this is slightly better because I have a better idea of the choreography as we are cleaning it.

The last piece I am not in at all, but I learned the part of a girl who is away this week. I went in for the part last week, and instead of being praised for knowing the choreography really well (if I do say so myself!) and never having done the part before, the director just said it wasn't good enough and I need more energy and made us all do it again from the beginning. But today I went in for the missing girl again, and another dancer filled in for the other missing girl with me. When we finished the director said how great it was and told everyone how well we did for going in for the missing girls, and told me specifically "I really like you."

I hope this lasts!

Janie