Being Productive

Today was the longest, busiest day I've had in quite some time...and for some reason I'm always happiest when I have far too much to do!

It all started in ballet class. I don't think I've been up to dance before 11am since Radio City's 9am shows in December. Today I forced myself for many reasons, but mostly because a particular teacher is back in town for a brief while teaching at 10am: Madame Darvash! I took her class on and off while she was in the city last spring and was pleased that she actually remembered me this morning after a year away in Europe. Her class is very technical and very hands on, which is rare in the New York open class scene. Nobody really takes the time to work through specifics in the crowded classes around, so it's a nice addition to my usual class schedule.

After that I ran to spend the afternoon working with my teacher as I've been doing to prepare for our student showcase performance at the end of the month. More details to come, but we're doing excerpts from "Napoli" (one of my favorites) and "Les Sylphides" (not one of my favorites). She had me make 30 pairs of sylph wings a while back for our costumes, so today we finished those up and decorated them, etc. Fun stuff.

Multitasking can be exhausting. Besides wing-making I did about a thousand other things in the span of those few hours. I had a short time to kill afterwards, so I ran uptown to pick up a book that I'll be reviewing for ExploreDance.com soon (again, details to come...).

THEN I had a 2 hour private class with said teacher. Two hours is a long time to be in a studio one on one, but between the two of us and our perfectionism we barely make it through barre in that time frame. We literally pick apart every single detail and work my technique for my own body, rather than how I usually force things in normal class. It's so difficult and very intense work but it's SO helpful and feels very productive. I'm not sure any other teacher would have the patience to work that long that closely with me, haha.

AND after that I had to run to a brief rehearsal. Last night a friend of mine asked me to be in a piece she's choreographing for a different showcase at the beginning of April. Fun! Yet again I'll say details to come, but the first rehearsal went well. It's a pas de deux from "La Traviata."

On top of everything, I spent the day contemplating accepting an unpaid internship at a magazine for a few months. For those who don't know, I have a master's degree in publishing and have interned at 4 magazines - one of which was The New Yorker. So the prospect of working for another magazine for free did not seem like a great idea at first. But the thing is, right now nobody in publishing is really paying, and jobs in general are few and far between. After much contemplation I decided to accept the internship to have something solid on my resume for the spring "semester" and to get my back working more closely at a magazine besides just freelancing articles. It's 1.2 million circulation doesn't hurt either.

Phew. It helps me to just organize my crazed thoughts on days like this. I love being busy - it used to be that literally EVERY day for probably 3 years was a day like this. Lately not so much, so I appreciate all the opportunities starting to come my way. Will definitely post more details on the goings-on soon!