5:30-9:00 Monday through Friday was roughly my schedule last week as we where getting ready to preform.  The only way I could possible survive is eat dinner at about 4:00 and then pray that I didn't die.  Long rehearsals are very much necessary.  However Monday was a mess to say the least.  We hadn't preformed together and ran through the whole ballet for close to a month.  Our timing and spacing where way off.  Then to make matters worse one of the artistic directors of the company, Mrs C watched it and was yelling out corrections to us.  You know stuff like, "smile" "turnout" "fix that sickle" etc...  Now I don't mind ballet teachers yelling corrections at me, but after we hadn't danced the ballet in almost a month and had Mrs C yelling at us, well it's a bit stressful.  I really want her to be impressed by my dancing but it's kind of hard when I'm not on the top of my game.  I survived and pretended I knew what I was doing even though I turned the wrong way and my timing was off at pointes.  But you have to smile and keep dancing.  Fake it 'til you make it, a good mantra for ballet but not for life.  Anyways, as always have a great day and just keep dancing!!! ~Mia