This activity gave me the chance of realising one of my ideas. I had some arts idea in my mind before, and in this activity I started my project right away.

The most important lesson it taught me was just to keep moving and things might be better at the end. As I set forth a few brushes, I suddenly felt that all that I was doing was utterly disgusting. I felt the urge of discarding it right away. But my dear friends told me to have confidence and move on. I tried my best to mix the colors in my palette and add to the canvas what I thought might be good. I found something beautiful that I have done accidentally. So I went on with the new direction, magnifying the ‘accident’, and my total expectation of my work has changed.

Finally when I stopped painting, the work doesn’t look so ugly as I thought it would before. But it is a completely new outcome from my original imagination. Maybe it is the same with my current career, I thought. Right now I’ve been struggling with the self-perception that I am doing quite badly in the program I am attending. Although my grades are not that bad, I could not see beauty as I thought I would in what I am working on. I am feeling self-hatred sometimes. But maybe it’s just the beginning. Maybe later I would suddenly find something so beautiful that I never discovered in my life, and my direction to go as a career might change–but for good purposes. Maybe I’ll just carry on and try, and something unexpected might emerge.

Finally really thanks to the organisers of this activity. Music and snacks were prepared, and they took the responsibility to clean up the mess–the dirty brushes, the colourful tables, and the like, after we’re all done and gone. This is really not easy.