Minah W
The first day began with walking through the transparent doors and walking into a well air-conditioned room. The gallery was decorated with tasteful art pieces and the atmosphere buzzed with good vibes. After entering the classroom tucked in the back, friendly foreign faces greeted me.  Sketchbooks were laid out on a black top table and the early arrivals were working intensively on prepping their stencils to spray paint the back of their sketchbooks. Before making our way outside, we built on the idea that creativity is something that we build upon ad should persevere to do rather than beat ourselves up when we do no reach our goals. This idea resonated with myself and many other artists in the room and we took this to heart as we continued to build upon our creative sides. After this inspirational video, we worked on team-building activities such as networking and relying on other team members and not just ourselves. After a few failed attempts at crossing the hot lava, Akil demonstrated significant teamwork by promoting an idea that was never thought of before. He further demonstrated this by spreading his body out with the tiles and ushering us to cross behind him. This tactic worked and reinforced the idea that there really is no “I” in team.  After this first day, I left the building with more energy than when I entered and excited for more challenges and opportunities to connect with the artistic individuals in this internship.