I am so enthusiastic to show my homework to the teacher. I want to tell her how I sat myself down for the first time in a long time and felt like a child again. Inexperienced, impatient and very eager to try out something new. And did I struggle with the paint! I want to tell her about that too. So much happened inside of me, I had intense conversations with myself.

When it is my turn to put my work on the ground, on display for the whole group, to be discussed by the teacher, I feel proud and happy.
" You left all the edges open, " she says, "that's not good. It gives an enclosed feeling." I want to tell her that indeed borders are an issue I always struggle with. How interesting this already shows itself in my first assignment.

"This brick wall doesn't work, you should have painted the edges too."

"Yeah, and those white lines are not clear at all." All my pride vanishes at once. When I trying to comment on her remarks, she says that as an art student I have to be able to take criticism. I guess that means in her case that there is no room for discussion. I am confused.

The second part of the assignment was to make an independent art work based on one of the previous sheets. Since I like quilts, I decided to use the rest of the torn pages to make a patchwork. With paint I drew 'white lines', and with a white marker I wrote words from the texts in random order on the lines. I finished the piece with transparent glue.

I enjoyed making it very much. I had to make choices all the time, and one thing led to another. It was inspiring and fun, and it made me want to make more.
At first glance the teacher seems not to like it at all. "You have put to many ideas in one piece," she says. But as I am gathering my other work, humiliated, she says she does like the way I wrote down the words between the lines. It comes like 'mustard after the meal (Dutch expression).'
She moves on with the other students and I am so jealous when she praises most of them. This is a new feeling for someone who used to excel in class and be teacher's pet.