RLA: Personal Narrative

798, Art Attack

“Yes, I’ll come!”

That was the sentence that led me into a whole new experience.

It all started when I was sent to an interview for a job.

Surprisingly, I was hired for that job, and when I heard the news, my lips immediately curved into a grin. The setting for the job was at 798, a street full of artistic things, like shops, museums, and even awesome restaurants! An artist called Tino Seigol was putting on an interesting art exhibition, called “Progress”. Basically, the guests go through white corridors with people accompanying them, talking about progress. First, kids take them, then teens, then young adults, middle aged people, and finally old men and ladies. I’m supposed to be that kid (surprise!).

Straight away, on the first day I went to work, the museum staff started training me along with a couple of other kids. After a series of training sessions, we were ready to take on our first customers. (Sound effect: dun-dun-dun, DUNNN…) The media reporters.

In the “secret” waiting room for us little staffs, my stomach twisted and turned. I felt that bats, not butterflies, were flying around in there. All the time before, I was so confident, but suddenly, everything seemed so easy to mess up. What if I accidentally said the name of the artist wrong? What if nothing goes right? What if…… You can do it, Isabella. You can do it! I tried to pull out some inner courage of me, and squeeze out the dark thoughts. Then the show started.

I hurried to the first position I was supposed to be at, then waited for my first customer to be let in. When I was waiting, I glimpsed through the cracks of the heavy sliding door how long the waiting line was outside. At least 60 people were shuffling here and there, like a squirming dragon. The noise was so loud and mixed up, it sounded like a whole cafeteria of kids.

“Here, you can go,” the guard at the door informed the next customers.

It’s now or never. I thought, taking a deep breath. Slightly shaking, I stepped up and greeted two Chinese women. “Hello, I’m Isabella and this is…” Oh my goodness! I forgot the Chinese name of the artist! Secretly, I knew this was going to happen. It was hard for me to memorize the Chinese name.

Thank goodness that I know the English name. I thought with relief, and finished with, “Tino Seigol’s work. Would you like to come in with me?” Phew! That was close!

The ladies smiled at me warmly and nodded. Instantly, I felt encouragement. My trembling fingers stopped moving, and my stiffened shoulders slumped down. I took the ladies to the second position I was supposed to be in.

“So, in your opinion, what is progress?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. I hope that they would take the question seriously. Please! I thought. It may seem like a stupid thought, but the thing is, if they just say, “I don’t know,” then…, well, I wouldn’t even know how to respond to that.

Luckily, they took it very seriously. To think back, I’m very thankful that they did because it really helped me defeat the tremor of taking on new customers.

“I think that everything is progress! The cars are, the majestic buildings are, and the phones are!” One of the ladies said with a cheerful smile that never seemed to disappear. The other lady wasn’t as enthusiastic, but that didn’t matter. I already had enough answers.

“Great!” I lead them towards an opening and “handed” them off to a teenager. I quickly told him the answers the lady had said. He murmured a quick “thanks” and lead the customers to somewhere else.

I rushed back to the waiting room. What an experience. And I’m going to have lots and lots of them again and again later. For some reason, rather than to shiver at that thought, a broad smile couldn’t escape from my face.

Some of my experiences weren’t as good as the first ones. After the media people left a couple of days later, normal citizens were allowed to come in. The problem is, not everyone is er, as flexible at thinking as the media reporters are.

I was just as eager slumped against the wall, tapping my feet as I waited for the guard to let my next customer in. When he did, I remember vaguely that a medium-sized man in a grey and black striped shirt walked in, occasionally looking left and right. Doesn’t look like a smart man. I thought. However, I walked up and greeted him anyways because I’m doing a job. “Hello, I’m Isabella; would you like to come in with me?”

The man replied, “Um, yeah, sure…”

In my mind, I shrugged, but walked on. “So, what do you think is progress?”

The man appeared to only half-think about this question. “Uh, um, like…”

I was glad that I knew how to respond to that sort of questions then. I gave him a few examples and suggestions. “Do you think that the cars are progress?”

“Not really…”

I frowned slightly. “How about the buildings?”

“I guess,” The man’s eyes glanced down to his feet.

At that point, I was about to explode. How, how, does this man think that cars are not progress? How does he “guess” that buildings are only a little progress? I took in a few deep breaths, trying to confine my “explosion”. Quickly, trying to get over with this “catastrophe”, I handed him off to a teen, gave a sigh of relief, and skipped back to the waiting room.

A month later, there was a pizza party, celebrating the end of this job and, at the same time, our success. I thought about all my experience from the past weeks, and I suddenly felt that I earned a lot. I earned so much, not in money, but in knowledge, experience, and best of all, I made progress.

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Questions:

1. In this piece, I worked hard on giving details, like someone's appearance, and a bit of my inner thinking.

2. Next time, I would put in a bit more inner thinking, take out unimportant parts, and try to slow down the heart of the story.