Sorry! My information in the SVA database is somewhat inaccurate. I am not eighteen- years old. I am eighty-years old. Not that I have a giant forehead because of my eighty-year-old hairline, but my altruism has made me an outsider to some of my classmates.
When I was in China, my father took me to volunteer in his pharmacy to deplete my excessive elementary-school-kid energy. From the initiation of my volunteer life, my desire to contribute to others grew, which I later learned from Google is a typical trait of an old person. During my time in the pharmacy, I helped test blood abnormalities for patients (not those complex treatments if you are thinking of a ten-year-old poking needles into people). I did not worry about standing for seven hours every day for three months nor about having to squeeze technical terms into my limited brain cells. All I cared about, however, was to provide appropriate treatment to the customers. This selfless personality followed me when I went to Vancouver, Canada to study. I began volunteering at many organizations, such as accompanying the elderly at a senior home. After my shifts at the residence, I always stayed longer even though I had ten college applications I hadn't started yet. Listening to the residents describing a 20th-century world or arguing about the tastiest sushi restaurant cured me of a bad mood, often brought on by my little sister screaming at 6:00 AM.
New York is where I reached my eighty-year-old persona. After moving here for college, the tremendous Vancouver sky was squashed between skyscrapers like a thin blue strip sliced by a paper shredder. The city noises shocked me like my phone ringing in the middle of a silent class. Unable to find peace in bustling New York City, I devoted my attention to the other half of my old heart and joined a volunteer organization that helped the homeless. Indeed, volunteering gave me the most joy, even more than the happiness of my professor cancelling a class. I heard stories about people freezing to death on the streets and saw homeless people without pants to wear in the sub-zero night. For the first few days, I was the kind of trouble-making customer every store clerk hated by asking to speak to the manager. Instead of complaining about poor service or faulty goods, I asked: "Does your store have any available socks or blankets for donation?" The pain of encountering desperate people also motivated me to incorporate their experiences into my art. Besides painting vulnerable groups, I created artworks like a map for the homeless to find free food and warm places as they struggled to scour the Internet for the information.
From volunteering at a pharmacy, retirement residence, and a homeless organization, my selflessness never weakens like children's love of candies. While I have not focused on how my art skill drove my painting professor crazy in this essay, I have attempted to show an eight-year-old girl inside an 18-year-old body. Let's keep the secret of my age error in the SVA database, because I am not ready to meet Mr. Koen yet, and find out together the actual age inside of our bodies.
Xuan Chen is a sophomore majoring in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts. Xuan works primarily with oil and acrylics to explore the subjects of social commentary. Aside from painting, she enjoys journaling to pursue her love for writing. In her free time, she volunteers for non-profit organizations including Coalition For Homeless, Animal Haven, and ASPCA.