THE MASK

Andrew Diep 

7/21/2022

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Here is my drawing of a raccoon painting a beautiful picture of the sky. During the pandemic, I was extremely lonely and depressed. I couldn’t adapt to the online format of school so my grades starts to deterlierate. The only thing that cheers me up is painting. That is what got me through the pandemic. Here, you see a raccoon (which is me) painting the sky. The raccoon represents me, but as an unofficial mascot of the UCSD student. You also see a computer and a math textbook on the bottom left. That is my major, Math-CS. In the picture, I am leaving the math textbook and the computer behind in favor of panting. I realized in the pandemic that if I put more time into school, my depression worsened. Being already depressed, my mental health was my first priority. That is why I shifted into painting. The blue skies represents the freedom from the confinement of my bedroom. I didn’t leave the house much during of the pandemic. It felt like a jail cell at that point. “If I can’t get the freedom, I can at least paint it”.