30 Day Drawing Challenge, Day 4! (Which Should Be Day 5)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the challenge for Day 4 was "Favorite Place", and I had a hard time of it. I've been to a lot of different places in my life, yet none of them particularly stand out as my absolute FAVORITE. The places we go and how we feel about them often don't have so much to do about the places themselves, but more about our reactions to them, the preconceived notions we had going in, the events that took place there, and who we got to share it with.

One example of a place I've been where my memory of it was utterly dictated by my reaction to it was South Korea. Ten years ago or so, I had to take a business trip there, and from the second my boss told me about the trip, I was braced for disaster. Our customer there was not happy with our company because most of the equipment we had sold them had screwed up in some way. I was going with our lead programmer and Director of Engineering, two (let's not mince words here) nerds, whereas I was the technical sales representative--yes, little, shy, introverted me, I was the personable one of the group. It was going to the other side of the planet, in Asia, in a county that didn't even share the same alphabet as me. I was so screwed.

But then, once I got there, the folks we were there to see were SO personable, kind, understanding, and hospitable. They really loved our product and could see all of its potential and couldn't wait for it to be up and running. One of the days we were there was a national holiday, and one of their technicians spent his day off showing us around one of the historic villages. We explored traditional Korean food, went out for beers with them, and I even learned their alphabet during a long, boring drive from one city to another. Overall, it wasn't so much that Korea was the coolest damn place I'd ever been, but it had so exceeded my expectations in every way, that it remains a cherished memory to this day.

So that got me thinking: My favorite place didn't have much to do with the place at all, but the place it inhabited in my mind! Therefore, that was what I drew: the inside of my mind.

Plus, now I've had the They Might Be Giants' song, "Birdhouse in Your Soul" going through my head for a few hours. At least it's not that, "Rock to Wind A String Around" song.

So I've got yesterday's challenge out of the way, but I still have to do today's! That should be pretty easy--today's challenge is "Best Friend". I really only have one best friend, my husband, so I should probably go draw him!