Since I was a kid I'm always been fascinated about anime. I remember myself waiting for every anime aired on T.V it was like my hobby back then. Until I found myself being drown into it and dreaming about being an animator someday.

My first ever favorite anime is Hunter X Hunter which is the basis of my very first artwork in which I drew the two main character, Gon Freecs and Killua Zoldyck. I was very young that time but I found my passion in drawing and decided to pursue it. So from time to time, when I'm inspired by the anime I'm watching or already watched I'd draw them.

When I was in junior high school I'm part of the program of our school in which called, Special Program In The Arts. All students who excels in arts will be part of this program. There are various categories in this program, there's performing arts like guitar, dance and choir. Also, non performing arts like visual arts, multimedia arts and creative writing. I'm part of visual arts in which we studied any kind of visual arts.

There's like a level of arts that we studied in here. We first study portrait and realistic drawing using charcoal pencils and pastels. We did posters as well, there will be a theme and we will design our posters based on it. Until we did paintings, t-shirt printing and lettering using brush.

T-shirt printing is something I enjoyed and somehow draining as well. I remember printing hundreds of shirt for a school program in which we did until evening. Our visual arts team earned from it, but its not actually distributed among us, all of it goes to our advisor, we may not earn money from it but the knowledge and the experience is something we can treasure and can be use for the rest of our lives. it's all worth it.

Special Program In The Arts have our very own event in school in which we showcase our talent to everyone. We as visual artists we held our own exhibit hall in which everyone can view and buy our paintings. That's when few of my paintings are sold. I considered it as my first job because I pour my effort into it and give all my best in completing my craft and not just because I earned from it.

I'm very satisfied with my output, I almost wanted to just take it home instead of selling it but the contentment is doubled when someone appreciate your work. Knowing that someone wants to buy my paintings is so overwhelming and it really makes me very happy. It's like one of the memorable moment of my life in which my hard work is recognized. Although, I know that even before anyone can appreciate my work God is already recognizing all of my efforts.

Right now, I'm pursuing Architecture as a profession, kind of different from being animator but somewhat in the same page as well. Designing is something that I enjoy and even though its hard, the experience is worth it. From only sketching anime characters to actually planning to build a future home for everyone.

The journey sure is long but the process is something we should enjoy. So far in my journey, I've already gone through a lot before I realized where I truly belong. 

My journey is not yet done, I have just taken a bit walk from the starting line. God is not yet finished with me and my purpose. And I don't plan to give up until I reach my goal.

I'm Aira Martinez, Architecture student and this is #MyFirstJob story.