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you

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you

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you

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you

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you

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okay

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tell me

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tell me about

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let's start you back further

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then you can walk to it but come this way

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yeah there you go

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then you can turn around and go back and talk about it

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I tell you what yeah

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go ahead

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okay so just can you tell me a story about this mural

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well I can tell you how I got started

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what happened was

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I was introduced to Dr. Michaels by one of the teachers

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Francisco Mendoza who comes here

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and he introduced me to her and he told me about how she had worked on the school

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and how she helped the students develop the artwork and

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to paint a lot more murals

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so we met we talked about art we talked about a lot of other things

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and that's how we started to build this mural

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she asked me if I wanted to work on it and I said sure

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and what happened was we were all thinking about

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how can we make this mural

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powerful how can it

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bring something pleasant to everyone in the office

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because the office was pretty hectic

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and we decided to make it a scene from Paris which it is

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it was a scene from Paris and we talked about

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how come we wanted to make it

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how everything had to be structured how everything had to be man made

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I had a lot of trouble with it because

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I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted this to look

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if I wanted a fountain if I wanted a round or square

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if I wanted to just place it there

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and it took a while to develop everything and

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find out how we wanted everything to come by

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I started working on it outside

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it was pretty hot weather like 90 degrees close to 100 degrees

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and we would just prime it

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so it's kind of interesting how this is all grass

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and if you look real closely

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right around here you can see that this is real grass

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because while I was painting outside on the grass

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the grass got stuck to it

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so some of it has a lot of grass

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and by the grass that's when I started

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picking it up and making it into grass because I wasn't sure what I wanted this to be

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and it took me a long time to make this grass the way it looks

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because at first it looked watery and so on

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Dr. Michael started liking it

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and we started building things up

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we added the flowers in last

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I would go outside and look at the flowers

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and that's how we decided to make the flowers look the way they are now

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and it took a while to also think of the fencing right here

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it looked pretty plain and what happened was the mirror

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the circle right there was just coming out

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so we decided to put a fencing around it

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and hopefully it'll land it down

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and that's what it did, that's exactly what happened

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another thing is I had a dream about these swans

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so I wasn't sure what I was going to put there

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when I was sleeping I had a dream of some swans in a pond

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and a fountain just the way it is

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so when I went back to school

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when I went back to work the next day

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I painted in the swans

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and that's how they started building up and I put a lot of gold around them

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making them very bright

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because that's what I enjoyed the most

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I enjoyed the swans the most

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and that's what I wanted to show people

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the swans to me are a symbol of calmness and beauty and things like that

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would you sort of walk us through it

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as if we were going to walk through this place

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how I imagine it

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what walking through here is like

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to me, when I was painting it

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I did walk through it

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I was actually there

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I would come in through here

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I wanted to make, enter the people into it

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that's why I made that road right there

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so people can walk inside and wonder what it's like to be in there

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because everything else is so pleasant, everything else is so calm

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that you want to see what's beyond that point

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and that's what it all draws you in there

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so I would walk around here

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and look at the swans, look at the fountain

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feel real calm, probably sit on the grass

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if you want to look at the flowers and take pictures

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that's what I kept on imagining while I was painting the mural

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and that's what I wanted the viewer to feel

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I wanted them, let them feel around and go around

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and walk around there and Lord knows what's beyond that

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and it was up to the viewer to imagine what else you could see

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the gates are also a symbol of luxury, you know, luxury

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people would

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the gate, what happened was

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I wanted to make the person feel like if it was a luxury place

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I wanted to make it feel

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when you enter this

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you feel like if you're going to go into some type of paradise

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like if you're going to go into some place so rich

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that you can just lie down and have a great time on the grass

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or just have a picnic

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and that's what they symbolize, I would make them glow

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to show the richness of them

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it all worked out pretty much the way I wanted it to work out

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I wanted people to feel comfortable in the office

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I wanted people to actually want to come into this office

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and not argue and not look at the students really mean

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or feel the paper shuffling

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I wanted them to come inside for the first time, you know, the first work day

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and they'd look at it and they'd feel pleasant inside

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and that's exactly what happened, I started, teachers started speaking with me

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they started telling me how well made it was, how they felt about it

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and how it made them feel

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and that's exactly what I wanted and that's what happened

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so it was important to me to establish that too

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let the viewer, the teachers and everyone feel that

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and that's what they felt

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Can you describe the first time you came to Cooper

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and how you sort of decided to come here and try and paint?

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Well, I saw all the murals

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so I saw all the murals around Cooper

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it was fascinating, just the artwork itself was fantastic

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and it was a privilege to me to actually be able to work here

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when I came here, it wasn't as I expected

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because I didn't expect so many murals

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I didn't expect so much art

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so I wasn't really motivated

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but once I came here I got so motivated

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I came up with all these ideas and the teachers helping me

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and the students are always complimenting or just telling you what they think

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so I gathered all the ideas together

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once I gathered them, this is what I came up with

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I had a lot of sketches

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and I picked this one

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the students helped me, the teachers helped me

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and it was just what I wanted

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Were there some students who helped you paint on this?

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and if so, what did they do?

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There really weren't

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but there were two girls who were interested in seeing me paint

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and I like for people to paint and be creative

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I like to see that

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I have at least five or six layers of paint on this

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different paints

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they put the first layer was like a wash

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it's just a regular wash of acrylic

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and they just touched it up around here

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and I just let them feel the brush and see what it was like

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and some of them were muralists too

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and they just touched it up

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and on top of that I just went over the whole thing on my own

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my best friend Tina also helped me with these

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because I had a deadline to meet

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and I wanted her to feel it too

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to be a part of it

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because I think it's special to be a part of this mural

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you feel it, you actually feel

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you actually feel like you're there

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and I wanted someone to share that with me

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so I chose her

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so it was pretty good

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What things have people said to you now that the mural is hung and finished?

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They thanked me for it

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they tell me it's exactly what they thought it would be

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they tell me it makes the office a lot more different

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a lot more happy, cheerful people

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they compliment me on it, they don't believe that I did it

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a lot of people would just come up to me and say

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I went to Cooper and I saw a mural and then I had your name on it

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and that's just pretty much what they say

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I'm going to go back to the office

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Well the first time I entered it was very busy

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there were students sitting down

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a number of chairs that were around

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the teachers were running in and out

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and the secretaries were busy typing or answering phone calls

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it was hectic

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when I went to ask for Francisco Mendoza

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or when I would talk to someone

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they were pretty busy

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so I felt uncomfortable, I felt like oh no I'm imposing

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they're going to think what is she doing here

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and things like that

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that's the kind of thought that I had

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that's what they made me think

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but towards now when I came back right now

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it was cheerful, everyone was happy

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it was more calm

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I'm not saying that maybe the mural did it

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but it was different

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because they were pretty loud before