my little introduction

 Hey all, my names Fatima! I'm a 3rd year media arts student and I live here in Jersey City. The one thing that drew me to studying media arts was my love for art when I was younger whether it was a movie, a song, a picture etc. I started doing film photography at the end of high school and there was a time where I wouldn't go somewhere without my camera. During the pandemic, I stopped doing photography because I figured since I wasn't doing anything I had nothing to document. It wasn't until the last year where I reconnected with my love for photography alongside my other interests. I took this class as an elective!

My journey with literacy started when I was 4 years old. I grew up with two older brothers who loved to read to me as a kid. My mom was also a huge book lover and collector and would always read me a story before I went to sleep. At first, I hated reading because I found it boring and wasn't sure how to be more engaging when reading on my own. My mom always tried to encourage me to read, she would buy me books from my favorite TV shows and would take me to the library sometimes to pick up a new book. I used to get frustrated with myself because I was the only one in my family who didn’t like to read. Thinking back, I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t have the right attention span for reading. It wasn't until middle school where I started enjoying it as my comprehension became better. This was during the time where I was really into writing stories and poetry. I was also really into reading mangas and would spend all my free time reading manga after manga. After middle school, though, I stopped reading which frustrated me a lot since it was something that I found a lot of joy in. I felt it had a lot to do with the stress of high school but once I finished, I had a lot of free time again so I bought a bunch of books I knew I'd like and would go to the park and read. Also, as a lover of film I would watch new movies almost every night. I spent so much time writing reviews for movies with an old friend and breaking down every scene. This actually encouraged me to make a Letterboxd and start posting my reviews for movies because I liked the idea of being able to convey a scene or my feelings on a movie in a way that means something to myself and others. Another one of my interests include videography and I do plan on making my own film at some point in the future. Reading and writing is something that genuinely helps me with my creative process in writing ideas for short films, photoshoots or even poetry and songwriting. My best friend has put me onto a lot of wonderful poets that have helped me in being able to put my feelings into words. A poet that I’ve been really into, Ocean Vuong, is one of the very few artists that have been able to help me out of writers block. I'm surrounded by a lot of talented artists who write music, poetry, zines etc. and they inspire me daily to work on my writing. During the summer, my friends and I were constantly going to the beach and we would exchange books that we’re currently reading and would read while we sunbathed. We also would take time to write in our journal and would give each other writing prompts for that day. I have an okay relationship with literacy, although I find joy in it I do get intimidated by the idea of putting my thoughts out there, onto a piece of paper.