Hi Everyone! My name is Shefa Giash. As a kid, I used to be an obsessive reader. I remember going to the library every week and borrowing any kind of children’s books. For some reason, my go-to’s were atlas and the Junie B. Jones series. I was also obsessed with the Nancy Drew series. Nowadays, I don’t read anymore since high school has made me hate reading. The amount of text and books we were getting assigned made it more of a requirement for me. In middle school though, I loved YA novels. I never read the Twilight series but I did read the Percy Jackson series and the Hunger Games trilogy. I also read The Giver series which is one of my favorite books. I’m actually trying to get back into reading as I loved the passion I had for it. But my most disliked books these days are books from the perspective of weird/creepy men. For example, in high school, I was required to read 1984 and while I understood the message and themes, the main character’s depiction and thoughts of women especially are very off-putting. It makes me really disappointed. I also don’t utilize rape in a “character development for the man type of way”. The most recent book I’m reading that I’m actually engaged in is the Song of Achilles. While I was on my reading hiatus, I read a lot of webtoons. One of my favorites was Lookism but that got old and confusing really quickly. Writing is also something I enjoyed in the past but now it feels like a hassle due to school. I almost always do a hefty amount of writing whether in history, literature or even in my psychology class. I remember writing a paper even in my Latin class. I’m trying to enjoy writing a little bit more as well by doing shadow work prompts and journaling. I have researched for many classes like art history, history, religion, philosophy, etc. Researching is not too difficult for me I just don’t like how tedious the process is. I think I’m decent at finding primary sources. My past English classes consisted of reading a book and then writing an essay on it. I feel hopeful that I will start to not dislike creative writing anymore. I also do believe the pandemic played a role in my writing skills. While I felt better mentally, my motivation decreased significantly.