HOST: Student journalist Brianna Levy spoke to her classmate Malina Seenarine, who uses she/they pronouns, about her interests outside of school. They dive deeper, covering topics like creativity, vulnerability, and how we see ourselves as the interview continues. Both are juniors at Baruch College.
TRACK: I’m here with my classmate Malina Seenarine for a multimedia reporting assignment. We found a cozy nook on the 6th floor of the Newman Vertical Campus—the mathematics department. We begin our conversation talking about her hobbies.
ACT: MALINA: I enjoy fashion, writing, creative writing, poetry. I like hanging out and enjoying new foods.
TRACK: When it comes to creative writing, she often focuses on her emotions.
ACT: MALINA: I like to write a lot about my feelings. Right now I mostly write about people that I know, my anxiety, my despair, yeah, those are the things I write about.
TRACK: But she wants to do more with her writing.
ACT: MALINA: I would also like to write about communities, like journalistically, also, and poetry, but I haven’t gotten there yet.
TRACK: The 21-year old journalism major enjoys both kinds of writing, equally.
ACT: MALINA: I don’t have a preference because I feel like both of them need the same amount of creativity. You know, on one end, journalism, the writing, you usually have all the content, and then you write. But in poetry it’s like, you have all the feelings and then you write. So, one is more like: ‘I’m directing this to a specific audience’—journalism—and poetry’s more like ‘this is for me, but I would also like other people to see it.’
TRACK: While she likes to write, having others read her writing is a different story.
ACT: MALINA: I hate when people see my writing, regardless if it’s, you know, for a class or just friends, I don’t know. I just get scared.
TRACK: Why, you may ask? Seenarine cited something that scares us all: vulnerability.
ACT: MALINA: I don’t like to appear vulnerable. I prefer to feel, well—look—as intimidating as possible. Even though, like, I don’t know, it’s like a disconnect. ‘Cus it’s like, yeah, I want people to be my friend and enjoy the things I like and talk to me, but then, I also don’t wanna seem weak. I wanna seem intimidating.
TRACK: It’s an age-old dilemma isn’t it? Trying to find the balance between opening up and closing ourselves in. Both can hurt us if we aren’t careful. Seenarine says she likes being intimidating. She cites different parts of her personality and character as what she uses to appear this way.
ACT: MALINA: The way I dress, I don’t know, maybe just like, my demeanor? I’m very somber, I’m just straight-faced most of the time.
TRACK: We wind down by talking about her writing once again. This time, we focus on her creative process. Sometimes she’s spontaneous with her poetry.
ACT: MALINA: Creative process…so, honestly sometimes it just comes as a spur, like, I’ll be walking down the street and I’ll think of something and I’ll write it in my notes…
TRACK: And at other times, she’s more intentional.
ACT: MALINA: …but other times I’m like ‘I wanna write, I wanna write right now.’ So what I’ll do is like, I’ll go to a cafe, maybe like a Starbucks or, I don’t know, any of these coffee shops around here, and I’ll sit down with my journal—which I usually bring everywhere with me—and I’ll just start writing how I feel, and yeah, that’s just pretty much how it starts.
TRACK: For Baruch College, I’m Brianna Levy