"It is never too late to be what you might have been" -George Eliot

 Who do I think I am? Truth is, I don't really know...or rather I never really thought about it until now. I know who I am; where I come from, who my parents are, my friends, my home, etc. But now that I'm trying to formulate a sophisticated yet somewhat witty response, I can't help but find myself drawing blanks. I like to think that I am a lot of things; a smorgasbord of ideas, goals and aspirations, if you will. I am a student; a waitress; an activist; an environmentalist; a writer; a musician; a singer; a very poor dancer; a creator; a consumer; a sister; a daughter; and a friend. I am a block of clay waiting to be chipped at revealing the masterpiece encased within. I am Rachael.

Growing up in Long Island, a mere twenty-five miles away from Manhattan, I have the luxury of opting to hop on a train and flee the huge crowds and endless billboards for a more suburban setting (and vice versa). The city is overwhelming and overflowing with advertisements and various forms of visual communication, just waiting to infiltrate the minds of the passerby's. Transforming the way they perceive others as well as themselves; most people, including myself, do not even realize that we are constantly being altered and reshaped by media influence. Who we think we are and how the public perceives us as individuals, may be two very different things. As a student at Hunter College, I am currently a media major and an anthropology minor. This strange and reciprocated relationship between media circulation and personal/public identity fascinates me, and serves as my main source of inspiration. I find myself most intrigued when the manifested identity or persona of one (or many) directly challenges/ breaks conformity with the original intent/ message presented and released through media. Some of my biggest role models include; Nicholas Roeg, the Cohen brothers, Tarantino, and Marlene Dietrich.
 Ideally, my goal in life would be to work with film doing audio work. This summer I had the awesome opportunity to intern at a post production company in Soho, called Post Factory. There I got to witness first hand the final stages of creating major projects that would eventually be made available to the public, including; film, television shows, and commercials. Prior to this experience, the only role I had in the film industry was sitting in the theatre eagerly waiting for the film to dance across the silver screen. So, watching these professionals finesse and finalize various feature films that haven't even began advertising yet, was incredibly surreal and helped me realize just how many different facets of media involvement are incorporated into and necessary for a single project. Almost (if not every) form of media communication is involved in the film practice; print, television, broadcast, and internet. All of these outlets come together to persuade us, the audience, that this film is worth watching, and will potentially influence us some how in our lives after the last credit has rolled off-screen.

      http://www.juxtapoz.com/ - a link to my favorite magazine