Where do you live?
I live in Nicosia with my four cats and my dog.

What did you have for breakfast?
I usually have a coffee, a warm Nescafe with condensed milk, which is the way my grandma has been making it for me for ages.

Describe your perfect day
A day is perfect if I get to not do any chores at home, spend a big chunk of it with my cats and dog, and later hang out with friends or have them enjoy my cooking. A perfect day could also be a day trip to the mountains to just enjoy the weather and greenery.

Best book ever read?
An extraordinary book I have read recently is The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, written in 1997. I absorbed that book so fast, and it was such a fulfilling yet unsettling experience. I loved the way Roy managed to evoke history, politics, and more specifically post-colonial trauma through her vivid and highly original way of describing nature and landscape.

Best childhood memory?
I used to love Sundays as a child. The whole family would gather at my grandma’s house, and I would spend most of the day playing random story-based games, each of us acting as different character with different powers and backstories. We still gather weekly, but it is definitely not as creative or intimate as it used to be.

What is always in your fridge?
Garlic and iced tea.

What music are you listening to in the car at the moment?
I haven’t got my driving licence yet, but when I get the chance to control the music in someone else’s car, I would probably put on 2000-2010 Greek pop songs.

What’s your spirit animal?
My spirit animal is my late gladiator fish Averof Anaxagoras, who was a very sassy and picky fish with constant tummy aches. I relate to him deeply.

What are you most proud of?
That I have managed to have a good academic career and achieve the first step of my dream to be an academic while taking care of my cats and dog and looking after my own mental and physical health as well as I could. I am also proud of how my art is perceived by people.

What movie scene has really stayed with you?
The animated movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron where Spirit is racing an eagle, and you see him running, trying to surpass the eagle’s shadow. In combination with the scenery and music, it’s quite awe-inspiring. It made me feel quite jealous of both the character and their ability to be so free.

If you could pick anyone at all (alive or dead) to go out for the evening with, who would it be?
I would choose my grandfather from my dad’s side. I never had the chance to meet him, and from what I hear, he was a very strong and dependable figure. I would love to be able to meet him and know more about him, his hopes, and his life in Palestine.

If you could time travel, when/where would you go?
I would go back to when I was about five or six years old to relive some of my childhood memories and feel the simplicity of life again at that early age.

What is your greatest fear?
I am afraid of the path the world has taken, not only in terms of environmental destruction but also concerning people and their destructive nature towards one another. Media and advancements in technology have made it so much easier for people to hate and to be able to act on that hate.

What would you say to your 18-year-old self?
That I should worry less about the future and about how I am perceived by others.

Name the one thing that would stop you from dating someone.
Discriminatory and hateful behaviour, especially when one is unable to recognise such patterns in oneself and change them.

What would you do if the world was ending in 24 hours?
I would play a card game with my mom and dad, have a coffee with my grandparents, spend some time playfully arguing about the randomest things with my friends and extended family. I would later sit on the couch with my pets, listening to music or maybe reading a book.

Follow sara on @etsi_skedi0n, @sara_el.alwani