Beyond the Lens: Unveiling the Life and Passions of Ms. Moussawel

The talented and brilliant photography teacher know as “Ms. Moussawel” has been teaching in John A. Ferguson Senior High for quite a long time, known for giving students opportunities to give photography a chance. Although she is known as the teacher, most of her students don’t really know who she is as a person, with little background information, nobody really knows what her personality traits are, or what she likes doing instead of photography. Starting off with a little background information on her photography hobby, she explains that her photographic art passion started back in her second year in college at MDC (Miami Dade College) when she took painting and drawing, falling in love with the art of imagery and recreating paintings through a stroke of a brush and a flick of a pencil. As she progressed into that, she realized that photography class was always something that she loved the most and what spoke to her.

She quotes, “It’s not that I didn’t care about the drawing and painting class, but after that first class of photography I fell in love with it and I just kept going with it.” Ms. Moussawel has always had a heart for art-related classes, but photographing images and turning it into art has always had a special place inside her heart, making her the artist that she always has been. Now we dive deeper into the lens of who she actually is as a person and not an artist, like stating her favorite hobbies. As the artist that she is, she made photography her one main-focused hobby even outside of school, that explains a lot on why and how she started being a Digital-Art Imaging teacher. Other than photography, she loves being outdoors and getting out in the real world, with her side-hustles being gardening and cooking, but she doesn’t really prioritize in that.

Just like all of us, Ms. Moussawel also likes to watch a lot of TV shows and movies, but we all have different tastes. She clears up that watching anything on the TV is not really something she does, but if she were to watch a specific genre, it would be mostly fantasy. All of her favorite genres include fantasy, thriller, and comedy being her most liked one out of all the ones she’s chosen. It may be true that the comedy genre could be the one that she likes the most, but it seems like she’s more into fantasy than comedy. We all know the famous series, “Stranger Things”, that started getting it’s fame back in 2019 when we were all in a pandemic. She’s been watching the series ever since the first season, which means that she’s been watching that series for 5 years, that is quite a long time! She describes her favorite season having to be the most recent one, season 3, because of how suspenseful it was with the plot of the story thickening and the story getting closer to its end. Now that there is a new season coming up, the best thing that she can do is wait for the new one, so she starts a new series called the “House of Dragons”. She doesn’t really add into detail on what her favorite thing about the dragon series, but she did say that she would rewatch the Stranger Things series if she wanted to from how good it is.

As the outdoor person herself, she doesn’t only like to go anywhere in Florida, she likes to travel the world. Ms. Moussawel has been to multiple places in and out of America including her recent trips being Japan, Lebanon, and Cuba. Her trip to Lebanon was really a wonderful experience, but what she really loved about it was her favorite dish that she adores, Grape Leaves. She explains that it is a steamed Lebanese grape leaf that is filled with rice and meat and usually blows up puffy looking when cooked. She points out that there is another version from Greece on that they serve it cold and usually vegetarian, but the Lebanese version will always be her favorite.

Now as we all know, photographers usually like wearing all black when they are taking photos for an event such as weddings, birthdays, or a fancy party. Ms. Moussawel is no different, she states that every time you see her, she will always be dressed in all black. Now, don’t get her wrong, although it is most of her closet, it doesn’t mean that it’s not the only color she wears. She quotes, “I do like color, it is just a habit to choose black, but if I were to pick colors to wear, it would be mostly cool toned colors like blue, green, and purple.” Speaking of purple, she actually used to not like wearing purple, but ever since she named her daughter “Violet”, now she has a purpose on wearing purple as a color she wears.

Did you know that Ms. Moussawel used to play the piano, it is quite outstanding how incredibly talented and gifted Ms. Moussawel is. She grew up playing the piano and taking private lessons at a music school, but as she focused more into photography and art, it sort of started getting behind her. Now, after all those lessons, it is commonly known that you can still have a little muscle memory, she stated that if she ever saw a piano and sat in front of it trying to play it, she said that she would remember only some parts of it, but she hasn’t played in a while so her agility is not the same as it was before. Although playing the piano is now in the past due to packed schedules and work, she encourages her kids to learn music, with her daughter being the most interested. She mentioned that her daughter plays the violin and takes private lessons, like mother like daughter.

Everyone has a favorite holiday, and most of the time people would say Christmas because of all of the free gifts. Not Ms. Moussawel though, her favorite holiday is Thanksgiving with all her friends. She looks forward to it every single year, cooking the food with her friends and having fun with games is like a happy feast every single year. She states, “Yeah, you can be with your family and it’s not wrong, but with friends it’s just something so different and yet so memorable.”

In the end, she is a photography teacher, but her life always gives away who she really is. With her travels to many places, her favorite things to do or eat, and the hobbies and talents that she possesses, she is more than just a teacher, and there may still be more than what meets the eye, or should I say the lens?