Human to Human

Now that the midterms are halfway through, stress is slowly fading away and sleep takes more than three hours a day, I start realizing how fast time went by. In this chaos, sometimes, you forget to eat, call your parents or notice humans around. By the fourth year, I stopped meeting new people and being interested in lives of those who I got to know during my first year here.

However, this blog, my mini “get back to people, Karina” project, helped me to remember how exciting and fascinating it is to meet new people. To simply talk to them. To understand them.

Each and every one had a story to tell. The only thing I had to do was ask. Each and every one of them taught me something new and I highly value every single detail they shared with me. This blog helped me to get to know so many interesting people! And gave me an opportunity to not only learn something new about strangers but even about roommates of four years, friends and close ones I thought I knew everything about.

I did not interview as many humans of AUBG as I would like, but I believe, it is just a beginning. The beginning of my, or I would rather say, our journey! Those who I did have an honor to interview taught me to stay open, curious, love, live and enjoy the ride called “life”.

The hyperactive Belgian Basile, taught me to pursue your dreams. To be who you actually want to be. That made me think: do I really want to connect my future with business or do I want to become a designer, artist or journalist I always dreamt of being?

The flying vampire Nazima, taught me to keep going forward, no matter how many lemons the life gives you.

The expert in long-distance relationships, Mandukhai, taught me to never give up on your relationships, even if your loved ones are so far away.

The persistent guitar player, Sagyndyk, taught me that everyone has a super power. You just have to look inside yourself:

“I believe you can achieve lots of stuff without any super power. You just need to concentrate and focus on things you really want to do. That’s it! I don’t believe in super powers. I believe in motivation and persistence.”

The bubbly sun of cold Russia, Aita, taught me to understand how marvelous human beings are and how much we are able to achieve if we want something.

The tragedy of Boris Kodikov, taught me that humans have to stay together, understand and support each other in both good and bad times.

Who are we? We are humans. Doesn’t matter AUBG, Princeton or Zimbabwe. We all are humans. Incredible open-walking books of history, present and future. Humans who have needs to love, live, laugh, cry and share. And as long as people would be there to share, I would be listening.

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I don’t believe in super powers. I believe in motivation and persistence.

This week I was interviewing Sagyndyk (a.k.a Saga or Sandr for friends) Tukovayev from Kazakhstan. Sagyndyk is a second year Human of AUBG majoring in Computer Science and Information Systems.

Average student with a wide smile, in fact, turned out to be an optimistic young man with variety of interests.

Sagyndyk is a member of AUBG Dance Crew (dance club of American University in Bulgaria), AISEC OCP (Organizational Committee President of Events), regular in the gym and novice in such activities as surfing, snowboarding and playing the guitar. During the academic year he is a hard-working student and an active participant in the university’s life. And if this is not enough, during summer he hustles as a skilled barista at Starbucks, New York…I mean, how many hours, really, does this guy have in a day? Definitely more than 24! 🙂

Sagyndyk’s relationship with dancing started long ago before coming to AUBG. Back then, 16-year-old Sagyndyk, with persistence in his blood and clear goal in his mind, decided to join a famous break dance crew of his home town.

“So I went to this crew, asked if I can join them and since then I started dancing.”

Today 20-year-old Sagyndyk is still into dancing and as persistent as ever.  When Sagyndyk came to the university, he applied to AUBG Dance Crew and got accepted. According to Sagyndyk, being in the dance club is a lot of fun, you meet new awesome people and, most importantly, enjoy yourself.

“[Dancing] takes you out of all the problems and troubles that you have. You are just listening to music, relaxing, having fun, enjoying it, enjoying yourself, enjoying being with other people” says Sandr.

Sagyndyk not only dances to the music, he also makes it. He is a self-taught guitar player:

“…at first I  just saw lots of videos on YouTube and, you know, being in a company where somebody plays the guitar makes you want to play it too. So one day I wanted to buy a guitar but I didn’t have a chance that time. However, last month when I came back to Blago, I finally collected money, went to the store and bought my very first guitar! So since that time, you can say, I  play the guitar!”

According to him, persistence, YouTube videos and help of your friends is a perfect combination of success for someone who tries to learn a new skill or achieve something.

This past summer was a first time for Sagyndyk to try surfing. “At first it looks easy,”- he says – “you take a surfboard to the beach, you enter the water and you try to stand on it. However, the water is unpredictable, the surface underneath you is unstable, therefore it is hard to keep the balance. You fall and it hurts. But you have to try and try again, until you learn at least the basic things.”

Sagyndyk, what we, business people (I am a business major, in case you missed my “about” section), call it, is self motivated. He is persistent, optimistic and does not give up. Every opportunity for him is a chance to learn something new. Every new thing he learns gives him more excitement and motivation to learn more.

To my question “if you could have any super power, what would it be?”, Sagyndyk answered:

“I believe you can achieve lots of stuff without any super power. You just need to concentrate and focus on things you really want to do. That’s it! I don’t believe in super powers. I believe in motivation and persistence.”

 Now excuse me, while I go and think how pathetic I am when I whine about lack of time!

Speaking of guitars and talented people, here is a little video of Sagyndyk playing the guitar! Enjoy!