Business Bubble

Here is our piece of work for TV News Reporting class at AUBG. AUBG Bubble reported about Start Up Conference, dream businesses at our university and Film Festival in Thessaloniki. Hope you enjoy it! 🙂

AUBG BUBBLE SHOW

Dear viewers,

Today’s episode is all about business. What are startups? How to behave  properly  during  a business related event? What kinds of businesses do students dream about? And what city one should visit to relax after a hectic week?

Finally, find out WHO won an awesome AUBG travel mug in the following episode.

Please, share one of our episodes from the official Facebook page of AUBG_Bubble and get a chance to win AUBG travel mug.

Do not forget to follow us on Twitter 🙂

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Let’s Believe in Ourselves

I have met so many talented people at AUBG that I didn’t have enough weeks to post about them in my blog. I am actually so happy that our university has such young, motivated, hardworking and persistent students that follow their passion.

I have met Liu, a talented musician who can sing and play guitar. First, he wasn’t sure about his talent but when he won a talent show in his city, he started playing in a band.

“After winning that talent show, I sort of got into it, I even started learning the guitar somehow.”

Now he is a president of the Rock Jamming club at AUBG and is a member of the rock band “RAs and the misfit.”

I was also quite surprised by Baur’s story of developing his talent. I saw Baur dancing several times in the Dance crew during several events, and I was amazed by his talent. I thought that he learned dancing his whole life. Surprisingly, he started dancing at high school, and he was actually forced into it as he had a role in the play that required him to dance.

“It turned out to be so much fun that I fell in love with it. It turned out to be my hobby and my passion. After all these years I started practicing it, and I fell more deeply in love with it.”

Ayna, an amazing artist, also had a similar story. She liked drawing everywhere in her apartment when she was a child: on walls, doors and pillows. However, she didn’t like going to Arts school first till a famous Turkmen artist gave positive feedback to her works.

“She would give me chocolate, compliment me. She would actually tell me what I did right, that inspired me and made me feel good about myself. After that I went to the Arts school and that’s when I started to take drawing seriously.”

Some people just start developing their talents from a slight inspiration. For example, Galina fell in love with wonderful nature in North Carolina, that’s why she spent her money to buy a camera. She started learning photography from a scratch.

“It was an extremely beautiful place. I wanted to make a lot of photos there so with my first money I bought a professional camera and just started doing photography during free time that I had.”

What I have noticed is that people who I interviewed started developing their talents after some kind of inspiration, support from people around or some kind of appreciation.

Yes, I also experienced the same. When I entered the university I said to myself “No way will I study Journalism as I am bad in writing.” I didn’t believe in myself simply because I didn’t like writing essays for my literature classes in high school, I was always taking help from my mom. However, I didn’t like studying Economics, and I decided to switch to Journalism in the last moment.

I admit it was scary to take first classes which were writing intensive and therefore a challenge for me. It was hard but I overcame my fear. Now the more I write, the more I realize that I actually enjoy it.

Sometimes it is just hard to believe in yourself but all these people did, and they have developed their amazing skills. It is definitely scary to start something from a scratch but it is necessary to overcome the fear to find yourself in life. It will help you to discover your passion, follow it and be happy.

Next semester I am going to study at Carroll College in Montana, USA. As soon as I discover a talented student over there, I will post about him or her in blog! Thank you for reading my blog this semester. I was inspired by my readers!

In my final video my interviewees give you inspirational speech if you want to develop your talent. Watch and enjoy it! 🙂

Storify Experience

Today in my Multimedia Journalism class I learned how to create a Storify. It is helpful for media nowadays. It was a lot of fun creating a Storify.

http://storify.com/alinafattakhova/my-storify-about-talented-students-and-my-blog

Vision Through Camera

Galina Fedulova. Taken from personal archive.

Galina Fedulova is a student at American University in Bulgaria, who is studying Journalism and Mass Communication and Business Administration as her majors. She started taking photos when she was freshman at the university, and now it is her passion. She loves taking pictures and doing graphic design.

“I think AUBG helped me to find what I like to do. I started to just make pictures of my friends, and I then thought that it is actually interesting to work with people.”

Everything started when Galina was charmed by the beauty of the nature while she was working in North Carolina. She spent her first salary earned in U.S. on a photo camera.

“It was an extremely beautiful place. I wanted to make a lot of photos there so with my first money I bought a professional camera and just started doing photography during free time that I had.”

Then Galina started taking pictures of her friends at AUBG. She noticed that a photographer can open an individual’s personality through pictures and thereafter enjoyed shooting people. Galina’s friends have been positively surprised by the photography she made: they have seen themselves from a different prospective.

“The most interesting thing is just opening the person, getting into the process. You see how beautiful and how cool this person is and how alive. You see the emotions, the moments, the smiles, and I think it is really interesting.”

The young photographer also enjoys taking pictures of nature and especially birds. Galina usually has to chase birds in order to get a nice picture, which is a difficult thing to do. However, I saw so many amazing pictures of birds in her portfolio. I was stunned by the beauty of her pictures.

“It is always crazy because I have to run, to crawl, to hide and then the birds are actually flying away, and I don’t have photos of it, I am just getting so upset. I am becoming crazy and so mad.”

Galina would like to continue photography as a hobby in her future because it is one of her passion. Whatever she does in her hobby goes easily and pleasantly.

“You are just doing what you like to do. I am really happy that I make people smile, and they are like ‘Wow, I never imagined myself looking like that!’ That is interesting, that is cool, that is awesome. I just treat it as a hobby so I like it.”

Watch a video below to hear Galina’s feelings about photography. 🙂

Professional Artist

Ayna Pirkulieva. Personal archive.

Ayna Pirkuieva is a second-year student at American University in Bulgaria, who studies Journalism and Mass Communication as her major and Literature and Fine Arts as her minors. Ayna loves everything connected to drawing.

She started drawing when she was a six-year-old kid. Ayna’s mother noticed that her daughter was drawing practically everywhere in the house: on walls, pillows and doors. That’s why she took little Ayna to the drawing classes.

First, Ayna didn’t like the classes because they seemed boring, however, once she met a famous artist in her native country, Turkmenistan. Gulnaz Rozikulova motivated her to draw and became her role model.

“She would give me chocolate, compliment me. She would actually tell me what I did right, that inspired me and made me feel good about myself. After that I went to the Arts school and that’s when I started to take drawing seriously.”

Ayna sold her first oil painting when she was 14 to her friend’s father. She got $ 100 for the piece of art and was excited about it.

“It was for my friend’s father, he bought it for $ 100, which is not a lot of money. But for a 14-year-old in Turkmenistan it is a good amount of money. And I still keep the ten-dollar bill from that: I have a frame where I have a picture of my painting and behind it I put the ten dollars, the first money that I earned.”

Now Ayna draws at AUBG as her hobby but she would like to continue it as a professional artist in the future. She considers to become an illustrator or a designer after graduating from the university.

“I would consider earning money with it because I think it is great to do what you enjoy doing and also get paid for it. I think that’s a secret to happiness.”

Watch a video about Ayna and her passion for drawing below 🙂

Dancing Inspiration

Baur Bolatov. Taken from personal archive.

Baurzhan Bolatov is a third-year student at American University in Bulgaria who studies Computer Science and Business Administration. Even though his majors require a lot of time to study, he devotes a lot of time to his hobby – dancing.

Baur (that’s how he is called by his friends) started dancing when he was studying at high school. He had a play, and according to the role, he was supposed to dance. First, he felt forced to do it, but later he realized that he enjoys dancing a lot.

“But it turned out to be so much fun that I fell in love with it. It turned out to be my hobby and my passion. After all these years I started practicing it, and I fell more deeply in love with it.”

Baur has always been inspired by people. He loves watching performances of his favorite dancers Michael Legend and Les Twins on the Internet.

“As soon as I see them, they get me so inspired.”

Now Baur is a member of AUBG Dance Crew, a club at the university that organizes dancing performances at important events. He is very happy to be a part of it as people in the club share the same passion for dancing.

“I had this amazing opportunity to get into the Dance Crew, where I met people who actually share this passion with me, who actually understand me. Practicing a lot with them gives me an opportunity to develop and try away something else.”

Baur is very devoted to the Dance Crew club as its members are very creative and open to new ideas.

 “We go there, we dance, we discuss music and concepts that we want to apply. With every single performance we are trying to say something new, go outside of the boundary we have already done.”

Even though Baur has passion for dancing, he doesn’t consider it to be his future profession.

“It will be the last plan for my career if I fail as a computer scientist or businessman. I don’t know, I don’t know, we will see what happens.”

If you want to learn more about Baur’s passion for dancing, watch the video below 🙂

Passion for Rock Music

Liu Menkulashi. Taken from personal archive.

Liu Menkulasi is a sophomore second semester at AUBG. He studies Business Administration and Economics as majors at the university. However, he always finds free time for his hobby – singing and playing the guitar.

“I am talented in terms of music somehow.”

It all started after Liu participated in a talent show in his hometown in Albania. He had an exam in Chemistry at that time, however, he decided to skip it.

“I said “Screw it, I will go to this thing instead.”

It was the first time Liu was singing on stage, and he won the contest. The experience inspired Liu to devote more time to his talents: he started singing more and learning how to play the guitar.

“After winning that talent show, I sort of got into it, I even started learning the guitar somehow.”

When Liu came to AUBG as a freshman, he immediately signed up for Rock Jamming Club. Now he is singing in a band “RAs and the misfit.” The name came from the fact that three members of the band, including Liu, are Resident Assistants at Skaptos, while one of them is not. The band is playing all kinds of rock  music, from classic to alternative.

Starting from this semester, Liu is not only a member of the club but its president, which makes in charge of all the organized concerts.

“Now it is a lot more responsibilities but I like it so far.”

Even though Liu enjoy to sing in a band, he doesn’t consider it as a future profession.

“I mean I am willing to play as long as it is hobby and something that you do for sharing good music with people and enjoying yourself. As of making it as a career and turning it into something that you do for profit, no. I am not planning to do it as a career.”

However, Liu doesn’t know what profession he wants to work at the moment. He is on his way to discover.

“I do have goals and I do have plans but they are way too far away for me to talk about them right now.”

My Journey So Far

I have always wanted to discover my passion to follow it…. That’s the reason why I decided to write a blog about talented people. I wondered how people find out what they like to do and if they have time to realize their hobbies at the university.

My first interview was with Ivan Bardarov, a senior last semester who studies Political Science and Economics, and he is great at computing. He loves technology because he likes to observe how things work around him, what’s the logic behind a machine.

Ivan Bardarov

“Well, ever since I was young I was interested in how the stuff works. Why is the plane flying and how is it flying? How the pilot actually controls it? And my curiosity spurred this love and I started to read and watch, read and watch.”

Ivan aced his knowledge while studying at AUBG while working as an IT person at Radio AURA and helping his friends to fix computers.

“The irony is that I have friends, who are studying Computer Science or Information Systems, they ask me questions, and I give them answers.”

I have discovered from Ivan that a talent can sometimes stay as a hobby, not a profession.

“Maybe someday I will need the skill to use it in the modern world where everything is run by the computers and technology.”

My journey continued with Nevena Dragoshinova, a junior who loves everything connected to the theater. She even wanted to go to the National Academy of Theater to become a professional actress. However, she decided to study at AUBG because it would help her to combine theater and journalism.

Nevena Dragoshinova

“AUBG was something like the golden mean offering me to do both things at the same place, that’s why I chose it.”

Nevena loves acting because she likes bringing happiness to the audience.

“I like it because of the feeling when you are on the stage. The feeling that you are not yourself, you can be whoever you want to be: you can change your sex, age, profession, beliefs; you can change your everything.”

I was even more inspired to see other talented students at AUBG and one day I went to AUBG’s Got Talent Show. Every participant on the show performed amazingly. However, the audience had to choose a winner, and it was Nepes Nepesov, a beatboxer from Turkmenistan.

Nepes Nepesov

I wondered what inspired Nepes to beatbox and took an interview with him. I found out that he leaned beatboxing by himself because of his passion for music.

“I think the inspiration is the music itself. When you don’t have a CD player, you can make your own music by yourself when it is boring for example. You can make it and have fun.”

AUBG’s Got Talent Show made me happy to see how many talented students the university keeps.

The week after, I interviewed Rafie Drencheva, who makes masterpieces out of cookies and cupcakes. Not only she cooks them but she also decorates them wonderfully!

“Oh, I love candies… I love cooking sweet things – desserts. However, when it comes to cooking main dishes, I am not excited about that. I don’t think it is that arty. Cooking sweet things and eating them is really great.”

As a matter of fact, Rafie cannot draw on a piece of paper, however, her cookies are works of art.

Rafie Drencheva

“I always come up with new ideas: when I see a cupcake, I know what decoration is going to be on it, it just pops into my head.”

I am delighted to see that our university has a lot of hardworking and talented students who don’t give up on following their passion. I was glad to meet these people because they inspired me to start drawing again even though I abandoned my hobby. I am telling about my journey so far in my video 🙂

My First Video

Today in the Multimedia Class I shot my first video. It is not related to my topic but I hope you like it 🙂

The Art of Making Dessert

Rafie Drencheva. Taken from personal archive.

I knew Rafie Drencheva for two years, but I never guessed that she can make amazing dessert until I saw the pictures of her masterpiece on Facebook. Rafie is a junior at American University in Bulgaria, she studies Journalism and Mass Communication and Business Administration as her majors. One of the things that she likes to do but doesn’t study at AUBG is creating beautiful cupcakes and cookies.

“Oh, I love candy… I love cooking sweet things – desserts. However, when it comes to cooking main dishes, I am not excited about that. I don’t think it is that arty. Cooking sweet things and eating them is really great.”

Rafie’s mother wanted to teach her cooking when she was a child. However, Rafie wasn’t enthusiastic to learn it at that moment. Later on, when she was in the seventh grade at school, Rafie moved to Blagoevgrad and started to live by herself. She began cooking on her own in order to eat healthy and nutritious food. That’s how her curiosity started.

“I practically did all by myself, nobody taught me anything. I started watching videos and reading recipes on the Internet.”

When Rafie was in U.S. for Work and Travel two years ago, she learned how to create cupcakes in her free time. Back then she discovered that she has passion for making and decorating cupcakes. She practiced more during the school breaks.

“I spent my whole winter breaks cooking candy and decorating it in different ways.”

Rafie always uses her own ideas how to decorate her dessert. She doesn’t steal ideas from the Internet. Sometimes it takes her about 30 minutes to decorate a cookie in a way she wants.

“I always come up with new ideas: when I see a cupcake, I know what decoration is going to be on it, it just pops into my head.”

Her friends who saw and tried her cupcakes were amazed and impressed by her talent.

“Whenever someone tries my cupcake, he says “Rafie, you are awesome, I love you so much.”

Once Rafie’s aunt saw her beautiful “owl” cupcakes, and she asked to do the same ones for her daughter’s birthday. Rafie was glad to make her cousin happy, so she baked about 50 cupcakes, which took her two days to do.

“I’ve never done so many, but I was on vacation, so it was fine.”

Some of her friends offered to buy her cupcakes and asked to make them for special occasions. Rafie didn’t take money from her friends even to cover the cost of ingredients.

“I don’t sell what I cook, I’ve never taken money from people, I always make candy and give it to people.”

Once Rafie uploaded pictures of her own desserts to Facebook, after that she received a number of marriage proposals by different guys.

“Whenever a guy tries a cupcake, he always likes me. Maybe it is true that a man’s way to heart lies through his stomach.”

A lot of friends advised Rafie to leave college and start her own bakery. Rafie replied, smiling, that she would have it as a second option if she wouldn’t succeed in Journalism. Honestly, she doesn’t think that Bulgaria is a right place for owing a bakery.

“People in Bulgaria always look for something that is cheap, at the same time good and beautiful. It costs a lot to make cupcakes; I don’t think people here would appreciate it that much.”