E139 Shamima Mirmastova

Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women, to share their uniqueness, their personalities, their perspectives and emotions about this world. In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the cultures of the world together. And when we listen to real people, to real lives of women from other countries, we connect our humanity without our differences or stereotypes, and we get inspired by their stories to live a better life. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Shamima Mirmastova. Shamima is from Tajikistan. She graduated in management from Bishkek State University in Kyrgyzstan and was the ISAC local committee president in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Shamima loves drawing, reading books, sports, especially doing stretching three times a week, and she loves spending time with her cats. Shamima has an online library focused on giving community access to rare and interesting books and plans to make this offline project in the future. Currently, Shamima is working as an English tutor for adults online. She is preparing for the exam she will have in December called IELTS and applying for her master's degree or a second degree in architecture. Shamima, how are you today? Hello, I'm really good. How are you? I'm feeling positive. I'm feeling lucky to be alive and very curious about you. So I'll begin with this nice question. If your friends could describe your personality, what would they say about you? And an interesting twist, would your friends in Tajikistan describe you in a different way somehow to how your personality is when you moved and live in Kyrgyzstan? Well, I consider myself as a social and extroverted person, and I've got a lot of friends in both my home country and the country where I'm living now. And I'm pretty sure that all my friends from both countries would describe me as hardworking, as friendly and independent person. Because whatever I start doing, I don't stop until the job is done, until I finish it. And I usually do all this stuff even if I have something hard to do. I try to tackle it myself without any help. So that's why I suppose they always say these things about me. Thank you. That's interesting. And to ask you because we live in a time where people often move to new cities, new countries. What is your way of making new friends? Is it easy for you to meet new people, to build new relationships? Is it easier if you recommend to people to join organizations like ISAC rather than doing it in any other way because the joint activities allow for friendships? Or what would be a plan if you today had to move to a totally new city where you didn't know any person? What would you do to make a social circle of good friends who you feel connected with? Well, I do believe that in order to find the friends, the people who can become close to you, this is very important that you have the same interests. And as for me, when I moved to Bishkek, I started to look, first of all, I went to university and I had some friends there, but they have different interests and I started looking for some opportunities where I can find the friends who share the same interests as me. So that's why I looked for volunteering organizations and I found ISAC, and I started volunteering there and I worked there for about two years. And yeah, I found a lot of friends and most of my friends with whom I am in touch, like I connect until today. It's like all these people are from ISAC. And of course, a lot of my friends are from the clubs, like sport clubs, stretching. And also, as I already mentioned, I'm very interested in drawing. I participate in a lot of master classes where they teach us drawing. So I found a lot of friends in all these places and all these people share the same interests as me. And yeah, the best way I would suggest all people where they move to a new country. And if I had a chance to move to a new country, possibly I will in the future, I will continue my education. I will try to be more active, more sociable, to visit like social places where I can communicate with people, where I can find new friends. And the best places are like the places where a lot of people come together to do the same thing all together. Thank you. That's interesting. And for you to choose your friends to know if a new person you meet is your person or not, how does that happen? Is it energetic where you feel the energy of the person and you think, oh my God, I feel comfortable, like they get me, like we know each other a thousand years or is it like you spoke about when they talk about their passions and interests, maybe they love drawing and books and cats similar to you and then you think, yes, this should be my friend or is it someone interesting who had a unique life, who had adventures and overcame troubles and you think I can learn so much from this person? What is to you the criteria or traits or thing that makes people who become your friends stand out from any person you can meet at any clubs or meetings or events? Well, for me, when I start talking to a person, I understand that this person is whom with like a person that I would like to continue my friendship in the future. I understand it really fast because when we start talking, it all comes like automatically. And if you start talking to a person, you can talk for hours and you even don't mention the time and you just start talking from movies, to drawing, to sports, to education, to like even word problems, how you can tackle them, how you can cope with them and different many topics you can discuss. And if I have this connection with a person that we are talking for a very long time, we're sharing stories, we're laughing, I understand that this is the person that with whom I would like to be a friend. That sounds poetic and it sounds like people are similar to you to books because of the conversations, the warmth, the all night thing where I'm sure you had a wonderful book that you spent all night reading. And to ask you specifically about rare books, what makes them interesting for you? Do they have something that is not found in the books that we can find anywhere? Do they have deeper thoughts or just because they're rare, they become precious to you like a piece of art? Tell me more about your interest, your library project, as well as your fascination with rare books. Well, all the books that I actually read myself are connected with self-development because there was a time in my life where I had to exaggerate things, to overthink upon all problems happening around me and even about something that is actually not happening to myself. I was just somehow anxious, afraid of future or like bad future actually, even like despite the fact that everything is just perfect in my life. So I started to read self-development books, the books that helped me to perceive the word another way. They are more psychological and more philosophical books. And when I started reading them, I understood a lot of things, they helped me to change my habit, my attitude toward life and to get out of this hole where I got stuck. And when I moved from Bishkek to my hometown, actually my hometown is very small and even from the capital of my country. And when I finished all the books that I took with me, I found it really hard to find any other similar books in my hometown. And that's why I decided all the books that I had, they were about 10 to 15 books that I had read, I thought that maybe there are some people as me who got stuck in some problem and they want to get out of there. And that's why I decided to open this online library and kind of I borrowed these books to people and yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people, as I count about 30 people got these books. Like for some moment they read, they got back, I give them to other people to read. And it was very beneficial for my society. And to talk about the books that I've read, they are actually not very rare through all over the world. Even in Bishkek, you can find them in every book shop. But as I already mentioned, my country is, my town is very small and it's very far from the capital. People don't have access to this kind of books and the book shops that we have there, they have more about like literature of our country literature or some other countries like foreign literature, but it's not about some psychological books or any other similar books. So that's why I decided it was my desire, it was my motivation to make this online library for my people. Thank you so much. I mean, that's really interesting and I would love to explore all the facets of who you are. Tell me about drawing. What inspires you and makes you feel, yes, I have something in my chest, some energy I need to express in a drawing. Do you also maybe notice something that you're often drawing? Like faces of people, flowers, sunset, does it seem to be like a pattern or something that you adore making drawings of? Well, talking about drawing, it's actually a very interesting story because my father is in architecture and when I was studying at school, all my teachers only had some holidays, they asked me to ask my father to draw something like some posters for a holiday with some celebration and when my father did all this stuff, I fell in love with drawing and also my father, like when he went to some vacation, he brought me a lot of colors, a lot of things like for drawing and I started drawing and I really felt in love with this because when I draw, I forget about everything. It's kind of like a meditation for me and when I draw, I kind of forget about things. So I decided to develop this habit of visiting some master classes, some courses, special courses, and the main thing that I love drawing is people's faces, like it's portraits, what you have mentioned because I'm the person who always tries to start with the harder thing and starting drawing faces was really hard, it's like the hardest part of drawing and all the artists can actually prove that and when I draw, I started to drawing with like air brows, with eyes, with mouth, with nose, different parts of body and then I started drawing the whole face and now I'm just answering this question and looking at my pictures that I draw and I'm feeling very happy about it. Thank you, that's fascinating. You spoke about drawing as a meditation. When you're stretching as well, is that like a meditation for you? Do you do it in a specific way like yoga poses, yoga kind of meditation thing or what else in your life gives you that same feeling of drawing, forgetting all your troubles, losing sense of the time and feeling slow? Oh yeah, generally I would say that it is somehow connected stretching with drawing and with meditation but when I'm doing stretching for the first one hour, I'm just like putting my body in some special positions and it's really hard to kind of do meditation at that position because it's really hard to stay there but anyway after this when I'm feeling just very tired, very exhausted and this feeling is just amazing and when after the stretching I just lay down and start doing meditation, not sitting but just lying and yeah, it's funny just sometimes I feel asleep but anyway it's really funny and it really helps me to get rid of stress, to get to like to shake off the tiredness of the day because usually I do it in the evening rather than in the morning. In the morning I usually spend my time reading books because it helps me to stay motivated throughout the day and in the evening I usually start doing this kind of stuff like stretching and meditation and others. Thank you and since you meditate after a long hard day of hard work and stretch and relax in that way, I want to understand what motivates you to work very hard, what vision, ideas, habits or productivity tips keep you moving on, working hard and how do you deal with the possibility of burnout? Well just having a sense of duty, like a place to go, like things to accomplish and achieve all these things, achieve like good big results, all these things motivates me to work hard every day, I have big goals for my future to accomplish. In order to achieve all these big goals I really need to work very hard and it's like I usually understand myself when I get tired, I understand and I tell myself that it's like not very much left to achieve what you want and what you are working toward and if you will stop now, that's it, it would be hard for you to start all over again and if you will not start, you will end up as many people who just gave up their dreams and stopped dreaming and living the life flowing with time and everything is happening, like just not living, not relaxing but just in order to make some money to live their lives. I don't want to be among this kind of people and it drives me to work harder every day, to work on myself, to develop myself in different aspects like psychological, my mental health, my physical health, so that it all keeps me motivated to all my studies and to achieve my goals and about burnout, yeah of course as all human beings I also have sometimes burnout and actually I have some burnouts after the time when I work for example for five days, studying four hours a day and working in the morning and the evening, teaching English and this all I get like exhausted about maybe one, two weeks and I just take myself two days doing just nothing, I take vacation from work, I ask my students to move the lessons and during these two days or three days I do whatever I want, I sleep all the day, I have sometimes bad days where I spend all my day in the bed and I eat a lot of junk food, a lot of not healthy food during these days and when I do all these things I forget about all the tiredness, all the things that I had and then I get up and I start a new day with very new things, with new motivation and with new drives to go forward and to achieve my goals. Thank you and yes I agree with you, the most horrible thing is to be a person who gave up on their dreams, who become like a zombie in this world waiting to die, it is actually depressing and I hope more people will find their passion and get that fire in their eyes to live and be motivated and to ask you as a girl from Tajikistan in 2022, what does that mean? If you could describe to someone who doesn't know any person from Tajikistan who doesn't have any friends from there, how is a girl your age, are you traditional, I don't know what that means, are you a mix of all the cultures of the world because of the internet and social media and Netflix and YouTube, how are you and girls who are similar to you who are from Tajikistan, what is their culture, their personality, their way that might be different from other countries? Well, a lot of girls, I would say that the biggest part of girls from my country are very conscientious, they were very ambitious girls because I know a lot of people, I know a lot of girls from my country who are working hard, who are achieving great things. For example, we had a girl from our town who passed one math exam, I actually don't remember the name of that exam but she became the first girl in Central Asia to achieve this certificate. And there are other examples of such amazing girls from especially my town and generally my country who have very big ambitions and very big goals to go forward. And I would say that they are the same as all the people around the world, I wouldn't say that one culture has different peculiarities, of course there are some specific peculiarities of nations but generally all people around the world, I would divide them into groups like ambitious people, more lazy people and people who give up on their dreams and this kind of people are everywhere and I wouldn't say that in a particular country like this country is different because of this. Thank you so much Shamima, this is a fantastic thing. And to ask you even further, if you had the opportunity to do your masters or architecture diploma in any country in the world, any city, where would you go? Would you go to Italy to admire the old Renaissance architectures and the Roman designs? Would it be somewhere like Japan because it's very unique, the US because it's the land of opportunity as it is known or where in this world other than of course your country which you love or even Bishkek where you have a lot of friends, where would you choose to be and why? Well if we talk about architecture, studying architecture, I would choose Netherlands because it ranks as one of the best countries to study architecture. I did some research and it has very innovative programs to study architecture and yeah generally if I also look at some pictures of architecture of Netherlands, I like it and generally all the European countries have architecture similar to my country, not with very big buildings because my father is an architect and he told me that it's impossible as our country, our town is among the mountains, it is kind of impossible to build there very high buildings and because it's dangerous as an earthquake, if the earthquake will appear it would be very dangerous for people. And the architecture of European countries is very similar, it would be to my countries and I would love to do my master's degree there if I study architecture but generally I would love to spend my time in any country because I suppose when I will apply even like doesn't depend to architecture or the second degree or like I also want to apply for marketing, I would choose the institution like the university, the opportunities of the university, the more important thing for me would be their institution but generally if we talk about living, I would love to live and to explore any country because for now I haven't traveled a lot around the world, I traveled only around central Asia like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, Tajikistan around these countries and I don't know much about other countries, I know all from the internet but it's always different when you experience it yourself, going there, living there, talking to people and understand does it really fit your personality, do you really want to live in this kind of society or not. So I would say that I'm kind of person who tries different things and thinks very thoroughly and then choose what he wants, it's the same as with profession. I worked in a management sphere, I worked as an office manager, as a teacher, in a call center in different spheres and also I'm now going to study marketing for just one month just to understand do I really love it or it just what I found somewhere cool video and oh I want to study management or something like that. So I really need to feel it and to understand does it really fit my personality, do I really love doing this thing and then I can make the final decision. I agree, that's absolutely important and how does architecture relate to everything? I know you love cats, you love drawing, you love self-development books. You wish to travel. At the same time, what part of your personality is attracted to architecture? Is it because of your father and family or other reasons? First of all, when I finished school as my brother also followed my father's footsteps, he is also an architecture and I really loved it and I felt that my father will become an architecture and I want, I will choose like different thing and then I choose management. But then I understood that I was influenced of course by my father because a lot of people appreciate him as a lot of people come to him and offer him different jobs, different interesting projects and not only in our town but in our country and I feel just motivated because of it and I wanted always to become as him and now I'm just thinking about it and I'm just feeling that sometimes I feel that maybe it's too late but then I think that it is never late to start a new thing and this just really drives me and also as I'm drawing, it is of course connected with architecture and when I'm traveling, the thing that I mostly pay attention to is like buildings, the architecture of different countries, the places where I was, I always like just observe like how is this thing going there in different places that I visit. So it is very, I suppose it is very interconnected with all my life, with where I was living, with what I am doing every day. Thank you and that makes me wonder, you're drawing people very often, how is that because is that related to drawing buildings because it seems totally different that usually those who are fascinated by people are not so interested in things, in buildings, in architecture, so is it to you that you imagine the buildings and the people that live there, that will live there, that lived there in the past and you make it about humans or how do you move from drawing people to finding a fascination in drawing plans, blueprints and buildings? Yeah, that's very, you mentioned it very good and as I already mentioned, I really love doing some hard things and sometimes I run get tired of the things that actually I should pay attention to, I do different things and it's the same about drawing. For example, sometimes my father helps me to draw, like to make some special projects, some models of houses and when I do it, I really love it and of course, I do it not on a daily basis of course, but I still do it like I would say often, but when I get tired of all this information and all of these things, I just start to draw portraits because I think that drawing, it is all connected, it doesn't matter, it is building, is it people, is it the more you draw and the more you draw, the better you would be able to do it like any type of it. It's the same as learning English, for example, you learn English the way that it is interesting for you and you doesn't need to read everyday like boring text or boring grammar everyday, you just need to learn it the way that you love, for example, listening to music, open the lyrics, read it, translate it and learn it and watch movies, your favorite movies, play your favorite games in English and things like that and all it will help you to learn English and it's the same, draw whatever you want, but of course, draw something connected to your profession, but whatever you would draw, it will help you to master this drawing ability and it will definitely help you. Thank you so much, Amima. This was my privilege, my honor, such a wonderful conversation and a way to understand you, to feel your soul and I wish you truly a wonderful success. Thank you for participating in this project. Thank you very much. It was my honor.