O Brasil vai se tornar os EUA? Espero que nao...

Pela primeira vez desde que tirei o meu titulo de eleitor(por opcao aos 16 anos), eu nao estou no Brasil durante uma eleicao presidencial(embora tenha perdido muitas eleicoes para prefeito neste meio tempo). O bizarro desta vez é seguir todo o processo observando de fora, sem receber a influencia do dia a dia no Brasil, mas tendo acesso à mídia do país e do mundo inteiro a respeito da eleicao.
Há quase dois anos vim morar no Canadá e desde entao nao estive no Brasil e tenho que confessar que estou muito decepcionada e um pouco assustada com o tipo de tema que está sendo considerado importante durante essa eleicao.
Dsede quando aborto e casamento gay sao temas que definem eleicao no Brasil? Quando foi que nos tornamos os EUA? Será que a história mundial nao nos ensinou ainda que religiao e política sao um mistura que NUNCA dá certo?
Nao, que esses nao sejam temas importantes, mas será que um país com os problemas sociais e economicos do Brasil nao tem outras prioridades? No contexto geral será que opiniao de um candidato a respeito do aborto será mais importante do que todas as criancas crescendo em favelas sem a menor possibilidade para o futuro?
Infelizmente nao poderei votar esse ano, mas pelo bem do nosso país fica o pedido: pensem , racionalmente antes de fazer essa escolha. Cada voto conta. E no final, quem pode fazer mais pelo país, independente de sua visao religiosa?

Learning how to fall

About 6 years ago I entered an Aikido dojo for the first time in my life. I was looking for a different way of exercise. What I ended up finding was a beautiful martial art that seemed to extend to every aspect of my life.

After a knee injury and a few moves around the world, I finally had the chance to go back. I was nervous as I stepped in the dojo last night wearing my brand new dogi, once again a white belt. I took my shoes off and bowed before entering ( at least hadn´t forgotten these basic actions) and offered to help out. That´s another beautiful thing about martial arts, everyone is involved in preparing the class, laying mats, cleaning up after and, of course, saving new students.

There´s this interesting sense of duty among higher ranking students, they don´t have to be told to look after the newbies, but over and over again during the training I would have a very experienced student sitting right next to me and guiding me through the techniques. At first I was a bit embarrassed, I knew how to do all that five years ago! And see, this is lesson one when Aikido comes into your life. Don´t be afraid of making a fool of yourself. Be humble, allow yourself to relearn the basics. In my case, learning how to stand, move and most importantly, fall.

When you know how to fall properly, you minimize injuries and pick yourself up quickly. And children can do that so easily, but as we grow up, we get stiff, we fight back the natural instinct of going with the flow.

I´m glad I´m back. I´ve taken a few bad falls lately. I better pick myself up and get ready to fall again. Maybe next time more graciously!

On following the plan!

I´ve alway wondered what it is like to be one of those people. You know, one of those people who never forget to do their homework, never got caught with a fun novel hidden inside their math book, know exactly what they plan to do when they grow up and actually follow through with it. Because I have this alien DNA that was just never me. In fact everything I did or said was always slightly off. I suffer from severe insomnia from my very early childhood, so I used to hang out with my imaginary friend Daniel instead of trying to get myself to sleep again. I also had this whole world going on inside my head, multiple stories developing all at once. Could I behave and act like a good little girl? No... I had to lead a game of Sam says during arts and crafts time at pre school. I got sent to the babies class as a punishment. They made me just sit on a high stool in the middle of the classroom for endless hours(Ok, it might have been just a few minutes, but it seemed like forever). Oh, and yeah, those people probably don´t have ADD and blabber on completely out of topic for five minutes until they remember what they meant to say at first. You got the point, right? I was a bit of an oddball. But I never had problems defining what I wanted or liked. Try to push me into doing anything and hell, I´ll fight it like crazy and most likely never do it. Somehow my parents never realised that.
So at the age of seven all I wanted was to become a marine biologist, live in Jacques Cousteau´s boat and travel the world taking care of marine wildlife. For a few years that was my dream. I watched every documentary that involved sharks, fish, islands, boats, reefs and read every scientific magazine known to men. Awesome thing about my parents. Because I acted like a 34 year old, they treated me like one. At least when it came to judging what I could read or watch, which fitted me perfectly. Thanks mom and dad, my IQ is the way it is because I suffered no censorship.
Then ethnic conflicts started all over the place, or at least they started to appear all over my world. So I decided I would be a diplomat.With the peacemaking powers I´d acquired surviving as a middle child between two very feisty sisters, I would fix the world. Or maybe... I could be a war correspondent! That sounded more dangerous and very exciting. Plus, by that age I had discovered I had a power for words. So, yeah, journalist it was. You see where this is going right?
So basically every time I had a plan, life would show me a whole new path and I´d fall in love and decide that maybe that was the right one for me. I became a ESL teacher at 16. And while my high school friends were getting drunk and dating and doing whatever it is that 16 year olds did, I was hanging out with my 35 year old friends. They were all cool and experienced and well traveled. They were exactly the kind of person that I already knew I wanted to be. What that person would do for a living was still up in the air.
Then I graduated from High school and because I had to pick something to study at university, I chose journalism. If I didn´t love, at least I´d be sharpening my writing tools. But writing is writing, what´s not to like? Of course I´d love that course.
Well, it kind of blew. Journalism became a factory, they had little rules and patterns and this and that. And in the end, there was no space to be creative. So to stop myself from quitting, I chose to go abroad. What I always knew I wanted. So I traveled. I lived in the US then moved to Germany. I backpacked through Europe, learned German and saw the world cup. I found out I was in love with great food. I realised I was a natural, intuitive cook and started to consider doing that for real. I feared going back home. But I did it in the end. Because I couldn´t give them all the satisfaction of saying, she doesn´t follow the plan...
And I came back with a plan. Graduate and leave by the end of the following year. And I did just that. And moved again. This time to a lovely little village on the outskirsts of Vienna. And while there, I decided to come to Canada. And here I am . What comes next? I know what I´ll get done by the end of 2013. What comes next? No clue. But that´s the beauty of life, when you don´t plan the next 30 years, there are plenty of options, of paths, of windows and doors open for you. Hell, I started writing this post about one subject and ended up talking about a million others. So there. I don´t have a 30 year plan. And that thought excites me more than knowing what lies ahead.

No kidding.

I´ve always been a kid person. Grew up surrounded by little cousins, started my carreer life as a ESL teacher for preschoolers, then travelled the world working as a nanny, which I´m still doing. And more and more I start to empathize and agree with some very criticized and misunderstood members of our society. People who don´t have children by choice, that is.
Kids are cute, funny and once you get married, sort of part of the package( at least people expect you to have them). Why wouldn´t you want them? The interesting thing is that parenthood for some people is like a cult, once they join it, it´s all they can talk about and they try as hard as they can to push it on other people. But is it really all that´s cracked up to be? Children are expensive, time consuming (at least if you want to do a good job), they demand attention and sacrifices. Especially for women, the carreer/baby decision is tough. Is it worth it? Most parents will say yes. And I agree. But do they have the right to call Child-free people selfish for chosing a life with no diapers and PTA meetings? Absolutely not. Because no one was ever able to give me one unselfish reason to add another human being to an already over populated messed up world.
Like everything else in life, parenthood is a calling and a choice and shouldn´t be taken for granted, or treated irresponsably. Having cared for children for the last 10 years of my life, I see how wonderful they are. I also see what they do to your sex life, your marriage, your social calendar, your job... I have a friend who was looked at as if she were a psycho whenever she mentioned she didn´t plan on having children. I respected her choice, but had plans to have mine eventually. That friend now has a 4 month old baby daughter she adores.And I decided I don´t want to even think about rasising a living being that speaks(I´m ok with dogs and plants) for the next 10 years. If I had a shotgun to my head right now and had to pick : You can have a carreer or kids. What would you pick? I´d say... Bring on the job.
I might change my mind back eventually. In fact I have the perfect plan already laid out; invest in my carreer until I´m 40 and then, adopt my adorable kids. No ticking clocks for me! What about you? What would you chose?

Um ano de Canadá

Hoje estou fazendo meu primeiro aniversário canadense. Um ano desde que desembarquei no aeroporto internacional de Vancouver com duas malas e um sonho. Como os pioneiros antes de mim, eu nao fazia muita idéia do que me aguardava aqui, tudo bem vai, eu tinha bem mais idéia, mas apesar da minha experiencia de globetrotter, eu nao sabia se aqui era mesmo o meu lugar.
É difícil explicar isso para a maioria das pessoas, mas eu sempre tive a impressao que estava vivendo no lugar errado. Embora quase todos que cercavam quando eu era crianca estavam confortáveis exatamente onde estavam, aquela idéia me aterrorizava. Eu gosto de poder viver testando novas águas, de chegar a um novo lugar, aprender uma língua diferente e pouco a pouco comecar a fazer parte daquela realidade. Eu amo a sensacao do estranho. É quase como se a sua vida estivesse recomecando naquele exato momento, voce pisa numa terra nova e pronto: Mais uma chance de se reinventar.
Depois de um ano eu já me sinto relativamente confortável aqui, paisagens e lugares que pareciam exóticos hoje sao estranhamente familiares. Mas a cidade pulsa com uma energia diferente. É o novo. Nunca antes vivi num país que ame tanto englobar o novo, o exótico e o diferente em sua cultura. Entrar num metro e escutar oito linguas diferentes em questao de minutos? Perceber que o mundo todo está representado na populacao do Starbucks onde voce está relaxando com um café? Isso é incrivelmente canadense.
Se eu vou ficar por aqui? Com certeza. Para sempre? Hmm... Me perguntem novamente em um ano.

Um jeitinho no jeitinho

Eu sempre tive uma richa com o jeitinho brasileiro. Odeio do fundo do coracao a mania que o brasileiro tem de querer levar vantagem em tudo. A fila do banco tá longa? Leva a sua avó e passa na frente. O guarda te pegou fazendo algo errado? Passa uma graninha que tá tudo certo. Comprar CDs e Dvds legais? Tá maluco?
É um dos paradoxos mais interessantes da nossa nacao. Adoramos reclamar de nossos políticos e seus salários astronomicos, das mamatas e falcatruas, mas parecemos esquecer que corrupcao comeca pequena. Em casa mesmo. Aquele download ilegal na internet, aquele dvd pirata do filme que nem saiu no cinema ainda, aquele gato para pagar menos na conta de luz... Como podemos exigir coesao, integridade e respeito de nossos políticos quando nós estamos cometendo nossos pequenos atos de corrupcao diariamente?
O Brasil é um país cheio de belezas naturais, com um povo batalhador, otimista e uma cultura interessante. Por que um dos nossos maiores defeitos se tornou parte de nossa identidade? É por isso que venho agora humildemente propor um boicote ao jeitinho. Vamos dar fim à lei do menor esforco e correr atrás do que queremos pelos meios corretos e legais, seja a adocao de uma crianca ou à compra de um ingresso no cinema.
Queridos amigos, corrupcao nao é motivo de orgulho. Vamos dar o exemplo. Sugiro que a partir de hoje sejamos conhecidos como um povo integro, correto e honrado. Só quando tivermos essa mentalidade poderemos exigir o mesmo de nossos governantes. Aliás, quando chegarmos a esse nível, teremos aprendido a votar certo.

Marina Ramalho

Augen zu und durch.

About a year ago on a hot afternoon, I was hanging out with my host children. It was really warm that day, so we decided to put our bathing suits on and run through the sprinklers in the backyard. The water was freezing is spite of the heat and I was hesitating to actually get wet. That´s when Bella, my ten year old charge told me:
- Augen zu und durch Marina!

I loved how simple yet meaningful that expression was. Close your eyes and walk through it.
How many times in life we´re faced with situations when our first instinct is to run away in the opposite direction? Our fears, our past experiences, whatever they are, simply take over and hold us back. Your rational side knows you probably will be all right once you walk through, but you´re unable to take the first step.
Since that warm day of an unusually hot Austrian summer, whenever I hesitate to make a move even though I want to I just take a deep breath and think: Augen zu und durch. And guess what? It works.