Dear Brazil: Please go easy on me

Dear Brazil:

I am on my way to live with you for a while and I was hoping I could request a few items before I come. The truth is, I'm completely caught between feeling amazingly excited to see you, experience all that you have to offer (I'm really talking about all of the fresh everything I'll be able to eat) and being horribly sad and resentful towards you as the world which does not contain any of my friends or family or any of the things I am familiar with and love! Please be gentle with your approach. Please don't rob me, accost me in any way, talk to me like a piece of meat, did I say rob me?, make me feel like I don't belong, affect my self esteem, change me for the worse or create obstacles that I can't overcome...

The latter three points are actually in my control.

However, maybe I am actually afraid of myself on those three points. I do know myself, I think, but I'm pretty sure I'm about to get the biggest 'knowing myself' mind fuck of my life! I'm going to be tested in ways that fall well outside my comfort zone. I've created a few personal goals in my head (which come just before my mental list of things I still need to buy from Mary Kay before I go - 3 bottles of After Sun the best product EVER!) One of my goals for this adventure is to become more accepting and less judgemental- especially if I don't agree on a certain point. Husband has made me very aware of this flaw - in a caring way of course - but I do realize that when I disagree I get pretty strongly opinionated about it. I also realize that this makes the person I'm talking to feel like THEY are stupid, not the idea... I may be aware of that... so I'mma try to work on it.

Goal #2 - Hey let's just go ahead and turn this into a list -
Learn how to speak Portuguese fluently enough that I can have easy conversations, I can understand what is being said in a group of people, and I am not constantly translating in my head.

Goal #3 - Learn how to live in another country (why not try... ohhh... Brazil!) Learn how to be more wary and cautious, open minded, careful, learn the city, learn who to avoid, etc. In Toronto I feel pretty comfortable to walk home by myself at 1 in the morning and not even be talked to or even to drop a 50 on the ground and have someone pick it up and give it back to me :D

Goal #4 - My favourite goal - give to directions to a tourist who needs to know how to get somewhere in the city! Achieving this goal will make my whole experience SOOOO awesome and will prove to me that I am a LOCAL! If nothing else happens, I hope I achieve this goal. Well, I suppose all goals will have to precede this one so... let's just go for 'em all!

I did the Jung-Myers Briggs personality test today (for all those psychologists out there you are familiar with the well-known research of Carl Jung). It's pretty interesting in it's approach as well as results. There are sixteen different personality types/combinations, according to their research. Basically what Jung believes is that there are two basic human functions: How we take in information (perceive) and how we make decisions. Within these two categories there are two opposite ways of functioning. We perceive information via 1)our senses or 2)our intuition We make decisions either by 1)logic or 2)feelings. The function one uses most often is the Dominant function and is supported by the Secondary, Tertiary and Inferior Functions. People will assert their Dominant function either "extroverted" or "introverted". He also believed that the Dominant Function was so powerful that it overshadows all other functions as being a persons "personality".

It's been expanded on however by the Myers-Briggs movement and included two more basics of human functions:
1. our flow of energy
2. how we take in information
3. how we prefer to make decisions
4. the basic day-to-day lifestyle that we prefer

Within each of these categories, we "prefer" to be either:
Extraverted or Introverted
Sensing or Intuitive
Thinking or Feeling
Judging or Perceiving

SO - confused yet??

My result was this:
Your Type is
ENFP
Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving
Strength of the preferences %
56 38 62 11

You are:
-moderately expressed extravert

-moderately expressed intuitive personality

-distinctively expressed feeling personality

-slightly expressed perceiving personality

Maybe I'm not as judgemental as I thought!!

I heart Portuguese and Whining

I absolutely can not seem to get into writing any updates... frankly because there's nothing really to update. I've started at least 3 and then...

I am really liking learning Portuguese - not because I've had any real breakthroughs... but... well maybe I have. I'm getting a much better understanding of it.
Yay for moving to Brazil. Can someone sign up to be my complaint-listener while I'm gone? Upon my Port. teacher's advice, I would like to employ someone to strictly be available for my complaining. It's no secret that I can't help/love to whine... I'd rather not burden my husband and therefore my relationship with my endless whines and complaints. Better to do that to my friends, who love me unconditionally. :) Acerto???

Yay I found the other posts I was working on so I'll just put em up and you can see what I thought about but didn't finish... Tchau!

Spending time in the Brazlian Consulate of Toronto

Ok, the Brazilian Consulate is... well... it's kind of a mess. Everytime I've gone has been rather stressful - for one thing the square footage is TINY and many Brazilian families show up and squeeeeeze their families of 5 complete with strollers and young children into the already undersized space.

Today was no different.

Folks were almost unable to open the door today because I was rammed up against it. It was especially annoying because I was returning the consulate AGAIN because they made a mistake on my permanent visa. (they forgot to put my married name on it...)

This time, however, it was nice to see a lot of Canadians in line to pick up visas. At least I know I'm not the first person to ever relocate to Brazil :) duh...
So now we're back in the same position without my permanent Visa... Im steps away from being an (almost) Brasileira.

And now to end my post in the traditional Brazilian way. BEIJOS BEIJOCAS BEIJINHOS! Of course with a little added ridiculousness ;)