Vietnam

Hi!

I know I promissed I would post here more often... but lots of things happened lately and I've been busy. I'll try to write more often to keep you posted or at least to help me thinking things through.

Since I arrived from Brazil (it's strange to write Brazil with a "z"... we, portuguese people, write it with an "s") I focused on spending as much time as I can with friends.

I made some camping trips, and had lots of fun. It's been great to feel that I have great roots, great friends and family here in my hometown and its surroundings.

I'll never feel lost or alone because I know that I have this safe place to come back if anything goes wrong in my life.

So, about my future.

I'm going to Vietnam next week (dunno the exact day yet, but I'll know soon).

I've been recruited by Logoplaste (the company where I made my Traineeship in Brasil) to be part of the COO International Team... and the description of my position is "Project Assistant".

Talking about work is not very interesting, but for those who wonder about what the hell am I going to do there, I'll describe my tasks in 1 or 2 sentences:

- I'll be a member of a team who sets up new factories for the Logoplaste Group. We are responsible for the start up of the factory and we have to organize maintenance, implement the informatical services, bla bla bla;

- I'll be there around 12 months and when the job is finished, I'll develop the same kind of work in another place, another country, another continent... if I was a Christian I would say "god knows where". It canbe Portugal, or it canbe anywhere else in the world. That means that while I am in this position, I won't have a home, if you know what I mean.

I'm excited and happy for having this opportunity. It could be a big step on my career despite my lack of interest on a big career. It's not my goal to become reach or powerfull - I want to be this old grandfather with nice stories to tell.

I'm happy for this job because it will provide me the opportunity to see the world while I'm working... this way I'll be able to be completely independent and continue travelling, communicating with different cultures and, hopefully, grow as a human being.

We can't have everything, so there are some negative aspects too. It'll be hard to connect in a more profound way with friends, etc... but it's the price I need to pay for my big curiosity about the world. I would never forgive myself if I wouldn't have the guts to take this chance.

I'll leave my country and my people with a lump in my throat, I'll miss many things and many people... and I'll have to deal with the idea that I may be getting away from the thing I want the most in my life...

But life won't end tomorrow, right? I prefer to believe that some storiess are just waiting to happen, and it could be now, or next year.

I could write more about what's going in my head right now, but I'd sound like a crazy, confused man : )

I'll take all of you with me to Vietnam, even if its just in my head.

Kisses and Hugs,

André Lima

It's been a while...

... since I last posted here.
I now that nobody will be reading this, but today I felt like writing.

I've just finished a movie:


Paul Giamatti is a hell of an actor - brilliant performance.
Great movie, by the way.



This movie moved me, I have to say. There are a lot of reasons for that to happen.
There's a very beautiful love relation between Barney (Paul Giamatti) and Miriam (Rosamund Pike) - it got me thinking about my long abstinence with love relations... true love relations, I mean. It's kinda sad.
It has also something to do with Alzheimer's Disease. My grandfather had it and I'm afraid of having it in the future or seeing my father getting it with his aging. Let's hope it won't happen.

Well, I'll go to sleep now. I was halting between going to a pub and take a drink or go to bed... it's too cold outside - easy choice.

I'll keep posting.

Bye.

The End

Erasmus is over. It was a long year pfff.. and so hard :D.

I still have my thesis to finish but it's OK, I'm on the way to have it ready until the end of this week.

I confess, I'm a little bit scared about next year. I won't be a student anymore and that's really strange.. I've been studying since I'm 6, now I'm 23 (on my way to 24) and studying is the only real thing I've ever done. 17 years studying it's a long time and makes us, students, feel completely apart from the working class.

Where will I work, how's it gonna be, will I enjoy it, are some questions that have been filling my head lately, specially after Sérgio left to Portugal and after the visit of my friends from Prague.

Sérgio left on Saturday morning and my old friends left yesterday morning (now I think I can say that). I gotta say that yesterday's afternoon was quite depressing... I was speaking about that with Miguel, watching some pictures from this year and this melancholic feeling filled my head. This was great when we were the 3 altogether, now it's a little bit strange to be here.

But that's life... people come and go, things happens and we only keep memories, hopefully good ones. I gotta say that that's the case, I have almost only good memories from this year, so coming here was a very good decision.

Now comes the big question - will I stay in Portugal? I don't think so, or at least I hope not. I feel like I've got something to do somewhere out of Portugal.

Erasmus was a big adventure, but it wasn't that hard. I came with 2 good friends and everything was really easy since the beginning. We had this EILC (Erasmus Intensive Language Course) where we met a lot of nice people. After we arrived in Ostrava and we found a bunch of Portuguese people who turned the integration in this city really easy. The French guys were also really important, we spent days, weeks, months together... in the end it felt like a family.

Living in a Student Residence made my life easy as well. It's easy to adapt when you have 100 people living all around you in the same situation.

The real test will be next year. I hope I'll have the guts to leave Portugal. I hope I'll be strong enough to surpass the bitter flavor of loneliness that I'll probably feel in the beginning.

Every time I have this scary picture in my head of being alone somewhere in Europe (or outside Europe, who knows?) looking for a flat, adapting to a new lifestyle, laws, and specially looking for friends, people to spend time with - because we only feel like home when we feel good with the people that surrounds us.

At the same time I feel embarrassed of being scared. I've got a great example of victory in my family - my father. He went alone to Switzerland, without knowing any language besides Portuguese, to a place where he didn't knew anyone... and the worst thing was that in that time there weren't as many foreign people spread in Europe as there are now.

Will it be easy to find a job in Europe? I have absolutely no idea about it... I really don't know if it's easy for a recently graduated Mechanical Engineer to find a place to work in it's area.

I'll leave by car with José (Miguel's brother) and its girlfriend. I think the trip will take 2 days and it's planed to start between the 15th and 16th of July.

So, I think I'll keep posting here from times to times. Some friends from Erasmus follows this page and that's a good way to keep in touch, even if it's in an indirect way.

It's really sad to leave some friends from here. I really "connected" with some people as I never thought I would do in Erasmus. Things are not so superficial as I thought they would be and that's good, I guess. I couldn't ask for more - I had fun, traveled, met a lot of great people, improved my English/Spanish/French... that's just great.

Bye.

Ah, and I leave with you the song that I heard more times during this year. Hope you like it.

Budapest

Next stop:

Budapest (7th and 8th of May).

Probably One More Year

Well, things didn't work out as they should... and I have to admit that my laziness was my biggest enemy. I'll have to go back to Aveiro next year, to finish my Master.

Tomorrow I'll know the final the decision, but I'm almost sure that I won't finish this year.

Miss you all.

EDIT: Maybe I'll finish, I passed the subject ;)

Easter Holidays

24th to 29th of March - London:

29th to 30th of March - Bratislva:

31th of March to 2nd of April - Vienna:

3rd to 5th of April - Prague:

Sounds good.

-------------------------------

What goes around comes around.. I hope.

YEAH!

Avatar didn't won the Oscar for best movie... such a relief!

I would give the prize to the great "Inglorious Basterds" but yeah, it doesn't fit the profile of the academy to win a Oscar.

See ya.