Take on immigration and whatnot - overwhelmed by ghosts of decisions unmakable

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Anyways, I'm pretty much settled on settling in Vancouver now :hmm:

Actually, I feel like I should step in here. Vancouver is a really nice city, but the cost of living is very high, and there are some problems with crime. You might need tto consider immigration elsewhere depending on how your finances are. Don't take it as a downer, but don't get your sights locked in on BC just yet.

 

[Moach]

well yes, of course I have an open mind about the precise destination of my one-way errand... yet, I do feel like one has to start somewhere as to keep the mind focused...

if I didn't somewhat 'know' where I wanna go, I wouldn't be able to get anything done at all... it's way too many possibilities to juggle otherwise



as for meeting other Brazilian people or not.... it's not any more important than meeting people from anywhere else, for me...

In my past experience - brazilian emmigrates do seem to act more and more civilized in the majority of cases after being freed from their hostile natural environment

seriously - there's something about it here that gets into people's heads and puts them completely off their game... you wouldn't believe it just how far their general reasoning strays from the loosest interpretations of society-compatible thinking

that famous 'friendlyness' you hear about folks here - it's a lie - but not one devised in particular for some reason or another - it's a culturally infused paradigm of deceit, and it permeates all and every notion of life as they see it...
the reason they seem friendly at first, is because the average Brazilian is so (unconsciously) obsessed with social acceptance, they will never say anything that directly opposes a peer - however relevant the matter, however little they (claim to) care about that person in affective terms -- they will always lie, ever as long as the lie produces a more comfortable tone for the exchange

As a result, a large percentage of information is conveyed by indirect speech - People here will read so much between the lines, a non-accustomed person may soon find himself ill-spoken behind his back... the 'tone' in which you state a sentence will inevitably imply one or more hidden meanings - and usually, this is how brazilians argue - In half-stated undertones of implied scowling or derision

Directly bringing forth any distressful topic in conversation is seen as extremely rude - akin to flipping someone off for no reason, or putting your trousers down in public (which is usually accepted) - almost always, in some degree, direct discussion of 'trouble' results in placing the speaker in equal merit of disdain as the actual cause of the problem he brought up
thus, in Brazil, an uncomfortable truth must not ever, ever, never under any conditions be mentioned

it cost me my marriage! :facepalm:



Back out of the nut-house - One of the big reasons Vancouver popped out for me, is in fact that it is a big city -- i'm very used to city life, and to all those metropolitan features and ways of life....
The reason for that is that I come from the second largest (in area) and single densest urban sprawl on earth

São Paulo is a recklessly unplanned, 25+ million inhabitant (and growing), cancerous form of subhuman development - wrapped in billions of tons of filth and concrete that make for some shades of brown and gray you just can't find anywhere else...


we have the worst traffic problem in the world

crime has escalated beyond any means of reckoning by now...

there's dirt and filth everywhere, and the air is toxic to a point where everybody has some form of respiratory condition - (mine is a very extreme combined case of rhinitis and sinisitis that gets bad whenever the weather changes)

since São Paulo is large enough to develop a micro-climate pocket - we have the most disagreeable weather patterns in the country - it is known for it much in the same way as London the Netherlands (i've been to the Netherlands - I found it far better in that sense, my allergies all went away - this was in winter)


and don't worry about cost -- there are few places I could move to in this world where the general cost of life would be higher than they are right here...


yep - this place is just all wrong... I keep telling everyone I know to pack up and leave as soon as possible, before 'a semi-solid waste substance impacts a moving part of a household climate control apparatus'

most local peers agree - none really take any action, however...


:uhh: I think it's time for my medicine now... :facepalm:

 

[sorindafabico]

Well, I'll give my 2 cents as a fellow brazilian who has the same general impression of our cultural environment and haven't followed a similar path by matter of details.

As RisingFury and Urwumpe pointed, you must be sure of what you're doing if you want to focus in your engine. But if you choose to develop your invention, go to another country. Brazil's "vocation" of commodity exporter assigned since colonization has ruined all tentatives to build a national culture of innovation. Bartolomeu de Gusmão and Alberto Santos-Dumont both had to go to Europe to develop ballons and airplanes - we have not a single nobel prize, and even in my city we have a big monument symbolizing the lack of support for innovations - the interesting concept called aeromovel, a local invention, is laying there as a prototype, going from nothing to nowhere since the 1980s. We have some isolated islands of excellence (usually some institutions inside public universities), but you have to be really lucky to be inside them. As you know, they're not the rule.

Programming games in Brazil is hard, the industry was nonexistant until a few years ago. There are some effort to develop this field here in Porto Alegre (in PUC-RS), but I don't know how they're going. Again, I would be thinking strongly about immigration in your situation - I stayed in the country because I managed to get into one of those "islands of excellence", plus other personal details. As said, you have little to lose except for your life, the worst scenario would be you coming back without money, but with A LOT of new professional and personal experiences.

I think you're doing right looking for something before arriving, both jobs and places with acquaintances, but if you deduce that US is better than Canada to find a good carrer (I don't know), don't be intimidated by the greater difficulty in immigrating - immigration is always hard.


PS: I would never live in São Paulo. It's too crowded.

 

[Kendo]

My sister and her husband went to Vancouver in the early Seventies, she was a matron and he was a male nurse. They left here with nothing, and within a year, they had bought a piece of land and had a house built on it. A year later they bought a larger piece of land and had a larger house built on it.
I went over in 76 for six weeks, I was 30 years old, it felt as though I lived there all my life. I cried on the plane on the way home as I didn.t want to leave. But I had family over here in England. I could have got a job as I was a color printer.
My family told me to go back if I wanted to, but I just could,t leave them.
O.K that was in the Seventies, a lot has changed since then. Has it changed for the better or worse, I don,t know. But thet would never ever come back to England.
Nowhere in the world is perfect, Vancouver is a good a place as any.
You are at a low point in your life, as you say you can,t get any lower, there is only one way to go and that is up. So I would get of your arse and go to Vancouver. I didn,t have the guts. If you don,t you will regret it for the rest of your life as I am doing right now.

 

[4throck]

"that famous 'friendlyness' you hear about folks here -..... ever as long as the lie produces a more comfortable tone for the exchange"

My friend, I understand completely.
It's a cultural feature that you can also find on the Portuguese (less open but still friendly). I guess it's ancestral, perhaps coming right from the Romans... enhanced by the Moorish occupation, etc, etc... and since our nations share a common past...

From personal experience, some of the problems that appear between the Brazilian diaspora and the Portuguese natives come from this mutual "understanding" that "they are not being true".

I don't think like that, but many many people do...
It's hard to look oneself in the mirror :hello:
I'd say you will find it everywhere as part of the general latin culture (European, south/north American, whatever).


The positive part is that when interacting with people from different cultures (UK, Germany, USA, Japan, etc), those social masks don't work. So people will become what they are in reality, and generally they are good natured and indeed friendly. Odd, but it is true.

 

[Ark]

Sadly I can't really offer more than my sympathy for how you feel. I sunk about 5 years of my life into my career as an automotive tech. I got an associates degree in the field and worked for several different employers, all of them terrible, until I completely gave up on the field. I'm 24 and have been accepted to Indiana University in the fall with the intention of completing an undergraduate degree, but it's a huge monumental decision to figure out what to study, because at my age this is literally the last chance to determine what path I'm going down, whether I'm going to be rich or poor, and what my degree of happiness in life is going to be. The whole outcome of my life is being decided in the next few weeks and I have no freakin' clue what I'm doing.

I think it's staggeringly cruel that our society expects young people to make decisions that will determine the outcomes of their lives at a time in life where you have the least possible information and experience to base that decision on.

Just speaking from personal gut feeling, I wouldn't stake all your hopes on some revolutionary invention. People who do come up with genuinely new ideas have a habit of being muscled out by corporate interests and dying penniless. Secure a solid living first, don't just gamble everything on a crazy idea.

 

[PennyBlack]

It is possible to have a wife that fits your job(s), and your wage(s)...

I suffered alot of depression being caught in a contract of employment. The work was fine, but the environment and other employees was not. I informed my missis who noticed for a while my state, that I was leaving my highly paid contract at the risk of being sued. She put her arms around me and told me what a relief it was to hear I had a plan of action, even if it was a self termination of contract. She wanted me to be happy above all else and money didn't matter. Ussualy when poverty walks in through the door, love often flies out of the window. In the times it was hard for us, I'm happy to say that wasn't the case for me Moach.
I have been happier in low paid, often part time work than I ever was with the few high end jobs. I can only say that with my missis, I chose wisely when I selected her as a life partner. Or did she pick me.?

Often I find an empty belly can be sustained by a full heart, metaphorically speaking.

Moach, I wish you well.

(I wasn't sued by the way. I knew to much :lol

 

[4throck]

One cannot live against one's values. Not a whole life. Of course, you need €€€ but your health is more important. Specially mental health.
Your family needs you to bring them happiness and support, as much as money.

Yes, poverty will strain any relationship, but the same happens with constant bad humor, indisposition or being "distant".

Values and being TRUE are the single only important thing. You can be happy cleaning the floor, because you've done it well and others have let you do it well.

Material pursuits are relative. A house or a car are important and worth putting up with a crappy job (for a limited time) to get them.
But hype things like the latest cell phone or console... nice to have but not important.


Another important thing is keeping up to date. In any professional area.
Sadly, most business will just use you or leave you your own. Then you become "obsolete" and they get someone fresh to squeeze. This is how it is and you need to prepare for it.
Diversify your knowledge, and make learning new usefull things something important on your life. Devote time and money to it.

Just my 0.2€ :thumbup:

 

[stevcast]

Go with your gut feeling

Moach, I have been reading through some of your trials and tribulations, and as someone who has "been there and done that", I can honestly say that life does have a very strange way of just "working out", as long as you pay attention to the obvious and try to make intelligent and informed decisions.
One point I would like to make is to never, and I mean NEVER give up on your dreams no matter how far fetched they may seem. It is a sad day when you look at yourself in the mirror and have to say "what if". Everybody has to make concessions at some point in time, but the key is to not give up too much of yourself with these concessions.
Everybody makes bad decisions in life, but you can't be fearful of making decisions. Do your homework, make an informed decision, and then go for it! Your decisions may not take you down the path in life the way you thought it would, but it may open doors you never even knew existed.
In any case, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that you find your way, whichever path you take.