From law student to a car wash employee

A few years ago, when I was less than 18 years-old and soon after I entered in Law School University, I was invited to go to the United States of America by an old high school friend, whose family was moving to there.

In my friend’s family there are basically air pilots and air force workers, in which includes my friend Pablo: a young air pilot. Their move to the United States of America was related to my friend’s job opportunity as a private pilot in Florida.

By the way, I met this friend when he was living in Sao Paulo for a short period of time, almost a year to be exactly, when we have studied together in a traditional Spanish school named Miguel de Cervantes. As his family was formed by air pilots, it was very common to them to move around the globe, for example, before Sao Paulo, he lived in France and China, eventhough his birth place was Rio de Janeiro. 

When we have finished high school, we lost contact. Maybe for the opposite way we decided to take in. He got his air pilot license and I entered in the Law School University. For my surprise, however, he found out my phone number and has invited me to spent two months with him in Florida. 

At that time, I was already a law intern in a huge and important Brazilian firm of law, which has also an associated office in New York, for what speaking English was so fundamental to my career and, of course, visiting him in Florida would fit exactly into my plans of studying abroad. 

Because of that, what seemed to be a job opportunity to my best friend was, at the same time, a unique chance for me to study English. This chance was even best considering that I would have a place to stay during my vacation. 

I didn’t think twice. He invited me almost in October, and I would have only few weeks to get a tourism visa, to buy the ticket and find some money to spent in my vacation, which was in November. It was almost impossible to save money from the law trainee salary. On the other hand, I couldn’t loose this unbelievable opportunity. 

I asked my boss for vacation, bought a one way ticket flight to Miami and changed my last payment into dollars – a little bit more than 100 dollars. I was extremely excited with this trip: first time traveling alone, visiting my best friend and studying English, regardless of the risk of not having enough money to buy the flight ticket back or even to pay the daily costs.

I arrived in Miami and my friend picked me up on the airport. We went to their house in Fort Lauderdale, one of the richest city of Miami, known as the “Venice of America”, due to its expansive and intricate canal (an artificial channel for waters), in which people from the upscale society left their boats and expensive jet skis.

My friend’s house was enormous and completely white, built in the American way: an old-fashioned architecture, no walls around the residence, in a calm neighborhood, with a pleasant garden, and it was good enough to feel the American way of life. I was felling like I was personally moving to that country for a new life and smelling the air of something really different from my reality in Sao Paulo.

This American experience has enriched even more when I enrolled at an American University to take an English course. The school was in a wide campus and the students were from many different countries.               

In order to help with the ordinary costs during my stay, I decided to work, even though I didn’t had neither the correct visa to work (only for tourism) nor the social security number needed for that. For this reason, the only job I could find was in a Brazilian car wash, in Pompano Beach.

One morning I wake up and realized I passed from a law student who studies in a famous Brazilian law university and works at a big firm of law, to a simple English student, washing cars at a small Brazilian car wash. The funny situation was that I got better paid for that.

The experience of living as a Latin foreigner in USA was unforgettable, except for the fact that I haven’t learned English as I desired. After all, working with mostly Latin workers in a car wash and staying in Miami, the “Spanish City”, gave me all chances to learn Spanish language, instead of English indeed. Furthermore, the life lesson showed me the value of my job and gave me reasons to recognize the importance of any kind of work.

 

 

 

Big victory inside

My sweating cold hand was holding my mother’s hand. I was clearly tense. As the line moved on and my turn came closer I could felt my feet and hands more and more perspiring. I’d already tried too many times, but always came back to the end of the long line all “fallen looked”. Finally I was there. In front of me an old soccer ball and not much far a smal goal all made in wood. I could felt my legs heavy and my body rigified, even so I had to try it again. I took distance, ran toward the ball, kicked and the same frustrating result. I was only four yers old, but I could already felt that pressure. Simple and even enjoyable things semmed like hard tasks. Since that age my exigence with my self was so excessive that couldn’t stand to make certain types of mistake, specially when they had to do with sports.

Twelve years later, with many experiences of pressure, glory and disappointments, I felt that my real test was comming. I passed on a “select test” to training on a soccer team which was going to play the most famouse women championchip at USA. I was one of the oldest of team and soon I became captain. I liked that position of lidership but also feared the challengings that it imposed.

At the semi-final the game was tough and fast ran in to the penaltys. I had already missed one and achieved other during the champ. When the coach asked who wanted to kick, I knew I had to answer “I do”, after all I was the captain and this was my function. I was the first to kick. Lots of thoughts invaded my mind on my way to the ball. Again that scene. But this time the ball was shining, the goal was bigger and a enormous goal-kipper was staring me with anger. I could see a bunch of people all rooting and cheering, but couldn’t heard anything. My mind was closed on its own thoughts. Again I felt my legs heavy and my body rigified. I took the ball and put it on the penalty spot. I felt my heart beating fast and my veins pulsating as I took few steps back. I looked the ball and concentrated all my energies. I ran in the direction of it like who run to overcome a bigger obstacle. When I saw that the ball was spinning inside the goal and the goal-kipper was looking me with sad eyes I ran as fast as I could to meet my team and celebrate. With them I celebrated the goal, but only I knew what the size of my victory.

Bad Christmas

     When I was almost 4 years old, I went to my aunt’s house in Interlagos with my mother, my father and my one year old brother to celebrate Christmas.

     My whole family was there waiting for us, so that we could have dinner and open the presents. As we arrived, I was entering the room holding hands with my mother and neither of us saw that the rug was up. I accidentaly put my left foot beneath it and fell, hitting my mouth on the corner of the table. I don’t remember what happened immediattly after because I fainted.

     My parents were extremily desperate because my mouth was bleeding a lot. They tried to call my dentist, who was in Ubatuba and told us to go to his sister’s -who is also a dentist- office.  Me and my parents arrived there at about midnight and I was exausted. The dentist staid for 2 and a half hours trying to put a special bracet in my teeth so that they didn’t fell of, but it didn’t work as it should. Due to the impact with the table, my front tooth was practically loose.

     I left the office at 3 in the morning with a strange bracet. Only Two days later, my tooth fell of. Since I was too young to lose a tooth, I started to use a bracet with a fake one, so that the others teeth didn’t change places, and I had to use it 24 hours a day, only taking it off to eat. However, the fake tooth was darker than the others, and all of my friends and kids I didn’t even know from my school started making fun of me saying that my tooth looked horrible. That made my self-steem decrease a lot, however there was nothing I could do.

     I used this bracet with the fake tooth from 4 to 8, when I accidentally lost it at school during break. The moment I lost it, i knew my mother would be very angry at me and would say that I didn’t take good care of it, so I left the classrom and started to look for it everywhere in the school. I also asked the school cleaners if they could help, but they didn’t find it. My mother got very upset and took me to the dentist to see what he could do. When we got there, he told me that I didn’t have to use it anymore because my front tooth was starting to grow. What a luck!

Against all odds

Last year was a very special time for me. Unfortunately, “special “in an extremely negative connotation, however, I classify this way because it was very peculiar, very different from others bad moments that I had been thought.

After six months studying hard to get in the university, I passed, but I decided that the course, which was economy, was not what I wanted to do anymore. I used to study more than twelve hours a day at this time, because I spent 6 hours at the school, and at the afternoons, I went to the preparatory course, spent more 6 hours there, when I got home, I still tried to find some motivation to study what I had learnt that day.

After realizing that economy was not for me, I enrolled myself again in this preparatory course and spent a year there. This time, I was absolutely sure that my course was law, so I studied a lot to be confident and have good chances, since law is one of the most wanted careers; and I had my reward. I passed in PUC.

When I went to PUC for the first time, I was very excited. It seemed to be a place with a real university atmosphere, different people, different courses at the same campus, lots of bars in front of and the place itself with all your tradition really made me feel an university student. And I was right. The place and the people were great. The problem was the course. I got so disappointed at it, that I started to miss classes, not study for the tests, do my assignments without any effort, and have no commitment at all with the college.

This sensation resulted in the most terrible feeling of loss I had ever had. I felt that I should not have denied economy school, and that I was never going to find the right course for me, or be able to have a successful career and job. I was completely lost, without any courage and forces to quit law school and go back to preparatory course.

What came to me, was the possibility of trying to get in the journalism school, another of my great variety of careers options, without the preparatory course. This seemed to be the best alternative for me, so that was what I did. I prepared myself a little, and did the test for journalism at Cásper Líbero. Ten people obstructed me from passing. There were 100 vacancies; I was number 110 from the list.

After all this, I feel now that this defect flaw of mine, was the best thing that happened to me at he end of last year. The fact of not passing at Cásper, made me rethink a lot, and I gave law school a real chance of being part of my life in a way that I could be pleased about it. So I started to watch classes taking notes of the subjects, go to college frequently, do my assignments properly. And I really started to enjoy law school, and now I feel that I can accomplish goals in my professional life by fallowing this career. And I learnt that sometimes it is necessary to give a second chance in order to get to know better before jumping at conclusions. And I also confirmed that eventually, bad things happen to bring you good things. My failure on trying to get in Cáper shown me that. Instead of journalism, I could be able to be pleased doing a course, which I prepared myself one year for, and chose for my professional life.

An accident that changed my way to live

I didn’t know how much I cared and loved my brother until an accident happend.

My mother and I went on vacation together on January of 2006 to USA, and my older brother stayed here in Brasil, in Guaruja with his friends on vacation too. It was just about hours that we got home(my mom and I) and we were both asleep, I heard the phone rang, and as I was asleep I wouldn’t answer the phone, but in this particular day I did. It was my brother’s best friend on the phone, Marcos, telling me that my brother had crashed the car, but that it was okay, nothing to worry,so I went back to sleep, as normal.

After 20 minutes, the phone rang again, and I picked up, it was Marcos saying in a calm voice, because he didn´t want to scary me, that  the accident was serious and he asked me to call my mother,I ran to my mother’s bedroom and called her.She was so terrify that she cannot belived what I was saying, she jumped from the bed, put some clothes and called Marcos. He explained what had happened and she went  immediatly to Guaruja with my driver. I stayed here in Sao Paulo just waiting for to call , I was still in shock, I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly she called me and told me to call my grandmother and ask if she could come here to Sao Paulo to help my mother take care of my brother. I called my grandmother and explained everything and so she came here to Sao Paulo as soon as she could.

My mother came here with an ambulance with my brother,he was seriously enjuried. She got him in Einstein Hospital, he stayed in UTI for 7 days, during his staying in UTI  he undergone a lot of surgeries to fix what was broken, my mother stayed every minute with my brother and my grandmother too, I visited my brother almost everyday, because I don’t really like hospitals and I felt bad when I was there.

I was at home all by myself doing nothing, just praying that he woudl get better, My maid was on vacation so It didn’t have anything to eat so I lost a lot of weight, not only for that reason but I lost my appetite. 

After 7 days, my brother came back home, he was much better, but he doesn’t remember anything for the accident until today.

That summer was the worst summer for my family, my mother almost lost her son and I almost lost my brother, then I start to care more for him and love him more.

I think when you almost loose someone very important, you start to care more for your life.

Welcome to Writing 2

Guys,

Welcome to our Writing 2 Blog. We are going to make use of this eletronic tool to give each other comments on line so as not to waste our natural resources. Let’s save our trees Most of our classes will be held here at the lab whenever other groups are not using it. All of your entries should be saved here and your grading for the writing component of this course will also come from this blog. if you have any questions about how to use it, you can ask Marina, Amay, or me We will be more than glad to help you. I hope we all have a great semester ahead of us.

Rick

Note: All of the writings below are a compilation of my last semester’s  Writing 2 group. They will work as samples in case you get lost as far as what to do about your assignment.