On respect and emmigration
Apr. 2nd, 2011 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maristuI may be depressed. I just cried for about 4 hours after the lady told me that my move wasn't going to arrive for another week. For a person that's waited for six months, what's another week, right? But yeah, that got me going. I then proceeded to cry at the end of Legally Blonde. Now that's a sure sign that something is wrong.
I just don't like it here. And by "here" I mean Brazil. My own country. How twisted is that? The problem is, after you leave for a while, you come back and notice all the flaws and problems that you were used to before. Like, people run red lights and almost kill you, and everyone's always late, and the streets have huge potholes in them, and nothing ever goes according to plan. Scheduling a time for anything is futile.
Case in point: I'm feeling depressed, so I scheduled an appointment with a psychologist at my work. I arrived there about ten minutes early, and waited. Half an hour later, I was still waiting. The woman just DIDN'T SHOW UP. Nada. No note, no phone call to the secretary to say she wasn't coming. I waited for another half hour, wrote her a nasty note, and left. She never called to explain. She's not dead or hurt, in case any of you were wondering. I checked.
And that's the thing. The lack of respect is just killing me. Everyone here feels more entitled than you about everything. Everything is a struggle, a fight, from driving down the street to getting a crew for a shoot to thwarting off people that are trying to cut in front of you at the movies. My brand new iPhone was stolen on my first week of work. From my desk. FROM MY PURSE. And when I showed my outrage about this, you know what the first reply was? Well, you shouldn't just leave your stuff lying around like that. You know how things are around here...
Apparently, I don't. I forgot. And how is leaving my purse on my desk considered "leaving my stuff lying around"? Where else am I supposed to leave it???
And then the shrink, the person who was supposed to make me feel better, made me feel worse. And further proved my point.
I know that leaving won't solve anything. That I should stay and try and change things. But I'm researching for a documentary about Brazilian sociologists and anthropologists and their theories, and it just makes me more depressed. Because this? This has been going on for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. I mean, ever since the first Portuguese ship came to our shores, things have happened according to status and "who knows who" and not according to what's fair and just. Bribes, corruption, you name it. How the hell do we change a culture that's so ingrained? Brazil is like a Titanic, this huge ship with a tiny rudder. Even if I do stick around and try and change things, I won't be alive to see any major change.
And so I want to leave. For my own sanity. I'm not saying that Europe or the US are perfect, but at least in the US I didn't feel disrespected on a daily basis.
But all of this is moot, seeing as I'm forced to stay here at least for another year, as payment for the time that they gave me to study. I'm actually counting down the days, like a prisoner in jail, marking them off on the wall (well, on a calendar, but still).
In the meantime, I guess I should get myself another shrink.
I just don't like it here. And by "here" I mean Brazil. My own country. How twisted is that? The problem is, after you leave for a while, you come back and notice all the flaws and problems that you were used to before. Like, people run red lights and almost kill you, and everyone's always late, and the streets have huge potholes in them, and nothing ever goes according to plan. Scheduling a time for anything is futile.
Case in point: I'm feeling depressed, so I scheduled an appointment with a psychologist at my work. I arrived there about ten minutes early, and waited. Half an hour later, I was still waiting. The woman just DIDN'T SHOW UP. Nada. No note, no phone call to the secretary to say she wasn't coming. I waited for another half hour, wrote her a nasty note, and left. She never called to explain. She's not dead or hurt, in case any of you were wondering. I checked.
And that's the thing. The lack of respect is just killing me. Everyone here feels more entitled than you about everything. Everything is a struggle, a fight, from driving down the street to getting a crew for a shoot to thwarting off people that are trying to cut in front of you at the movies. My brand new iPhone was stolen on my first week of work. From my desk. FROM MY PURSE. And when I showed my outrage about this, you know what the first reply was? Well, you shouldn't just leave your stuff lying around like that. You know how things are around here...
Apparently, I don't. I forgot. And how is leaving my purse on my desk considered "leaving my stuff lying around"? Where else am I supposed to leave it???
And then the shrink, the person who was supposed to make me feel better, made me feel worse. And further proved my point.
I know that leaving won't solve anything. That I should stay and try and change things. But I'm researching for a documentary about Brazilian sociologists and anthropologists and their theories, and it just makes me more depressed. Because this? This has been going on for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. I mean, ever since the first Portuguese ship came to our shores, things have happened according to status and "who knows who" and not according to what's fair and just. Bribes, corruption, you name it. How the hell do we change a culture that's so ingrained? Brazil is like a Titanic, this huge ship with a tiny rudder. Even if I do stick around and try and change things, I won't be alive to see any major change.
And so I want to leave. For my own sanity. I'm not saying that Europe or the US are perfect, but at least in the US I didn't feel disrespected on a daily basis.
But all of this is moot, seeing as I'm forced to stay here at least for another year, as payment for the time that they gave me to study. I'm actually counting down the days, like a prisoner in jail, marking them off on the wall (well, on a calendar, but still).
In the meantime, I guess I should get myself another shrink.
