Going away August 10, 2010

Looking at the Windows calendar on the corner of my screen, I realize it’s August 10th, 1am. And even now, coming back from yet another goodbye party, I still haven’t realized that in a couple hours I’ll be travelling to a very far and very different corner of the world for a long time, distant from pretty much everyone I know.

Today the party felt different. I wasn’t melancholic or sad as I have been for the last days, I felt happy. Looking at all of those friends made me feel kinda confortable. People I see everyday, people I’m not so used to meet, people that I have met before but lost contact with – all there, gathered to give me a last hug and wish me good luck. Seeing each of them brought a flashback to my mind – how did I meet those guys, what has led them to sit at that table today with me? It was a weird, but good sensation.

I’ve hugged most of them for the last time in a long while, and I felt my heart shrinking. But I didn’t cry a single tear; I think the happiness was bigger. Maybe I’m just saving my tears for later today…

My luggage is still open, clothes and things scattered all over the house. My desk is getting empty (but still very messy). I bought condensed milk, brigadeiro, guaraná, cachaça and a brazilian flag to bring with me. But while everything is not ready and I’m not at the airport, it still doesn’t seem to be true.

Dunno if I should take the pictures from my wall to bring with me, or if I should leave them here, marking my territory. Undoing this wall would hurt tons, I don’t think I’d have courage – so many memories and small things and details…well, I have most of the pictures on my notebook, I can print them in Sweden.

This post is looking weird, isn’t it? So much stuff in my head, I don’t really know what to write or feel. Tomorrow my life will turn upside down, and I just don’t know what to think.

Gonna go to bed, to my last night in my blue bedroom, at home.

I guess this is my last post before travelling, around 18h to go. Good luck for me! :)

Tomorrow will take us away
Far from home
No one will ever know our names
But the bards’ songs will remain
Tomorrow will take it away
The fear of today
It will be gone…

(damn, I won’t be able to watch Brazil x USA because I’ll be flying!)

“Don’t forget to turn the coffee maker off before leaving!” July 18, 2010

I can clearly remember February 15th, 2005. It was a tuesday, and my friend’s b-day. Before going to the uni I finally got to kiss the guy who was gonna be my boyfriend for the next 4-and-a-bit years for the 1st time. I drove my grey Corsa under a light rain to class, feeling very happy.

It was my fourth semester at the university, and I was a monitor of the Architectural Drafting subject. The teacher was Marcus Lima, an easygoing, really nice guy, loved by all the students. Previously he had been my teacher in two subjects, including Visual Communication. Working with design has always been my dream, so that subject was my favorite. And while on those classes, I discovered that Marcus had a design office.

In the same day, after my monitoring schedule, Marcus asked me if I was interested in having an internship at his office. I didn’t even think twice! From uni I went straight to my friends’ party, and told all the news of the day to everyone. Then I went home really early, as I’d have to work for the 1st time ever on the day next.

On this friday – July 16th, 2010 – I said goodbye to the office where I’ve been working for the last 5½ years. I was an intern, graduated (Marcus was my graduation project’s supervisor); then I continued working there, now as an architect ( and also as tech support from time to time, heh!). It’s difficult to believe that I’m going away after all this time…

Right after presenting my graduation project, with my boss - and friend.

Many ask me: “Wow, haven’t you ever wanted to try working somewhere else?” Sometimes I ask myself how it would have been if I had jumped out in some other time. I may have lost many opportunities, and maybe I haven’t learned stuff enough from other areas; but I really don’t regret it. I’ve never imagined myself working with interior architecture, or buildings. We had good and bad days, annoying clients, some interesting and not so interesting projects; but after all I’ve always been happy there, doing what I liked, with people that I adore.

To celebrate my leaving, they took me to my favourite restaurant: Mc Donalds. Marcus hates it with passion. It was awesome to see him eating a BigMac, heh.

When I started working there, it was just me, Marcus, and his wife Márcia, who’s also an architect. The office was in a house that we nicknamed “bat-cave”, because it was too dark. Things started getting bigger…more interns were needed; many appeared, left, and even came back again. The office moved to a better place, that now actually looks like an office (it’s also really orange-ish, everywhere. Pretty cute).

Day of the Architect, with the interns that stayed for longer: Gomes, Júlia, Carol Kataoka, Márcia and me. The blondie is Kriscia, a friend of mine that never worked in the office. :p

Random data: Marcus and Márcia had 2 kids in this period. Marcus had almost a hundred cellphones in this period too, because he’s always losing them everywhere; me and Márcia had around 4 each. Two coffee makers were damaged: one died after having being forgotten on power during a weekend, and the other was destroyed by my awesome physics skills (I poured cold water on the supa-hot glass and it burst). I gained some pounds, most of them because of the groceries sold in a store right downstairs, and the various restaurants we went to at lunch.

We decorated the office for the World Cup, Carnival, Chrismas and all the birthdays. We drank gallons of coffee, tea, cappucino and coke. We created many internal jokes. We listened to hours of crappy radio commentaries for my bosses’ team football games, and also tons of Maria Rita. We still feel a masochistic love for Corel Draw (say whatever you wish, love is blind and deaf!).

Last year, on my b-day.

But if there’s something we did more than anything else, it was working. With Marcus and Márcia I learned how to be a professional, and I have pride of every small thing I helped creating over there. I still make tons of mistakes (too many for my tastes), but I was lucky to have such wonderful tutors who were patient, taught me, helped me fixing stuff and praised me when things turned out well. Cutting this umbilical cord and start walking by myself won’t be easy, but now I feel safe to try to do it.

From the time when I thought that using filters in PS was a l33t thing. God, I've grown up.

But the most difficult part is to think that on monday I won’t see Marcus acting silly to make us laugh, or chat all day long with Márcia about random stuff, or playing practical jokes with the interns, or even complaining about the office’s temperature – so cold that it made me feel in Sweden already. Not many people were as lucky as I was, working in the area I loved, in a wonderful place, with bosses that were also very good friends.

At the Ceará football match, last wednesday. My first time in a stadium.

Marcus said it was the end of a cycle; we didn’t even feel it, but everything changed a lot on the last 5 years. Goodbyes always hurt, and I couldn’t hold back tears when I returned my keys to them and went out; but what really matters is that our friendship didn’t end there and that all the good memories will last forever. Time to reset.