What was I thinkin'?

Oh dear God. A new semester has arrived, a new school season better saying. I am already busy packed with tests to correct, students' reports to fill in... and I had to raise the idea of taking Chinese and boxing this year!?!? I really don't know what I was thinking... (thousands of ellipsis there, please). Luckily I got to hire an American teacher, Sarah Cato (from Alabama) to take over some of my groups. Well, at first, I thought: "Greaaat! Now, I'll have more free time for myself!" Yeah, riiiiiight. I am sensing that this is not gonna work out this way.

At my job, I feel suffocated by supervisions and stuff. With this new teacher at our school, I feel tenser coz now I have got one person to supervise while I am still being supervised. Whatevs, my job isn't the major problem. What bugs me is that I pretty much wish I had more power to take decisions in life. I've already typed that gizillions of times in this blog. But this time, I mean it. I mean: INDEPENDENCE. By 'independence' I mean that little most precious thing in life - to do whatever I want whenever I want to. Nah... this is never gonna happen. Well, it has happened once, or twice... That maybe happened when I was a teenager, I guess. Or that may have happened when I was not married. Being married isn't so pleasing at times, especially when you see your 'independence' scattering away.

Not everything sucks though. I am very lonely here in my place and I do not complain about. Actually, I am way happier just because of that. I don't even consider having kids because it scares me the idea of having people depending on me... really, it would be too crazy for them to have Laila as their mother. But it could be nice to start my own family - making my own people - moooohahahahaha. However, to have kids requires so much hard work, and then, there is the worst: they last too long and that could bankrupt me. Seriously, what could cost more than kids taking away your 'independence' from you?

My family was poor in the past. As a matter of fact, my mother had sadly poor parents and my father's parents were once very wealthy, but only once, when my father was just a kid. Dad left home when he was 16 and started his whole life from nothing. My father is a real self-made man and I am very proud of this. Roberto and I aren't much different from that. We also started growing, raising money for setting up our business when we both were 18. Our parents did help a little but we made it mostly on our own. I can't say we are rich but according to Brazilian standards we are above the average. Don't take me wrong. We did not suffer for gettin' there. We both went to college, and, we used to do what most teenagers should do which is study, work, and party a lot. Although, not many kids have got the same lifestyle we had.

In Brazil, most teenagers are asked to work for the local industries right after they finish high school. The lousy thing is that they don't make good money, unless they are in college or have already finished undergraduate studies. But even for those who are attending college courses, there is no guarantee of better salaries or wages. Then, there is another matter which's that not many of them can afford college studies and the worst is that higher education, in this country, is only called higher for a mere convention. Depending on the major, most of our schools are not well-qualified. Big bummer!

I stress over my lifestyle. Fine. I complain about it without many real reasons. I stress over the general Brazilian colleges and universitites. Also fine. Though, this time, I've got good reasons to. But I can always run away to any other country and study there (if at least I had that kind of FREEDOM to just GO...). Now, it is time to complain over the Brazilian way of accepting their shitty conditions of survival. Are we really 'independent' people?

Drugs and crimes have been common issues in medium and large cities in Brazil since my grandparents were born. I am constantly frightened when I am outdoors. I barely take walks downtown or go for a picnic in a park coz... coz... we never know... criminals are everywhere and they can attack at any time of the day or night. The working part of the Brazilian society live in this frightening state. Therefore we gate our houses, we install alarm and surveillance cameras, we set security codes to enter apartment buildings, many stores hire security guards to stand on sidewalks to watch out for their clients... in reality, we are caged and most of us don't even realize that. And d'you know why? because when people at my age were born, things had already been this way. And people don't get to travel to other cultures to see other realities because they cannot afford that either. Brazilian people are f#cking dependent puppies lost in the wild, including me.

In short... I must copy and paste my first paragraph: "Oh dear God. A new semester has arrived, a new school season better saying. I am packed with tests to correct, students' reports to fill in... and I had to raise the idea of taking Chinese and boxing this year!?!? I really don't know what I was thinking..." Really. What was I thinking?

Ms Burden

PS: I want my "independence" back.