Why dilemmas?

“Dilemmas is the post

everyone reads the most”

I wonder why…

(Too much) rain in Santa Catarina

Santa Catarina is the name of a state in the South of Brazil known by its gorgeous beaches and home of many German immigrants who arrived there about a hundred and fifty years ago. Now imagine you live in Santa Catarina, next to a hill, in a scenario that brings up the picture of an European village. You have worked all your life to build a nice and comfortable home, perhaps with a piano inside, where you live with your family. You are happy. You and your wife have a small business, employing 30 people and producing, say, canned food. People like that have just become homeless after massive amounts of rain caused flood and landslides, as never seen before:

116 people are dead; 31 are disappeared; 27.410 are homeless and 51.297 had to temporarily leave their homes, partly destroyed by the disaster. Many of them won’t be able to go back, since the sites have been considered too risky, subjected to further landslides.

Check here (NYT) and here (Portuguese website, with pictures). And, of course, you can help, if you want:

Donate here: money, food, cleaning products, clothing, blankets, drinking water.

Back(stage)

I’m back for quite a while now, finishing my career counselling sessions for this year. I’ve been having some positive surprises and feedback, but what is still to be done is to diminish the distance between school and work, that is, to provide opportunities for the students to acquire some self-efficacy beliefs that will be useful when choosing a career. Many of them will only start doing things their own when they enter university/college. Besides, there seems to be a lack of reflexion on the world of work, like what the sense of work is, why people work, how necessary it is for them to work etc. It may seem odd, but some teenagers have no idea where the money comes from. They don’t know how easy/difficult it can be to make money and they know nothing about the cost of living.

On Toronto

One thing that I really, really like about Toronto is the cultural mix. You get on a bus and you listen to several languages and accents. People are also dressed according to their culture so it doesn’t really matter how you’re dressed, how you speak, how you behave. Sometimes, of course, it’s a little hard to accept people sharing their cigarette’s smoke with you, people sneezing on your face, people competing for a place on the train. But, c’mon, let’s not be picky. Toronto has a lot to offer, as does the world with its cultural diversity.

Weather sucks, to be honest. It’s been raining everyday and we never know if it’s hot or cold; besides, air conditioners could be turned off most of the times. Environment friendly, you see. (Hmm, and by “you” I mean any of the 2,001 visitors of this blog. Including myself.)

What is the fiction of your life?

Let’s write a story about yourself.

What’s its introduction? Where does your story take place?

How can you, as a character, be revealed? How does one get to know you? By your physical appearance? By what you say, think, feel, dream, do and don’t do? Or by what others say about you? Describe it.

What kind of conflicts have you faced/are you facing? A struggle against external forces, or against your own self? A struggle against another person, against circumstances, ideas, or against your choices, against your feelings or limitations? Elaborate.

How will the turning point be? Will the conflict be resolved or not? What do you think? Do you want it to be resolved?

How do you expect the untangling of the events to be?