A college paper about my story

Recently, I wrote a paper for one of my classes in which I told about my story and my influenced for both my personal and professional lives. Here is a reproduction of the written piece:

“'Vedi, vini, vici' (I came, I saw, I conquered). The famous phrase told by Roman Emperor Julius Caesar expressed the stages of our lives, in which we come unto scene, see what may be ahead in terms of obstacles to our goals, and fight to conquer what we had planned. In other words, we show on the battlefield to achieve our objectives and to fight for and to reach our goals, no matter what we do in life. That what happened to the writer of this quite short essay, a man that has thrived to achieved long-pursued goals and that is finally starting to reach them, one day at a time.

            I am Gabriel Neves, a 30 year-old Bachelor of Law/Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication to be, born in the city of Porto Alegre, south of Brazil, in the already distant year of 1982, who is pursuing a career that has been nourished and cherished since early ages: Journalism and television.

            My life has been a constant fight to achieve things and I can say I’ve gotten over many things. Usually, I am a quiet person, a man of very few words. This issue has been a problem during my childhood and throughout my teenage years. During most of my life, I had been going through therapy that proven to be successful here, with visible improvements in social skills and other everyday life issues. In exact terms, I’ve been in therapy for 23 years and I can say I made several improvements from that time to now.

            Most of my education was obtained in Brazil, where I went to High School and graduated in Law, about 6 years ago, in January 2007. Different of here, Law in Brazil is an Undergraduate program, as well as Medicine, in which you can go from High School straight to either Law or Medical schools. I was influenced by my mother, who told me that Journalism was a ticket to starvation. She convinced me to deny all the things I did when I was a kid, since speaking in front of a mirror pretending to be a news anchor, to using a watering can and a hose posing as camera and microphone. When I started studying Law, especially at the 3^rd year of studies, I realized that I had no talent neither guts for that profession. That was when I started trying to study Communication in America, something I always wanted to do. And not only studying, but living in America, which I’ve always had the desire to do and the goal to achieve. Much of this influence came by a movie I watched for the first time when I was 15: “Moscow on the Hudson”, directed by Paul Mazursky, tells the story of Vladimir, a musician from Russia that, upset with the Socialist standard of living and the lack of freedom, decides to get an asylum in the US while on tour with the circus he plays for. Those brave citizens, who fled totalitarian regimes to pursue freedom and happiness, are my major influences, mostly because they had the courage to change the status quo and build a new life.

            Back to the college issue, I kept trying for almost 8 years. I’ve been in America a few other times, in 1998, 2002, 2004 (when I went in an exchange program in Pennsylvania), 2008 (my first time in Utah), and 2009 (my last time in the country as a tourist). I eventually graduated from Law School and I spent 4 months in London, where a theft made me come back to Brazil and led me to depression (which only ended with the trip to Utah). In the meantime, a few office jobs and the attempt to work for Brazilian government (which I hate due to its inefficiency) were my lifelines.

            One of the facts that contributed for my moving to America was that I was victim of violent crime. It was July 5^th, 2009, I was driving a brand new SUV my mother had bought, carrying my young brother. When pulling to the home driveway, 3 men with weapons approached the car and stole it. One of the thieves punched me in my head. I don’t know how I survived, only by a miracle perhaps. And that was the final warning for me to get off of the place I was not happy.

            My admission to the University of Utah took place in January 2010 and I started the program in May of the same year. It’s been some great times, where I met people and I had a much better college experience, with better quality education in comparison to the one I had in Brazil.

            To conclude, I can say I am a winner and a fighter. The Latin phrase said it all about my life: a mix of joy and grief, but that gives me the strength to fight for the greater good always. My life is the best battle I will ever face."

A true outspeak about my home country

This is a blog about a man who wants to reflect and analyze what is going on in the World. But before starting my reflections, I'd like to make an introduction: My name is Gabriel, 31 years old, originally from Brazil, but living in the United States for almost 4 years, studied Journalism and Communication at The University of Utah. Working in this field has always been my goal in life, in which I started practicing since my childhood. And coming to America was a long awaited thing, a goal in my life, which I had the chance to achieve it in 2010, when the opportunity came, leaving behind a past full of good and bad moments, especially a robbery that happened to me in 2009 that almost put an end to my life.

What I feel in here is much more safety than in Brazil, which has a much higher murder rate than the USA, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): The World average murder rate was at 6.9 per each 100,000 people. US rate was at 5 homicides per 100,000 people, in a total of 15,241 (2009-2010 statistics), Brazil's rate was at 22.7 homicides per each 100,000, with a scary total of 43,909 murders! That number puts Brazil in a war-like murder rate, making the South American nation one of the deadliest in the World.

Not only the murders that upset me, but also the reckless way in which most Brazilians live life. Last year, The Next Web magazine (thenextweb.com) published an article about how expensive electronics were in Brazil. After reading the story, the comments caught my attention, most of them really furious with the situation. One of them, in particular, contained a true summary of how Brazilians spend their money and their "interesting" choices in terms of priorities for their living cycles.

Here's what I wrote on my Facebook page, with the comment:


"Brazil needs a huge economic crisis. Everything is overpriced, from basic needs to superfluous things. Brazilians are really d/u/m/b. They like to pay more to show off, but they don't know the things that they show off are considered common items abroad. Elite Brazilian class don't care about the huge prices. They have got a lot of money, much more than a middle-classed American or European, so paying more means status, stunning chicks and f*ck-off the rest of population.

Our young population is completely alienated. They are over influenced by means of communication (sic) which sells (sic) "the good things in life" as expensive. The idea of having a piece of junk brand-new-car for $15000,00 in Brazil is disseminated by the media, being a extremely basic car, with only the necessary for driving, nothing more.

That's why the best thing to happen in my country is a huge and devastating crisis. We definitely need it. There's no hoping for being a Brazilian who struggles to live and obtains nothing in exchange. This is similar to a white slavery. Most people have to prostitute themselves for getting by, or as despair the final solution is to be criminal because it's impossible for someone who has a good idea to have access to credit at banks. Banks say no and your opportunity to start up a company blows.
I wish I could have born in anywhere, but Brazil."

And here is my opinion:

"This guy is absolutely right. What he wrote on this comment is a summary of what Brazilian people are about life: no reaction under rip-offs and abuses, total shift of priorities, social status on consumer goods, and, the greatest of all, total tolerance with corrupt inefficient politicians, who only benefit their own interests, taking people as their hostages. People who accept paying tons of different taxes, to support not only these politicians, but also LAZY government employees, who only work there for the money, not for the people. Unfortunately, many of my former Law school classmates have decided to go on this despicable path, having no respect for those who support them. I am disgusted with the people of the country I was born, who only care for soap operas, soccer and junk entertainment, instead of taking sides on more serious issues. In other words, I am beyond DONE with this bunch of crap!"

This post was originally published on 1/16/2013.