Figuring It Out - Blog Posts

Serious question:

What is the term called when you find certain “members” of different “teams” super attractive & think that they would be a good partner in a romantic or sexual relationship. But you have no desire to be in said relationship neither romantic or sexual.

I’m still trying to figure out everything in the LGBTQ+ community (grew up in a very “religious” household if you catch my drift). So I’m very late to learning about the community & trying to figure myself out, & also create characters that correctly represent these different orientations & terminology.

So if this comes off as offensive to anyone, again still trying to learn & will gladly take any criticism to correct myself.

Hello, my name is jack and this is my first post.

They’re just clouds

Can I jump into that part when I’ll have it all it figured out? 

Month has passed by in Lisbon for me and I feel like I’ve done nothing! #Patience

I cannot help but to compare these first weeks to my last adventure in French speaking Canada. Shouldn’t do it cause the situation I’m in now is very different than what I lived back in 2013. In Mtl in the beginning I had 1,5 month time to look for a trainee job, make friends, get the official stuff sorted out and to know my new environment - pretty much against my own wish cause original plan was way more efficient and didn’t include that much “wasted time”. It wasn’t untill now that I realized how important that time off was in that moment.

But this time around, I started to work only after three days after my arrival here and even though there has been some extenuating facts like that I had an actual job waiting here for me, my employer did almost all the official paper (tax, bank account etc) work for me and that I’m working in an EU country now without visas and even in my own language. Still these days and weeks have felt pretty tiring and I miss the times like the first weeks in MTL without schedules and doing things in my own pace. 

But things are good. I still haven’t been robbed, raped or attacked in any other way. Safety first, right?. Even though to be honest living in Portugal feels weird. Sometimes I’m caught up with this thought that how did I end up here (more like a confused kind of way than in a negative one) until I remember all of this is a result of my own terminated work and planning. I haven’t quite been caught up by the local life rhythm yet. I still don’t have a phone number, ACTIVE bank account, washing machine has been broken on and off at the flat, things work still in an incredible slow motion for me (especially the official ones) nor do I speak the language. Luckily these things are temporary and fixable in time especially that I have a NIF (local tax number now which is the key to everything here). #Patience

But inspiring factors do come in my way every day. Small things whether it’s the beautiful morning scenery over the river, a brand new day rising on my way to work OR the lively street with its coffee and ice cream shops I found around the corner from home, meeting new people, even just for a once and being exposed to the new life stories that are educating and different from my own.

The city is cool though! It has a spirit and I’m liking it! I’ve been through most of the main areas of it and I do have a thought in which part you do this or that. The same areas may offer you a totally different things during the day and night. Been walking a lot... and how do I love that everything is pretty much in a walking distance here! And for every day there’s a new door or a window, balcony filled with interesting details. How can anyone get tired of these streets!? Been to a beach couple of times also (where you do have to go by train though). It was alright, you know very... sandy. Discovered some cool areas beyond the beach also. 

Portuguese learning is kind of slow. Surprisingly. The waiting list for the free (offered by my employer) language courses is over six months long so in the meantime I have to figure something else out. I try to watch youtube videos, listen the language being spoken around me, read the news in portuguese and do some serious studies by myself with the book I bought. #Patience. 

I have new room mate. The french girl moved out leaving a disaster behind her… HUUUGE mess in her room, kitchen and elsewhere in the flat. She even threw a party which the neighbours called the police for. Clearly the best thing is that she is gone. I try not to be judgemental but in my experience the french GIRLS make the worst roommates (and trust me I’ve had some back in Mtl). I’m sure there must be better ones but I just seem to have an incredibly bad luck of always bumping into the messiest, noisiest and the most selfish ones. Feel free to proof me wrong in here anytime! Now me and the austrian girls are living with this hungarian guy which we’re not sure either but I guess it’s better. #Patience. 

Work is a bubble where you spend most of your day, your week and forget that you ever left home because all I do is to speak Finnish/English and have quite little touch with the Portuguese way of life. My choice though. It has its ups and downs. For a week we did take some actual calls and tried to help the customers in the best way that we could and hopefully without screwing things up too much. Despite of huge amount of information we’ve already been exposed and that we’re still not aware of, I still think this is the coolest job I’ve ever had! But it is hard to try to learn so much in such a short period of time. #patience

We’re back at the class room for another week or so before we can call ourselves actual travel advisors. I know there will be frustration and bunch of other negative emotions caused by endless list of reasons I can already think of. I have a feeling the road is gonna be long. But through it all, at the end of the day I know I’ll be enjoying this once I get the hang of things! It’s not one of those many jobs you do just to survive, to get by through another day while you’re keeping your eyes open for something else. More right, more suitable, more you.

This is right. This fits. This is me.

(God, I really hope I can still stand behind these lines after months from here. Nor get fired :D)