Growing up in Brazil, I was 10 when Grandpa signed me up for an English course. I didn't want to go, not for a million dollars. But when Grandpa said he'd give me 10 R$ (about 2$) a month if I went, well... that was another story.
Fast forward a couple of years, at the peak of my English-as-a-foreign-language talents, all I wanted was to get accepted into an exchange program. More so, as I was graduating from high school, I wanted to go to a US university. Long story short, I didn't. Instead, I got into one of the best universities in Brazil: the University of São Paulo (USP). But hey please don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound arrogant. I'm just very proud of myself for being accepted at USP.
"USP has a lot of exchange programs. I just need to get one", thought the little freshman Gabe. Unfortunately, I didn't perform as well as I originally anticipated in exams. Living by myself, experimenting with sex, relationships, and unbounded freedom was a lot harder than I had expected. I felt my dream of getting into an exchange program slowly, and painfully, fading away.
During my third year of university I started taking French classes, and a year and a half later, lo and behold, just because, I applied to this exchange program in France. I didn't really think I'd get it, but as it turns out I was the only one to apply (cuz apparently, very few people care about French in Brazil). On January 10th, 2020, I boarded an airplane to Brest, France.
Fun fact: I didn't start taking French classes because I wanted to go to France or anything, but because I had stupidly challenged myself to become a polyglot before the age of 24. (I'm 25 now. I'm a polyglot.)
The days before
I step out of the plane and a breath of cold, wet air goes through my body. This was my first time outside of Brazil, where it usually never got this cold. I always liked to go out in Europe. The chill you get from going from an insulated, warm place to sudden cold that makes the tip of your nose red, and seeing your breath coming out to the world as a cloud. For some reason this feeling got me wanting to get out there and do whatever it was that I was going out to do.
Two kind girls are waiting for me at the airport. The university had this program for French (native) students to welcome exchange students and help them with things like... going from the airport to the university dorms. They were very nice and told me about a bunch of things to do in the city on the way to the dorms. I never saw them again after the lift (they're alive and well tho :).
I met a couple of Brazilians who were also there doing exchange programs in Brest. I wasn't practicing much French since all I did was research and had pretty much zero classes or ways to interact with francophones. So I started doing anything I could to speak the most French I could, and hopefully make some friends to learn more about the local culture and people. I joined the uni's LGBT students group (I'm bi, bi the way), the Computer Science student group, and the university's Parkour group. Out of those, I only stayed in the latter. They felt me feel welcomed and I was comfortable having had quite some Parkour experience before.
By now you might be thinking I'm painting a pretty sad and depressing picture about a moment that was probably not that sad to begin with. But the fact is that it was my dream to meet people from where I was living, and I simply just felt completely disconnected from the people who lived in Brest, as if I was trying to poke a hole in an invisible bubble that kept me from talking and making friends.
Unfortunately, I could only attend three Parkour lessons. They happened once a week, and three weeks after I joined...
D-Day
French President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide lockdown that would go into effect at midday on March 17, 2020, and would end nearly two months later on May 10.
Source: France24
A few things worth noting about my condition when quarantine struck:
- I lived in a room including the bathroom, bed, and desk, leaving roughly of actual space to stand up and walk.
- I didn't have any classes since I was there as a research student, but I wasn't told this before arriving. I wasn't interested in doing research, let alone researching the topics they had in mind.
- As I didn't have classes, I didn't have much opportunity to make friends besides some Brazilians who also lived in the dorms.
I spent most of my time trying to convince myself to do any research, which was a herculean task considering I was waking up at 3 pm and going to bed at 7 am due to the weird sun times of the summer solstice. Also, the professors leading my research were not very welcoming to my work. The meetings were always filled with criticism and encouraging thoughts and words were very scarce. Every two weeks we had a meeting. The closer we got to the meeting, the more anxious I became, and the less I could enjoy the few good moments I had.
One night I was hungry but it was late, and the kitchen closed after 10 pm. I decided to check anyway in case they had left it open for any reason, and to my delight they had. After around ten minutes of cooking the night guard responsible for closing the kitchen comes in to close it. I tell him I need five more minutes to finish.
"Non, je la ferme je m'en fous"
He proceeds to yell at me, banging at the sign at the door saying the kitchen closes at 10 pm, and asking me if I don't know how to read or if I'm just stupid.
The grand opening of the World
When quarantine ended my research was officially over, me and my Brazilian friends traveled as much as we could. We went to Luxembourg, we went to Paris, we went to Bruxelles, and I never walked so much in my life. I remember I went out during the night just to admire Brest (and because... I could!).
This was certainly an interesting time to be alive. Just like that, I was happy again! Not for long though. A couple of weeks after the reopening of the world, I sprained my ankle badly while running, and was pretty much benched for the remainder of my stay. To top all of that off, my boyfriend broke up with me over the phone about ten days before I came home. I never felt so lost in my entire life.
Skepticism
Skepticism is by far one of my favorite philosophical currents of all time. What we usually hear about "skeptics" is that they're people who don't believe in anything, that they're hopeless and pessimists.
I personally think skeptics are just brilliant. You see, Ceticism is not just about saying "Aaaah, I don't know if winning the lottery is all that good man", it's also about saying "Aaah, I don't know if going through all that pain is all that bad man".
Philosophy is amazing, it has a way of using reason to turn anything into pretty much anything. It sheds light in the darkness, not by lighting up a torch, but by opening your eyes and letting them adjust until you see every detail even in the darkest of caves.
When my boyfriend broke up with me, I felt like someone had physically ripped my heart out of my chest. I was in such pain that I totally forgot I was supposed to go grocery shopping with Leo, one of my Brazilian friends. Leo of course noticed I was late and went to my room. He got in, gave me a cup of warm milk with sugar, and just laid his arm on top of me. It's til this day one of the most heartwarming moments of my life. Me and Leo are very close friends. We live nearby. He's coming over for board games and booze next week.
Pain shapes our souls. Pain allows us to understand the pain of others. It turns us into better, more caring, and loving human beings. It helps us understand how bad some things feel, and compels us to act so that others never have to go through it.
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