I moved to Canada from Brazil in 2015 lured by the mountains, the nature and cooler temperatures. Yep, I know this sounds weird as I’m talking about Canada, but seriously, have you been to Rio de Janeiro in the Summer? The heat is brutal!
After three years in Vancouver, my partner and I moved to New Westminster to start a family. Now we live with our toddler, our dog, and lots of plants in this welcoming community that showed me a totally new perspective on kindness and friendliness, and which I’m proud to call home.
I’m a multifaceted person with a wide range of interests, and I love learning, creating things, having ideas, and exploring new possibilities. Lately, I’ve developed the habit of taking random courses out of curiosity – the most recent were embroidery and herbalism. It’s amazing how it makes me more creative, gives me the chance to meet interesting people I probably wouldn’t meet otherwise, rethink preconceptions and often discover new hobbies.
Random Facts About Myself
My favorite people in the world are our son and Chica, our supper-attached Boston Terrier. Being a mom turned out better than I expected, even though now I have to share everything I eat with a permanently hungry kid while Baby Shark plays nonstop in the back of my mind.- I don’t like video games and always said I’d never have them at home. Life is tricky though, so I married a game programmer and now you can find every imaginable console in our place. But we also have a bunch of cool tech stuff I wouldn’t have the patience to set up myself, so it’s a fun balance.
- According to the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, I’m an ENTP personality type. The description indeed has a lot to do with me, although I love (and need) to have my introverted moments from time to time.
- I’m Brazilian but I can’t dance and won’t watch soccer for the life of me. However, I love the beach, the warmth of the people and the amusing way Brazilians stay positive and make fun of absolutely everything, no matter how dire the situation – I like to believe this is my own best personality trait as well.
- I learned to write when I was six and have been journaling since: I have over 20 notebooks with my life and thoughts narrated in detail! I love reading what I wrote long ago and realizing that most things that pained me back then aren’t important now. It helps me put things in perspective, and when I’m stressed out I always ask myself, “will this matter when I read about it in six months?” – it’s amazing how in 90% of the cases, it won’t.
- I started a blog with my childhood bestie in 2013 and have been posting (somewhat) consistently since. The name is Viajadora, it started out as a travel blog and morphed into a lifestyle blog where I write about life as an immigrant in Canada. Check it out, it’s in Portuguese but Google translator helps if you’re curious.
- My biggest dream is to run an eco-village/permaculture hub/writing retreat/rescue animal centre on a lush paradise somewhere, preferably Costa Rica or the Hawaiian island of Kauai. I’d drink coconut water all day and thrive on helping people learn new skills and care for the environment.
My repertoire
Each one of us is a mix of songs, books, movies, travels, things we believe, people we’ve met and experiences we’ve been through. That’s why I’m always looking to learn more, meet new people and experience new things. It’s amazing how something as simple as a conversation with a stranger or reading an article on a random website can trigger a chain of events that completely changes our lives – like that Saturday years ago at Ipanema beach, when I felt such an awe reading Richard Louv’s “The Nature Principle” that I decided to change the course of my life and move to Canada.
Music
Music is a big part of my life: I have soundtracks for every moment and associate songs to feelings, places, people, and situations. I absolutely love going to concerts and the best one I’ve ever attended was Rage Against the Machine playing at the SWU Festival – I’ll never forget the energy of 100k people jumping together to the sound of “Testify!” My favourite bands are Metallica, The Beatles and AC/DC, and the song is “Simple Man,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which I sing to my son in hopes he’ll take as life advice.
Books
In addition to music, a ton of books shaped me into who I am today, and I’m always reading something. Here are some of the books that have impacted me somehow:
Traveling & Exploring
I love spontaneous travels and have been fortunate to visit many stunning places around the world. Every one of them – including the ones I didn’t like – has left a mark on my personality. Some of my favorite places are the Garden Route, Hanoi, Cuzco, La Paz, Bangkok, Ubud, Buenos Aires, Jalapão, Tofo, Ilha Grande, Bocas del Toro, Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, Chapada Diamantina, and Vermont… this list could go on, and there are still so many other places to visit!
Interests
It’s probably a journalist’s thing, but I’m interested in a lot of things and like to think I can chat about almost everything for at least a couple of minutes. However, if you want to get me excitedly chatting for hours, these are some of the topics in which I’m very interested:
- Nature, ecology and sustainability
- Personal anecdotes and stories
- Haunted places and ghost stories
- Folklore (From anywhere! Tell me about your culture and the trolls, fairies, headless mules and all the other stories created to terrorize children and explain this crazy world we live in)
- Cooking and food in general (Seriously, want to win my heart? Feed me!)
- Dreams, goals and the meaning of life
- Marketing and communications
- Human Rights
- Parenting (But not our kids’ sleep schedule and other boring stuff like that – I’m interested in parenting theories and how to raise good humans!)
- Why dogs are the best, and absolutely everything about your dog (even better if you have pictures!)
- Entrepreneurship and business ideas
- Mental health and everything related
Well, I know this may come as a surprise at this point (haha!), but I like to talk a lot and this list could go on forever. Please get in touch at thais@thaisfreitas.com if you’d like to chat more, or read my blog for my musings and stories.
