Do You Believe In "Happy Endings"?

Yes, We Do!

First and foremost, I am using the word “ending” just because this week we finished our internship and finally completed our MBA Degree! However, even after our graduation, we are going to continue with the blog. So, please follow us next year, we promise to continue sharing nice experiences here.

Do you know why I used the word “happy”? What do you want after graduation? How about a nice job to put into practice everything you have studied in the past months? So… Guess what? I have recently got a job at RBC (Royal Bank of Canada). I am going to start work as an Account Manager on January 9th, 2012. And Renato got a job offer earlier this week from another large financial institution to work as a Personal Banker, now the company is doing the reference checks and all bureaucratic stuff. Competitors living under the same roof!

So we are here to say thank you to everyone who contributed to make the program such a great success!  What a ride! We have a friend who summarized very well this amazing experience. So we make his words our words:  we really did enjoy the MBA program and we are very proud of what we learnt and the friends we made. Awesome skills acquired. Definitely one of the best decisions we have ever made. 

Thanks for following our blog this year… We will be back in full form in January! Renato and I hope that your Christmas will be enjoyable and may the essence of Christmas remains always with you. Season's Greetings!

Get out of Your Shell!

Come on, get out of your own shells!

It is not new to say that Canada is a multicultural country, that is easy to walk for 5 minutes and hear 3, 4, 5 different languages being spoken, and blablabla. That is why Patricia and I were wondering: hey, how do Canadians feel about it? How do Canadians feel about people speaking English with a strong accent, a lot of people coming to live here and “take their jobs”...

Sometimes I think that Canadians try harder to adapt to foreign people than foreign people try to adapt to Canadian way of life! Sorry, but for me it sucks! Come on, we are living on their land!!! If Canada is a safe, developed, and highly organized place to live is because Canadians worked hard to make it. So, I just think foreign people should be more grateful to that and try to adapt themselves to Canada! Personally, I would not feel happy seeing, for example, store signs and restaurant menus in Spanish instead of Portuguese in my country. 

Looking for further information on that, I found that, of course, Canadians are not very happy about the behaviour of some immigrants here. Even though 80% of Canadians agree that “immigration has a positive impact on the economy of Canada” and 73% of Canadians disagree that “immigrants take jobs away from other Canadians”, 66% of Canadians agree that “there are too many immigrants coming into this country who are not adopting Canadian values”. Yes, 66%! Every 2 out of 3 Canadians believe that the immigrants are not adopting the national values (you can find further information on this research on this link for Canada Immigration and Citizenship website: http://goo.gl/vcayO).

I know that some nations have wonderful and rich cultures which are worthwhile to share with the world. But come on!!!! Canada has a beautiful and rich culture too. And that is available to whoever wants to learn it.

Let me give you an example. You are having friends over your home to celebrate Christmas. Then they start to speak a language you cannot understand a single word. Besides, they tell you they are not praying to thank God for everything because that is not what they do on their country! Would you enjoy the meeting? I would not and I would ask: “why did you come here then????????”.

So: come on, get out of your own shells! Catch up with Canadian culture, catch up with Canadian way of life! We are on their place, my friends!!!!!

Thanks for reading!