Tatiana Palma

Who is Tatiana?

So, I’m Tatiana, I’m 26 years old and I’m from Vila Real de Santo Antônio. I lived there until I came to the university in 2012, when I started the course of “Ciências da comunicação” (EN.: Sciences of Communication). There, I also worked a lot for 1 year in a shop, and after that I did my professional training.

I’m a very easy going and social person. I think I’m fun. All of my friends always say to me “Oh, Tatiana, you always have a joke to say.” But when I have to work, I know that I have to be very serious, so I start to be very nervous and my hands shake and I start to sweat. I get stressed because I don’t know what to expect and my point of view is that I have to be the best in what I do.

Sometimes, being a perfectionist is both a negative and a positive thing. Because we know that perfection doesn’t exist, so it’s very complicated. I love to work and a team and know that we are all focused on the same goal. Something about me that I can say is that I like animals very very much! When I see a dog in the streets that doesn’t have someone to take care of him, I immediately think of taking it home with me. I would love to have an animal association one day!

Another thing would be that I really like the time of the university because I did part of my academic degree at Associação Académica do Algarve and I passed 2 years of my course there. Because I started with the course of Design and Communication and after 1 year I changed because I knew that it was not for me. I really like to talk with people, if we are friends, I think I’ll be here a lot of time! So, I really enjoy being around people. I’m curious to know what they work and how their culture is like. We know that nowadays, the type of things people do in their daily life change all the time. For example, now it is more common for people to move more frequently from one city to another.

More about me…hmm…let me see. It’s very complicated to talk about me. Well, I work with social media, I studied Sciences of Communications as I said, and then I did my masters in Marketing Management, but just for 1 year. Marketing Management it’s what I do now in my work and what I think I would like to do in the future as well, but get better and better at it. Everyday I look for different courses to improve my CV. I want to be the best in the things that I do. I’m very ambitious.

What would you like to do when you grow up?

I remember that, when I was a child, I wanted to be a marine biologist when I grew up. Haha who doesn’t? But my mind changed and, when I went to secondary school, I wanted to become an architect. I don’t know why, but I changed my mind again and I started to do design, and after that I did sciences of communication because I really liked to talk with people. I was born with a talkative vein. Currently, I work in the communication department of an Algarve company, but the dream is to enter a communication agency.

I would really like to be very very good in social media and know how everything works. And if a person will be asked about someone that works really well in social media I would want them to say “Tatiana is one of them!”. Everyday I think about my work and daily life. I finish the work day, and I go home and I think “Oh, I have to study a little bit.”. But then, I start thinking “Why will I do this if they don’t see how important my work is? It’s very frustrating. I work and they don’t see anything. It’s like I’m just one more employee.”

However, I still want to change and improve myself because I know that I can do more and more and more. Regardless of my work, I want to feel realized and to know that all the effort I put into my studies and knowledge seeking will be recognized later. I’m going to go with the flow because I don’t know what life has in store for me. However, I know that it’s great to have good personal stability in order for the professional one to  be even better.

What is the first thing on your mind when you think about Faro?

University, of course. That was the turning point for the Tatiana that I am today: when my horizons were opened, where I have made great long-lasting friendships and developed projects of which I am proud! I’m not from Faro, but I’m almost Farense haha. I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in Faro normally, or in Portugal, we use to say that the years of the university are the best ones in your life. I passed no 3, but 4 years in university and it was so good, so good!

I met my boyfriend in university and we’ve been together for 5 years. And I know most of my friends from university. We still talk now and we’re like a family. During university days, we were a group of 50 people. Nowadays, not all of us are still in contact, but with most of them, we created a really strong relationship. And I think that’s very good! I lived in the apartments of the university with other girls and we were doing everything together, we cooked together, living together and it was like being at home. We were all like sisters.

At the moment I live with 5 other people. One of them is my boyfriend and another one is a girl that was in the same course as me in the university. She is from Serra da Estrela and now she lives here with me. And we are like best friends. So, when I think about Faro, it’s always university. Because I met my close circle of friends and my boyfriend there. It’s a good thing from the university. Because, if you think “How many things will I take from the course that I will use in my work?”. So, if I look back, for me the friends are the best thing. Because the friendships we created are for life. Also, I remember the teachers as well. And for me, they were not only teachers. They were friends. Also, the staff of the university. Nowadays, they send us messages and we all keep in touch. It’s nice to know that we created something good and people remember about us.

What would be the soundtrack of your life story?

I’m not the kind of person that has a favourite singer or a band. I’m not weird in terms of music, I listen to everything. I don’t have a specific kind of music that I listen to a lot. If any of my friends had to say some music about me, they would certainly, funk. But I like one song from a series that I saw. I don’t remember the name. But it’s about the things we had in the past, and we think they’re lost. But if we look in the middle of the things, we realise that every time we did something, we gained something. So everything is actually not lost. You always gain something.

What is the place in Faro you are most connected to? Why?

It’s really difficult because I’m not the kind of person that likes to go out every time. I’m super homey. I love a good afternoon at home watching TV series. Sometimes I even disconnect from social networks and it takes me days to reply to SMS. But if I have to choose a place, maybe that would be Praia de Faro because I remember the first time I went there, even though I’m not a big fan of going to the beach, I enjoyed it. Especially because, since I started to work, I can’t go home as often as I did during my time in the university.

So in summer, if I have to go to a beach, I have to go to Praia de Faro. And even though I went there only a few times, the best memories are the people that were going with me. I remember that the first time I went, there was a picnic beach party. The beach always reminds me of the university time, of all the good memories I experienced there and of all the amazing people I met.