Age: 45
Gender: Female
Field of Study: Marketing & Entrepreneurship
Physical Description: Catarina stands at 5’5”, 133lbs, a light-skinned yet slightly tanned woman of Brazilian descent - she has described herself as being in the best shape of her life, and it shows through her lean, athletic hourglass build. Her heart-shaped face is one that has seen the mark of both age and surgery - her naturally bow-shaped lips have been injected with dermal filler to make them bigger, her cheeks have been given implants to lend her face more shape, her once medium-sized nose has been slimmed down and shrunken slightly through surgery as well, and her brown almond-shaped eyes have had numerous botox injections to reduce what Catarina saw as unsightly “crows feet”, although such features still faintly exist on the outside of her eyes. Her brows are plucked and sculpted into their arched shape, with almost as much work put into them as into keeping her long black hair looking healthy, vibrant, yet naturally coloured. She often wears her hair straight, parted down the middle, except for the few times she’s feeling cold on campus or at home, where she opts to keep it in a messy ponytail under one of her many grey knitted caps.
As a woman of leisure, Catarina wears nothing but the best at all times - for formal events she will splurge on extravagant gowns and dresses, often showing off some percentage of her surgery-accented bust, while even around the house or on campus her casual wear is from major, expensive labels such as Isabel Marant or Diamond Leah. She also accessorises to the occasion, opting for simple yet sophisticated jewellery and bracelets for her formal occasions representing her family, while for casual attendances going with bulky statement jewellery pieces, large sunglasses, thick scarves, or even one of her many grey knitted caps. On the day of the project, Catarina was wearing a pair of silver woollen gloves, a silver Freestyle Down Jacket over a black cashmere turtleneck with white stripes, a pair of warm black trousers, a pair of brown fur-lined UGG Adirondack IIIs over thick woollen socks, a grey knitted cap with grey fur lining, and a pair of rimless wrap sunglasses with amber reflective lenses.
Background:
- Catarina was born on November 3rd, 1977, to Anamelia and Tiago Simão in San Diego, California. Anamelia and Tiago were both H-2B visa holders, intially from Brazil, working as a housekeeper and a construction worker respectively, who both were recommended jobs by relatives living in southern California. The two met at a bar one night, and over the course of two months, hit it off, went on several dates, hooked up, and became pregnant with their eventual daughter. Anamelia went to great lengths to hide her pregnancy over fears of being fired, as The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 had not been introduced yet, to the point of gaining weight to explain her sudden change of shape and posture. By the fifth month of pregnancy, Anamelia and Tiago decided to marry in order to plan for their futures, and allow themselves to gain permanent residency in the United States as a family, with their eventual daughter, Catarina, named after Anamelia’s mother, being a naturalised citizen.
- Catarina’s childhood was a fairly uneventful one - she was a rowdy child who liked to play all the time, often with neighbourhood kids, and she eventually gained two younger siblings; Veronica, three years younger than her, and Hugo, seven years younger than her, both of whom she loved deeply. However, she was fairly inattentive as a student, often scoring low grades in all of her subjects, although she never failed any of her classes. Numerous attempts to shape her up from her parents - taking away her belongings and toys, grounding her until her grades improved - all failed, and she eventually graduated from high school completely unremarkable academically, moving out of her parents and away from her siblings once she found work as a waitress.
- Catarina worked as a waitress at an upscale restaurant after graduation, as while she was nothing special in school, she was incredibly gifted socially and charmed nearly everyone she met. On weekends she would go out partying with her girlfriends at the most popular San Diego clubs, which would lead to her meeting her future husband, Roger Markovitz, a successful entrepreneur 17 years her senior mostly working in insurance and health, who was out with his friends on their own night out when Catarina was 22 years old. The two immediately hit it off, and while things didn’t look like they would go far after a few dates, as Roger was somewhat put off by her lack of aspirations, the two kept in sporadic contact over the months. Catarina herself had been somewhat put off by an off-hand comment he made about her lack of aspirations, and it eventually manifested in her seeking and achieving a promotion from waitress to hostess at the restaurant she worked at. The two eventually met again while taking separate trips to Las Vegas, and he began courting her after hearing about her newfound ambition and upward mobility at her job, having achieved the role of Front of House Supervisor.
- By the time Catarina was 25 years old, Catarina and Roger were fully committed, and he eventually proposed to her on the third anniversary of their initial meeting in San Diego. The two married four months later in an extravagant ceremony, where she took his name, and she almost immediately stopped working and became a housewife. She gave birth to her first son, Bernard Markovitz, when she was 27 years old.
- When Catarina was 30 years old, Roger had become tired of the desert climate and competitive financial market of California, and decided to look up the coast for a better place to continue his career and raise his family. He eventually settled on Seattle, and the family moved north once he established business connections, and the three settled in a luxurious Dash Point mansion. Catarina had never lived further north than Barrio Logan, and as such became somewhat culture shocked by the sheer change of community between the two cities, but she eventually adapted to her new city.
- Catarina made quick friends while living in Tacoma, mostly with other housewives in the Seattle and Tacoma scenes. She was fairly quick to stake her claim as the life of the party, always livening up events within the realm of social acceptability. She had a fair few innate enemies, however, borne from disdain over marrying into wealth rather than her wealth being generational, but Catarina was just as socially adept in her 30s as she was in her 20s, and often turned these enemies into eventual friends, or managed to make sure she came out on top socially.
- The Markovitz marriage came under stress in Catarina’s mid-30s when Roger expressed concern that Catarina was not taking an active enough role in raising Bernard, their eight-year-old son, and Joseph, their three-year-old son, instead delegating the duties to their nanny. Meanwhile Catarina fought back that he was even more absent in their son’s lives, barely even coming home in time for family dinner or going to Bernard’s elementary sporting events. The two eventually sought marriage counselling, however, and were able to come to an understanding of their issues and come up with solutions, both of which involved becoming more involved parents; Catarina would take up duty of the one to drive Bernard and Joseph to and from schooling, while Roger made an effort to actually attend important events in his son’s life. While Bernard, and eventually Joseph, reached the age where they were embarassed of their mother being everpresent in their lives, this never detered her from shirking her self-imposed duties as a parent.
- By the time Catarina reached her 40s, she had reached a conundrum within her social scene - a lot of the housewives she’d had a lot of fun with were settling out of that lifestyle, while many of the newer housewives in the scene were almost two decades younger than her. She began to reflect, and worried that outside of her family and money, Catarina didn’t have anything to show for her life. While initially distressed, even becoming momentarily despondent over having wasted her 30s married to a man in his 50s, even if she did live Roger with all her heart, she eventually realised she just needed something to do besides attending obligatory social events. She picked up several hobbies just to entertain herself, eventually taking up kickboxing to keep herself active (which she eventually incorporated into her weekly schedule, doing training sessions three times a week before picking her children up from school), starting a bookclub amongst her social group to become more well read, and learning French Cooking to expand her palette.
- The biggest change, however, would come when she, out of boredom, became more actively interested in what her husband did for work. While she had always known Roger’s career and the broad strokes of what he did to earn them money, she became more interested in the minutia. Eventually, he suggested that she try starting up her own business, which Catarina baulked at, as she saw it as more trouble than it was worth. He suggested a lighter back-up option of making and marketing her own products, which Catarina was much more enamoured by, as to her it would involve putting her face and name on things she liked.
- Catarina, however, didn't know the first thing about making or marketing her own products, and didn't want to have Roger do it for her. To this end, she decided that it would be best to obtain an education in the area that she wanted to explore, even if it would take a while, and decided to investigate degrees at local universities. The most appealing, as well as closest in proximity, was the University of Cascadia, which was mostly focused on STEM fields but had a robust business and economics school on campus as well. While Catarina could not commit to full-time study, as she was still a parent to growing children and had social obligations to attend to, she still had enough time for part-time study, and enrolled in a Bachelors of Marketing & Entrepreneurship.
- Adjusting back to a world of studying and classes was difficulty for Catarina, as not only was she over half her lifetime past being in high school, but she was never particularly any skilled at studying in the first place. Her first semester was a crash course in forming studying habits that had never been created, meeting deadlines, learning how to take notes from her books property, and learning about units and subjects that she had no interest in - in Catarina's mind, she just wanted to know how to make things and market them, but there was a whole separate list of skills that had to be built before she could do that. However, once she got through the hardest parts of starting her studies, she eventually became accustomed to her new skills and began bearing it in a way she could not have seen herself doing before. The hardest part of the course, however, was the vast disconnect between herself and the other students - these were mostly undergraduates straight out of high school, only a few years older than her oldest son, and she found it difficult to connect or socialize with them, even before taking into account the vast class gap that existed between her and all of them. To that end, Catarina did not form any real bonds with the people she shared classes with, which was fine by her - she was there to learn how to put her name on things she would sell, not make friends with teenagers.
- Catarina, despite being older than most of her social scene, is still fairly well-known and well-liked on average by other housewives. While no longer having the social cachet to push out the people who no longer like her, she still maintains face by being active and present amongst most social events. Her real dedication, however, is to her direct family - she would do almost anything for her husband, and would do literally anything for her sons, even if they still haven't grown out of the age where they are embarassed by her.
- Despite her distance from her parents and siblings, all of whom still live in San Diego, she keeps in regular contact with them and speaks to them every week. Many of her enemies often say that her birth family are jealous of what she has, but Catarina has never even entertained this notion. She regularly updates them on the events in her life, sends them cards and presents for birthdays and family events, sometimes flying back down with their grandchildren/nephews if she can afford to spare a weekend. Roger occasionally tries to make these visits, but often has to back out last minute due to meetings and commitments. Her old friends from before her marriage, however are in less constant contact, however, due to their social mobility being less successful than her and them being unable to make time for someone who moved away over a decade ago.
- Catarina is currently on track to finish her degree before Bernard graduates high school, something she is hoping to achieve to avoid the unlikely occurance of him attending the same university as his mother and subsequently embarassing him. While she had heard of the trip before signing up, she initially had no interest in attending due to it having very little to do with her degree. However, upon finding out the vast diversity of students attending the trip from various fields of study, she signed up right away, mostly hoping to find out if anyone was of similar social standing or age to her, while partially hoping to do some impromptu market research and find out what every day people (who can afford the time to go on a trip to the arctic) would also like to spend their money on - Catarina, five years into her part-time degree, has still not figured out what she wants to sell.
Assets: Catarina is an incredibly charming woman, and is very good at making connections with people when she wants to, even if she doesn't like them. She is also athletic for her age due to her kickboxing, even if she only does it for fitness.
Limitations: Catarina exudes her wealth and privilige in a way that is almost impossible to ignore, and thus would have extreme difficulty being related to by people outside of her class if they chose to take issue with that, even before taking into account the vast age difference. Catarina has also not experienced any sort of physical hardship since her marriage almost half her lifetime ago, and thus would most likely crack outside her comfort zone.
