Congratulations on all you've done starting even as a non-programmer. I'm impressed. Although I've been programming for decades, I have little experience in Arc or Lisp and have found the folks on this forum to be friendly and helpful.

Many years ago I lived in Brasil for about 2 years. Part of that time I spent in Sao Paulo: Pinheiros, Jacana, Santa and Jabaquara. Still have good memories of that time.