Extinction.

Well you may have thought I was extinct from the web and was never going to come back. Instead I’ve been so busy with work and my personal life on the weekends that I wasn’t able to post anything. So let’s go back to the start of April. I ended up at a golf course. At first I didn’t seem to enjoy the job. Not that I would quit or anything. Just that it was a complete change from working in the Hort Services like looking after local parks and streetscapes with other people to working on my own on more than 18 garden beds pulling out gum trees. I was just expecting to be doing more than just pulling out gum trees. Although the next task was pulling out weeds in which it took me almost half an hour to pull out a massive weed. During this time golfers have asked me if I could turn up at their place and do their gardens. One even suggested that I was growing a secret stash of “weed” in the garden beds and was harvesting it. As if I would do that though I’m not interested in helping out in strangers gardens either. Like I even up so tired that I can’t even do my garden anymore and weekends is when I spend time out with friends. So basically the garden could end up like a rain forest if I’m in charge looking after it. But no, I’ll probably end up doing it sometime lol.

Anyway since then its been getting better and better at the golf course and I’m actually starting to find myself fit in. At first I wasn’t so confident in the job so when asked about an apprenticeship, I just wasn’t 100% sure as I had my heart set on Hort Services. Like for someone with aspergers it’s pretty hard to adapt to change. Anyway the main thing is that I managed to just move on and now loving the golf course (even though it’s a lot of hard work). Like the other day I had to walk around with a 15L tank of roundup on my back spray weeds. Not just spraying the right plants was hard but trying to put that thing on my back and keeping comfortable. Since then my hands, wrists, arms and back all ache. So probably resting is all I need for this weekend. Hopefully I’m not doing more spraying on Monday.

April has been a busy month of birthdays including my 21st. I was originally thinking of having mine at home but then I remembered what happened at my 18th. It was boring, others may not think that but I didn’t really have a plan and all we did was sit down in a room and talk. So instead I decided to go out and enjoy my 21st that way. The only thing was that I wanted to have a small party and then all these people out of the blue (that I didn’t invite) decided to invite me to their 21st birthdays and I was basically left speechless. Like I really wanted to go and celebrate theirs but then I feel guilty for not inviting them to mine. It was just really unfortunate that they invited me really close to the date my party was going to be held. So if I invited them, they would’ve noticed which wouldn’t be a good look. Besides that my party went really well. The restaurant Vibrante, catered to everyone’s needs including a gluten free vegan and a friend with fructose malabsorption. So that was good as I was really worried that they wouldn’t be able to cater for everyone. Especially when a waiter their suggested a “Cesar Salad” for a gluten free vegan.

Later that day I ended up opening the presents I received from friends and happened to come across not one but two Wooden Galileos. And since I’m really interested in weather and want to visit tornado alley in the US one day, I felt really bad about sending one back but what would I do with two of them? lol So I took one of them back and got it replaced with an online weather station which I can add addons later on. It works really well that I’m interested in getting a rain gauge for it soon. All the other presents that I received were awesome too like a book dedicated to severe weather, an orange crystal that is still growing, a bean with a message and some cash. So I’m pretty rapt with what I received for my 21st. Even the cake was delicious! 😛

Chris from the I CAN NETWORK even remembered my birthday by giving me a birthday cake at the last meeting. If you don’t know what the I CAN NETWORK is, it’s basically an organisation for people with autism helping them realize that they can do stuff rather than can’t. Anyway I’ve been attending their meetings at the The Nerve Centre in Blackburn and have been really enjoying them. They run under the AS Young Adults group and other groups at universities like Monash. At one of the meetings they were talking about a camp that they were intending to run in Gembrook. And once I heard that a couple of my friends were going and some were going to be facilitator, I thought why not. So I ended up going there for the ANZAC Day long weekend.

I had heaps of fun on the camp but then there were tiring moments like Saturday where we had speeches non stop. Not that the speeches were boring but the amount of them made my friend Sam and me exhausted that we couldn’t stop walking around the campsite. At least one of the speeches enlighten me, it was Jim Anderson’s speech about how he accomplished the challenges of becoming a quadriplegic from a surfing accident. He basically took “no” as not an answer. So many people didn’t believe in him so he proved them wrong. So the speeches did keep going on but at least there was dancing to cool off at the end of the day as a part of the “Dress to Obsess” segment where everyone dressed up as their favorite obsession. I dressed up in a raincoat and umbrella as I enjoy the weather a lot. The only thing that was missing was gumboots, I couldn’t find any. It was like the landscaper that we had to do our garden a couple of years ago took it as he did take our red wheelbarrow but we did get it back. Besides everyone liked my costume so it didn’t matter. Unfortunately I didn’t end up dancing ’till the end as it got really hot so I went to turn the heaters off and open the doors. By then they were already doing some other movement so I couldn’t rejoin.

And to mention about the doors, I kept getting annoyed when people kept leaving them open and not closing them so I had to fix the automatic hinge on one of the doors so it would close automatically. The only thing is the door kept slamming after that so my plan worked to get people in the habit of manually closing it. The reason why I wanted it shut was that it was absolutely freezing outside and I wanted it warm inside. Later that night I ended up staying up until 2am in the morning! To me I think it was a bad choice as I started saying things that may be inappropriate for here. For what ever reason, I become a zombie after midnight. So if I ever start mumbling, please advise me to go to bed or I’ll become disturbing lol.

One animal that probably can’t sleep atm is the Leadbeater’s Possum. In Victoria it’s habitat is in the process of being destroyed by loggers which can lead to extinction of the animal. The only problem is that it felt really awkward when people from “The Wilderness Society” called me on my mobile about it asking for money. There was an ad on change.org and I was trying to close it but instead it signed the petition, so the organisation ended up with my name and number. I feel bad for not donating but then I’m in a money saving mode atm as I only just started working in November. If I was permanent and in a position to constantly pay, I would but in the situation atm I had to say no unfortunately. But the more I think about it, the more I want to donate. I just love animals and not sure if I should be donating to save them. Like what happened to just rocking up in a protest to get people to change, why does everyone need money nowadays to protest? It just seems like people power just doesn’t work now days. It’s all about bribing now.