Setting Others Apart

Hello again. Have you or anyone else feel you're not so typical in any community you're in? I do. Or in any kind of social media you're currently using? Same, and this is how I feel but I have unique attributes and carry my responsibility of making smart decisions but not always as such compared to other people.

I feel lately in Australia I'm pretty much of an outsider like when people are obsessed with sports, drinking beer, go out camping, binge watching any TV shows online, driving utes and getting into TikTok whereas I'm not into it. I don't mean to exaggerate things or make some kind of inaccuracies, this sums up how I feel not able to fit in entirely which in the whole way is sad. However, there are things I'm passionate about and anything new I've taken up which have struck chords with people and lately, I'm growing my niche.

And with that, I'm embracing my own individuality which is a good thing. Of the things and capabilities include my lifelong skills and passions of art, my fascination of all kinds of knowledge which include dinosaurs, outer space, whales, sharks, computing being a long suffering Microsoft enthusiast, our anatomy thus knowing all kinds of our bodily systems and knowing cars driven including the brand and model along with it.

Anyway, I'll give you my exquisite insight on myself using computers. Back when I was a student at the Neerim South Primary School, there were DOS computers and they were old fashioned. With these, there were no mice used and you only put in floppy disks to use programs and games and the only thing to use is the keyboard. Later when I'm at Grade 2, the school have updated their modern PCs running Windows 95 and that was a big step up. We have access to an abundances of CD-ROMs to use playing the Magic School Bus softwares in various topics, Mega Maths Blaster which I wasn't keen at first but got into it in a fun and engaging way to learn mathematics. Then, there's Dangerous Creatures where you can learn about all the various wild animals and finally, Microsoft Office programs including Word, Excel and Powerpoint. And that shaped my life forever.

But with my brilliant acquired computing skills, I've done a rather interesting thing and it's rather amusing. As I saw this Clipart of a duck holding a mallet and set to smash the computer in front of him. I thought it'll be cool to do one Word document with the Clipart to one student. But here's the Clipart I'm talking about.

The last paragraph I've typed up is "Have you seen a duck smash a computer like this?" but this is all I can remember. Once this document was complete, I've saved it into one of the student's folders in the whole system and as one student opened it up, he and the other boys around found it funny and then, some others requested me to make those and save them into their folders.

Next in my high school years at the time Windows XP is their latest operating systems their computers run, their latest feature is their word to speech function. So with that, the computer reads and speaks whatever sentence or anything you've typed up so anyone can hear it but this wasn't the first encounter with this feature. That happened when me and my family used an Eyewitness Children's Encyclopedia and they have the function where articles can be spoken by a computer. And then, this program featured sticky notes where they can be put up in any page and anything can be typed up even for amusement. At least any kind of humour is definitely family appropriate which can not be said at high school.

Another interesting thing I've done is I've opened up a narrator program on a teacher's laptop computer. With that, every command the use performs involves the computer saying whatever it's on. When I've done that to one teacher's computer and him being irritated, I hadn't been caught. So to me, this is one unique attribute that stands out from anything within Neerim South.

Next comes my attitude with cars. Earlier as I was growing up, I'm only familiar with Fords, Holdens and Japanese cars that were on the roads. However at my first year at high school, my acquired passion turned the tables literally. That's when I've discovered the Peugeot 307 which to me is a revelation.

As I've mentioned to people at the time, people were shocked as one Autism support worker who's name is Kirshy is shocked then mentioning how expensive they are to buy. And even my uncle Noel who's always been into Fords is deeply shocked. One situation I can think up of is when I play "When I Grow Up" by Garbage and the rest are used to any music played on a radio station 3GG, that becomes a big shock.

But when I'm coming towards getting my learners permit, I've never dreamt of owning a big car such as a Holden Commodore as they're too big for my liking. I've resorted to smaller cars as they're easier to live with.

When you think about all the cars I've had and currently own so first, my 1992 Nissan Pintara, next my 2006 Holden Astra and then my Ford Puma ST Line. None were too big. And then comes the obsession with 4 wheel drive utes which don't appeal to me except for heavy duty purposes. In a way, Australia is rather big on bigger vehicles which in a way counts me out. But on the other hand, my cars have served me well so so what?

And I have a manual licence by the way and even when there's a definite emphasis on automatic vehicles.

Plus there are a whole array of things I like and fascinate me which set other people apart. Like when I was a teenager, I watched Mythbusters, Top Gear, The Chaser's War On Everything along with some comedy shows, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and even Last Chance Learners. I wouldn't even dream of watching Home and Away or let alone any single drama show in any channel you can imagine. And then, I've discovered YouTube where there are so many videos that are fascinating and hadn't looked back today.

And then came my personal styles. When I'm all grown up, I've been enhancing my appearances by deciding to have long hair, wear nice clothes that make myself presentable, I've even grown my sense of humour especially when I make opinions that can be amusing but in a way, it's good to lighten up any dramas in life as we see too many of them.

But to close this up, I realise individuality is a good thing in life and makes things more interesting, fun and likeable in a way. On the other hand, there are people who don't see the comprehension of other people's individualities which is sad but not only that, downright boring. The worst thing if people don't embrace other people's individualities and anything cool, society can sort of resemble a Soviet style society where everything is conservative and anything that's not feels forbidden and everyone is robotic.

It doesn't hurt for anyone to embrace other peoples' cool attributes like mine.

See you next time!

Credits: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peugeot_307_front_20071217.jpg