Bigger Better Things

Hello everyone and I hope you're all travelling well.

For those who might need to refresh what I've been up to in the year so far or just new here, I'll give you guys the run-through.

I first started my new life in Pakenham towards 3 years ago renting a 2 bedroom unit with a garage and then having a big task building up my new life. But lately, I've been struck with difficulties having to get a new car and then paying off my car loans along with some work troubles, a car accident in Dandenong and ongoing hassles making friends. In the end, all of this was too much so I've made a tough decision to move into a sharehouse.

So January has been the month I've moved into a sharehouse in Berwick. There have been some advantages compared to living in Pakenham such as being closer to work (currently working at the Doveton Repco store) closer and more accessible travel to Melbourne, more activities in the Casey area but better still, not having to pay an extortionate amount of rent no thanks to high interest rates.

And whilst it's a good break from renting, my mood has been improving and I'm not intending to give up on having my own place. I wasn't planning on selling all of my furniture, appliances and my other possessions and I've been fortunate to have a storage unit to keep all this until I'm ready to move into a place again. And although I hadn't been too keen on having someone live with me mainly because I don't know many people and the unit in Pakenham isn't ideal for anyone to live in. I've decided to make a little compromise to have someone as a housemate but in a bigger house.

But anyway, here's my run-through at the sharehouse.

So this is the room I've been living at the time. There isn't as much in terms of room but I've been able to survive and having a desk and chair a housemate of mine didn't need anymore has been handy for my laptop computer and printer. If you're wandering by the look of this picture, I was giving my room a tidy up as it was grotty and bound with dust.

I've made a great effort cleaning the window to allow more sunlight and then reduce further humidity troubles with mould problems that go with it. Likewise, I've been healthy but never been sick thankfully.

But other than that, I've done some gardening work outside which is more refreshing. I first started tidying up those yukka gardens pulling out weeds at the bottom but other housemates tipped in not only doing further work on those yukkas.

The rest of the housemates started vegetable gardens like this one.

And this load.

And then, there's the load of seedings to be planted. It's a good move in the time of high costs of living plaguing Australia along with Coles and Woolworths' duopoly and in the end, it's a labour of love to grow our own foods in our wonderful planet. All is well.

However, things hadn't gone well. In the sharehouse, there are 2 housemates that cause me a spot of trouble with one living with OCD and therefore goes cranky at any other housemates for not tidying up and at times go off his head at the rest of us. Another housemate has some rather unorthodox ideologies saying the Clyde Road upgrades are a waste of time and money whilst the area's growing and claiming he apparently seen a yowie. And then, he's mad about footy. Too mad for my liking and then went on joking about my football team having a terrible season.

With that and in the late August, I've decided to look for another sharehouse whilst I'm having troubles contending with those 2 housemates. The other troubles include not remembering or accepting my current and future objectives. At the time, I was working Wednesdays and Fridays and then I kept being asked I'm not working on days I'm not rostered and telling them many times plus not accepting my intention to stay in the sharehouse temporarily. With that, this is a good example of people not intending to learn and that frustrates me completely.

Other than that, I've looked at 4 sharehouses. However, I've looked at moving into another rental around the Berwick-Narre Warren area where there have been family sized houses with rents under $600 AUD per week not forgetting having a housemate to split the rent. With that, another housemate has been keen to move out with me and like myself, he isn't excited about living in the sharehouse. Otherwise, we've been getting along nicely and a moment not to forget is when we along with another housemate went out for dinner which has been a great retreat from the sharehouse.

With more troubles mounting including lack of growth in work and literally not going further and Uber Eats delivery driving being less enjoyable, I came to the point having to yell out in my room "I'm fucking sick of all this shit!", I've had enough. I called my mum and told her about what's happened. We've decided I'll move back to my parents in Neerim South only for the time being. The whole scenario has been a big emotional roller coaster. I was experiencing burn out with the big changes I've been under but eventually, I felt better and with that, I went on tidying and packing up. I then sorted out what things I'll put in my storage unit and what I can take to my parents' house. If there are things I won't need anymore, I'll donate them to an op shop but there's one item I'll look to sell.

These are the last of the coffee pods in this bag. They've been sent off to be recycled - broken down with ground coffee to be composted and aluminium from the pods melted and made into new products even new coffee pods. 

And whilst I'm tidying up and packing, I've been reserving some things that can help myself such as using this foam piece to stretch my neck. Throughout the time, my neck muscles have been incredibly tight. I've adopted additional stretches when I lie on my back and turn my head vice versa and roll my head backwards relieving the tensions on both sides of my neck.

But also, there's this little something I bought worth collecting. I have bought this Elmer gift set which is appealing but also provides a great story. It's a piece that's close to my heart emphasising diversity with Elmer being a colourful and funny elephant along with other different but all grey elephants. If anyone's keen on the story, I encourage you to grab a copy of the story and read it. You'll learn all about it.

Towards the move out of the sharehouse, me along with other housemates were all cool with one another but then started missing me. We had a roast dinner on the night before my move and another housemate gave me his hamper. The owner of the sharehouse earlier has been understanding with my whole situation but at the end, all is good and even though I've greatly developed after my post Gippsland era, I've done all I can but the difficulties got more hold of me.

So earlier this month, I've moved back to my parents' house in Neerim South. There were loads of things to get my head around. My social life has even been compromised so I wasn't as talkative having to put up with housemates who by the way have completely different personalities. Other than that, I'm gradually settling in, started doing exercises again and even doing some housework to tidy up the house even further. Like I said, I'm not intending to stay here forever.

And whilst I'm settling and recouping, I've been working out my new plan of attack to move back into the south east of Melbourne again. I'll be looking to go through an autism specific employment agency as I wasn't able to get a new job earlier and I was getting tired and frustrated and if need be, I'll opt to receive rent assist until I get a new job but that'll go ahead when I'll be back living towards Melbourne. There are a series of hurdles along the way but with time, my plan will piece together.

In the meantime, I've been keeping in touch with people including my potential housemate and I'm taking up some bits of downtime doing some odd things. For the likes of modifying those Pokemon pictures with Ikea picture frames.

A piece of oddity went by as I was thinking the clear covers need replacing but my mum realised they were covered in protective films and once they're off, these pictures looked spectacular.

And whilst I've dropped my car off for it's 30,000 kilometre service, I went to the Melbourne Museum to pay a visit to Victoria, this most complete Tyrannosaurus skeleton completed which happened to be discovered by regular people in South Dakota. The age of dinosaurs can definitely be brutal with some battle scars shown on dinosaur bones including Victoria but there is one unique feature us humans don't get. These dinosaurs have an ability to grow replacement teeth whereas we don't get that. We only have 2 set of teeth from milk to adult teeth but when they're gone, they're gone.

I've also visited the Gandel Gondwanna Garden. For anyone wandering, Australia was once part of the southern supercontinent in the Jurassic period along with South America, Africa, Arabia, India, Tibet and Antarctica. From the Cretaceous period which is the last of the Mesozoic era, the rest of the continents broke and Australia split from Antarctica after the age of dinosaurs. Another piece of curiosity to mention is about the Great Spynx statue in Egypt.

This happened when me and my parents were watching a documentary on SBS about the thing of ancient Egypt and there's been the mention that this great statue took 1 million hours to complete. We worked out it took 115 years thanks to the series of mathematics.

So what can we all learn from here? There are times costs of living gripped us badly and then having to make decisions we don't like doing. With that, we're less entitled to having freedoms and living in sharehouses to then end up with dicey experiences with people. Also, we get mentally compromised so we're not much our good selves not thinking as straight and not being too social. Any potential for dating, good luck.

Here's a bit that resembles my thoughts if people don't get along in a sharehouse.

But not everything is all bad. Whilst I was living in the sharehouse, I was able to rebuild my savings account again and there are aspects about me other housemates appreciated and I'm carrying the part of my life being that others are more of a problem. We all agreed that the 6 of us in one house is too much and the rent we pay doesn't seem to stack up but the biggest thing we'll blame is high interest rates.

In a way, time can be a good thing to utilise as I'm currently piecing my plan to move out again and also, chances of interest rates coming down and then, more rentals will pick up and then having cheaper rent. I'm also willing to get involved with Aspergers Victoria starting with an upcoming Zoom meeting having people high on the autism spectrum including myself to interact and perhaps bond better. I'm gradually getting more curious about having a girlfriend particularly living with Aspergers. If so, this could be a better option than take up long distance dating.

The best thing this year despite loads of frustrations is not use one unlikely thing in a drastic way.

If you recognise this as a paring knife, you're correct. I had a thought if I ever get fed up with any troubling housemate and so resolution in sight, I would grab my paring knife and point at it appearing as though I would be raring to stab. Luckily, that hadn't happened. That sadly demonstrates how much I struggle with people troubles when people don't understand and won't, won't learn, exclude me, put me down and even make jokes and not taking me seriously.

But I've been a great and worthy person otherwise and there are people who greatly respect me for who I am having goals and ambitions as well as not being fussed about my autism. If more people get educated about the autism spectrum, the world will be an even better place.

Other than that, see you next time!