When Thresholds Are Peaked

Hello again as we're in the first quarter of this year (March to be precise). Despite doing as much to move forward, hurdles still get in my way and even pushed myself to the limits mentally. It can also strain relationships with loved ones particularly at my parents until I realise it'll become unacceptable.

What I've done last year was I took in a task to bake a cake for the very first time (by myself) as a redemption. And here it is.

What you're looking at is a sponge cake but using egg yolks only. Towards the end of the year, I was looking for a recipe on the internet for an egg yolk sponge cake and this is the one I've found. Although it didn't look big, it was spongy enough and enough to be approved by my parents and myself. I've even made whipped cream myself and although the recipe specifies using boysenberry jam, no jar is available in shops locally but I bought a jar of blueberry jam instead and is adequate enough.

And these are the yolks I have saved from my mini pavlovas from the recent Christmas, 6 in total. 4 of the yolks went into the making of that cake but the remaining yolks I'll save for when I'll make a lemon tart.

My idea of making a lemon tart came about since last year when I had to move out of my rental after potential financial difficulties and ended up living in a sharehouse. I wasn't wanting to give up as I've been able to build up my life and greatly develop myself and establishing my new social life. Some uncertainties have lingered but as time went by, things got out of the way and I've been able to work out plans to hopefully get back into a rental with some compromises.

But unfortunately, bad things get in the way and frustrations certainly take over even into extremes. So the purpose of this post is to emphasise when our thresholds mentally peak no matter how hard we try but things don't go right. Here's what happens in Hell's Kitchen with that moment in a nutshell.

For those who got what I meant after watching this, all's good but I'll give you the rundown based on my life experiences. Ever since I was growing up, I've had a lot of troubles blending into the community since my autism diagnosis from the age of 5. With my communication skills too slow to grow, making friends was hard along with changes occurring at the time. With that, I've had loads of tantrums as I got incredibly frustrated with anything but at the same time, I want to live life like everyone else. I was lucky to have an integration aide beside me assisting me with school work and building up my communication skills step by step from primary to secondary school years until I finished.

Completing school has been good as well as getting a driver's license but I've had big hurdles. One of the things that has plagued me even today has not being able to fit in with other people. Certain things hadn't helped particularly in the regional town of Neerim South where sport is the big thing. There's also Ford versus Holden back when Australia were building those cars but I wasn't particularly interested in either a Falcon or Commodore. Then came personal insecurities possibly the toughest moment being a teenager. You see, boys as they grow up go through puberty as their voices lower and even grow muscles. Girls develop breasts and their hips widen and both develop sexual maturity and although they develop interests in one another. I hadn't had that happen to me as such.

But another big hurdles remain all to do with the lack of understanding and acceptance of the autism spectrum that hadn't helped. With the lack of resources, it's devastating for any autistic person who'll need help but not get much access and worse still, be isolated from any community. Trust me, I've been in those situations but there are times I don't want to accept all these anymore.

I have initiated plans to get a job and although I've had troubles with loads of rejections applying for jobs, I've had some odd jobs with assistance of some employment agencies, it's been good to gain work experiences to help me step up to more employment avenues and better still be part of the community. I needed to have my own place to carry on with building up my life so then I worked my way with stable employment and then move into a unit in Pakenham despite the only rental I have ever looked out. With that, I've been able to take on other things to become a more worthy person which I hadn't felt before.

And then with my new social life, it's been incredibly hard as I don't know anyone in the new community. I also noticed there aren't many opportunities to go to meet people besides pubs. Later, I've been able to meet people by myself and on a regular basis, I've been getting to know people and my social confidence has improved along the way.

However, I've had hurdles especially with people who have completely different personalities. For those who are like minded, I don't have any problem but dealing with opposite people is tough. Whenever I've been attempting to break into the community, those kind of people hadn't been too helpful. There had been moments people mention to me that anything is hard or worse impossible. With that, I end up hitting walls and it certainly gets frustrating. There are people who wouldn't consider learning about any person myself included and those who are plain narrow minded. These are the kinds of people troubles I've had to deal with along with some serious friction I had to cop.

But as long as I have relationships with good people and groups such as the SECAN arts hub, the Unique Rides car group and recently Aspergers Victoria, these are the best.

With regards to employment, I've reached the point that I needed help especially getting better directions. I have decided to go through an employment agency despite some faffing around with some services not too ideal such as Disability Employment Services and an ESAP appointment from Centrelink which they'll arrange but no idea when, the corner has been turned thanks to a customer service line given from an employment agency. I called the number and despite spending a chunk of the Thursday afternoon on hold, they've suggested me to go to Centrelink to get a referral to get into an employment agency. The day after, Centrelink arranged an appointment over the phone to link me into an employment agency but more on a voluntary basis.

This may be all over my head, I'm happy to say I'm going somewhere.

With the significant weight lifted over my shoulders, I have treated myself with this little chocolate cheesecake.

And with this mini screw set I bought from eBay that arrived, I made the opportunity to use 2 of the mini screws to repair my turbo key chain on the right.

At the end of the day, it's not the end of the world for me. Maintaining a can-do attitude can be hard when faced with hurdles but I've also been noticing that overall, I've been getting less frustrated. There are things I had to concede to my struggles and if need be, get help. Everything else is all processes to learn and make better decisions to be resilient and move forward in life.

There are other dramas that are out of my control and it's not just the lack of resources for autistic people, but worse.

With horrendous events worldwide with conflicts, geopolitical tensions and rather hostile communities domestically, there's no doubt high levels of anger are evident. And what upsets me especially throughout my life trying to be out of hurdles is when people are just enraged all the way. I want to say that being constantly angry doesn't help anything except it only inflames problems. It won't be good for communities and anyone who wants to make friends and have an opportunity to do whatever that helps the community. And also, political hatreds particularly on Facebook are unacceptable. This raises the question on whether there's any bit of unity where people come over, unite and do anything to sort out our differences and problems hoping for a better world. At the moment, I would dare say good luck.

And then, there are personal expectations. For men, big strong muscles are a hot thing but sadly, I've never been a muscular nor athletic guy. Although I came to admit my fitness levels weren't too great, I need to exercise and build up muscles. I won't intend to be like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson but having some extra muscles will be useful to lift some heavy items without hurting myself.

But for females, it'll be more tough with the expectations set further. Take Britney Spears as an example. There's this standard that it'll be more desirable if girls are thin, sexy, maybe colour their hairs blonde and perhaps tanned. That's what I want to emphasise overall that anything not accepted even wearing glasses can leave anyone outcast. I cannot stress this enough. But what if you're a dinosaur?

I just want to express something outside the square and I've also been passionate about dinosaurs since growing up but bringing up the same topic. All dinosaurs have to fight their way for survival and we'll now start off from the top of the Mesozoic food chain.

We'll start off with the Tyrannosaurus. This apex predator kills any kind of prey regardless of size with 12,800 pounds of biting force (5,806 kilograms in metric), it can bite large plant eating dinosaurs to their deaths and even crunch through bones when eating. And don't forget they're territorial.

For meat eating dinosaurs way smaller like this Velociraptor, no one should be fooled by it's size. Being speedy, they can attack ferociously and their sickle shaped claws can slash their prey until they bleed to death. And unlike the Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptors attack in packs bringing down any prey that's bigger than them.

On the other side, there are plant eating dinosaurs that are capable of defending themselves.

There's this Triceratops with 3 horns on it's head along with it's neck frill. They're a good candidate to tackle a hungry Tyrannosaurus avoiding their chance to become their dinner. Their horns can impale a large meat-eating dinosaur like a Tyrannosaurus if they're not careful but once that happens, their injuries inflicted by a Triceratops can be fatal. And finally, the Triceratops' neck frill shields its neck from the killer bite.

And let's not forget the Ankylosaurus. Being well armoured, any meat-eating dinosaur shouldn't underestimate these dinosaurs' bony clubs that can break ankles and lower legs for any dinosaur like a Tyrannosaurus. Any attempt to attack will more likely end up being fatally injured. With both the Ankylosaurus and Triceratops, they've proven successful in a grueling age of dinosaurs where other plant eating dinsoaurs wouldn't stand a chance apart from a Stegosaurus. There is one other plant eating dinosaur who has an extra trick up its sleeve.

Behold the Brachiosaurus. Standing as high as 12 metres (43 ft) tall, no predatory dinosaur even an Allosaurus wouldn't want to get close if they're hungry. Unlike the defensive plant eating dinosaurs, offsprings of Brachiosaurus have a tall order to survive. Grow big or die. In other words, young Brachiosaurus starting off tiny will need to eat as much as possible and keep growing until they reach adulthood. Otherwise, any predators will attack young Brachiosaurus for dinner and that'll be the end for those unlucky. All this is like the hunger games for not only the young Brachiosaurus at the time but other long necked sauropods.

So the lesson here is it's more hard to be a dinosaur but we're better off. There are things we should all do to keep going. Don't give up, don't change for the sake for anyone else, get as much help as you can, learn and set your own boundaries. And fight if you need to but not as much as any dinosaur.

See you next time!