What To Do In 2026
Hello everyone and I hope you've all had a happy Christmas and new year!
Like every year that's done and dusted, it'll be worth reflecting the good things that have happened plus the bad things. Knowing what things have gone wrong earlier, the best thing to do is work out what next to make things better. I can still remember on my last appointment with my psychiatrist, he insists I should learn from the bad experiences and do things to make the situations better and/or even not fall into these problems again.
And it'll be worthwhile for every time the new year arrives, it's understandable how the concept of new years resolutions occur. My new years resolutions are to initiate new things and continue on with the things I'm currently succeeding. This is what this post will be all about.
Firstly, I'm carrying on with my artistic movement. Towards the end of last year, I have managed to finish this little tribute painting of the late rapper Fatman Scoop. For 2 years, I've been exhibiting my artworks in various exhibitions including at the SECAN arts hub and the Noble Park Art Show. Plus there are times I'll need to offload some in order to make room especially for more paintings to work on in my current art portfolio. Remembering last year, I gave away one painting and sold an artwork and with all this going on, it can become overwhelming at worst.
However, I still make good use of the Microsoft Office apps including Excel which is their spreadsheet program and I've put that to good use creating files that contain details of my artworks and also my current portfolio of paintings which I'm still progressing.
Here, there are columns of the names of my artworks, materials (or mediums to be more appropriate), dates when they were completed, sizes, their current statuses, prices and whether they've been exhibited. But to tidy things up further, I've made another Excel file more dedicated for the ones previously sold, for sale and exhibited.
This'll help for when further art exhibitions open up for months to come. It'll be worth me being thankful for people who are or work in the arts community especially when I started my new life. There is one note that I'll take on board.
2 and a half years ago, I've paid a visit to the Bunjil Place. That's the big arts centre not too far from the Fountain Gate shopping centre. I've had a good honour of meeting Leah who works at the gallery section. We chatted in the exhibition at the time and when I've mentioned to her about myself starting art, she's been keen and after that written this note of the artist run initiative galleries useful in hopes to break myself into the arts sector. I hadn't chucked it out but when things in life run into me, it can be easy to get ourselves sidetracked. However with my journey of becoming an artist continues, this note will be a good tool. I'd like to go to the Kapi Art Space up in the Dandenong ranges and one day initiate my own exhibition and with $50 AUD to hire a gallery space per month, this wouldn't be too hard financially. With that, why shouldn't I go for that?
I'm still in the process of building up my social circles and it's not just through art.
A few years ago, I decided to take up a new hobby working on cars for something new to do and whilst I'm still a Repco employee for 4 years. I've had the pleasure of being part of the Unique Rides car group for 2 years. Earlier, I've had involvements with the Pakenham Auto Club but I grew out of it as there aren't much there. When I've been involved with the Unique Rides car group, it's more enjoyable especially meeting up with people who are strongly passionate about these cars even when some are upcycled.
There's one bit of convenience with this group that keeps socialising going which is they have chats in the Facebook Messenger app for anyone else to share their car project experiences, ask questions and show upcoming events. As much as all of this is great, I have a small group of hurdles such as my 2022 Ford Puma ST Line being out performed by higher performance cars, my idea of working on cars currently on hiatus and also my idea of getting myself a girlfriend not being too straight forward but saying that, there's one thing that'll be something.
2 months ago when I've attended the singles dating walk at Glen Iris, I've met 3 women who I got to know one another but one of them I've been keeping in touch with. We both have been lucky to have our own Instagram accounts and she even opened up the idea of the both of us catching up for a coffee. This month, we've done so despite a few things not going to plan. We didn't just go out for a coffee though. We've decided to go out exploring for when we're after lunch and once we went to a place to eat, we shared a meal together.
This had been a massive experience considering how I hadn't dated before. There are some unknowns we both face for years to come but at least we can work things out even on my end. Once we've concluded our day out, we both hugged and we'll keep in touch hopefully for more to come.
Another new years resolution for me is to concentrate on meeting up with more autistic people who are on the same spectrum as I am and it's been a good work in progress. As I'm currently a member of the Autism Valued organisation for a year, I've had good privileges to attend social group meetings to talk about their insights including our diagnoses, what they're interests are and even troubles they face including the NDIS. From there, I've been more relatable and discovering more about myself as an autistic but not as much a regular person.
There are times I've realised being out in a public associating with the usual people let alone in a sharehouse becomes too troublesome. And as much as I like to meet new people, and need to do so, there are certain limits us autistic people have. I took those into consideration and although it's not entirely easy, it'll be for my own good. I've also been keen on knowing whether intimate relationships with other people on the spectrum will be worthwhile but at least knowing these kinds of people are a good way to figure out what'll be best. And that's the best thing to do when there aren't many social groups for adults.
With all of this out of the way, there's one important thing for the new year which is work. Towards the end of last year, things hadn't been too great on my end. I've been burnt out, feeling rather lonely and been experiencing the strong sense of a lack of structure. That is when staff members including myself are busy doing what we need to do but other things happen to add various complications such as a lack of trolleys and totes to put new stock items away to name a few. I didn't want this to keep dragging so along with other staff members, I came up with my aim to 'tidy up' at my current store. That way, we won't get lost if days get busy plus when I can take up more duties when I get a chance, others will appreciate it having to take as much weight off their shoulders as possible. And if I'm lucky, perhaps take up a few extra shifts and not just break up new stock which I usually do on days I'm rostered.
You'll see if I get bothered and frustrated to the point of breaking down even a meltdown, this isn't a good sign. However, knowing how clever, logical and highly structural I am, I should put these attributes to good use and particularly make workplaces better and more straightforward. And there, it'll be a win-win for everyone and if I'm in a workforce, why should I be last? There isn't a need.
I realise that getting extremely angry is a terrible thing to happen and there are times we'll need to have our own boundaries for the sake of everyone else. I've been a faithful employee for a long time, never been sacked which has been a good bonus although I feel that in Australia, there's the culture of work and nothing that bothers me.
At least I have steadily growing interests and hobbies with the big one getting into Pokemon.
It's been 2 years since I've played Pokemon Shield to start off and completed. I have my next one which is Pokemon Legends Arceus but as all this is still new, I took upon myself to buy myself the Pokemon Essential Handbook to increase my level of understanding. And I was in luck when I bought this particular book at the Fountain Gate EB Games store which was the last one. As I've been looking in this book, I came across some exquisite discoveries.
An Arbok is up to 3.5 metres (11 ft, 5) long so anyone would have thought other snakes would be scary enough with the likes of anacondas, reticulated pythons and any venomous snake you can think of in Australia.
And then, there are Pokemon who have certain weaknesses or more like this Abomasnow. That could explain previously why I had troubles with this one I had being hammered by other Pokemon who've attacked mine.
The handbook is useful to know other Pokemon which I'm not familiar with such as this Articuno. And interestingly enough, Google have a feature where users catch the likes of these Pokemon when they've been searched on Google.
And here's the screen shot for anyone who doesn't believe me.
And this is the main objective. Look up these mystery Pokemon when on Google but there've been times I got stuck on some that I'm not familiar with. Eventually, I found out more with the assistance of my handbook and found an Articuno. In this screenshot, I had to find out the star shaped Pokemon which is the Staryu. The one beside it is obviously a Snorlax.
I've been assigned to repair this Expressi coffee machine my family have owned for a long time. It has been a long faithful appliance except the outer braided hose broke and leaked hot water internally. I've started on the teardown only to find this problem. And here, we face this decision. Discard this Expressi machine or perhaps, replace this broken hose. I chose to attempt the hose replacement and although it's been a tough job and some serious head scratching, it can be a great challenge.
With the piece of the 5 milimetre nylon hose fitted along with the comprehensive reassembly process, I've been able to fix it and gave it runs without any problems. Happy days, but the bigger test is putting in a coffee pod to make myself a coffee.
Despite my high hopes, my attempt to make myself a coffee was a failure. As you can see in this picture, the nylon hose couldn't withstand the pressure so game over for the Expressi machine? It feels like that way. But here are some troubles with modern appliances if something goes wrong.
There are moments pieces break when repairing anything but finding the right parts can be impossible but not this time. I bought this pack of 2 elbow vacuum connectors to replace one of the spouts and when one is inserted, the vacuum connector hadn't failed which is handy to know.
Aside from working very hard under challenging circumstances, I've also been living with a crook back but I've been putting efforts to improve mine. Along with doing a series of stretches, what also helps is having my back and neck muscles loosened in a way of massages. I make good use of these massaging chairs as they offer good value for money. I even thought up that every Friday I finish work, I'll go use one of these massaging chairs to help loosen my back muscles especially when my job tends to be on the more physical side.
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