A Little Reflection

2017 has been a rocky year for me, to say the least…full of it’s ups and downs but I will look forward to putting this one behind me and moving on to 2018. I haven’t been able to do much writing this year which is disappointing for me! Life has gotten on top of me really at times, to the point that you just wonder why life is worth continuing on with! I’m not depressed or anything in that way, I will admit that 2 deaths in my family has somewhat changed my way of life, amongst other things but I believe that things will turn around and I’ll make sure that it does by working harder and by writing more because that brings out the best in me.

2017 for the world has been a very stressful one, am I the only one who is already fed up with Brexit?! I voted remain but now would rather just get on with it, life goes on but everyday you hear about more issues relating to it and that we must look like fools on the world stage…treating the whole ordeal like a divorce, the EU wants money and to keep control….so what was the point of this whole separation if nothing will really change? Not really one for politics but I continue to live as normal, not really paying attention to the whole situation….in or out, France can still be seen from the Dover Cliffs, they will always be our neighbours and I’ll never stop wanting to visit our brothers and sisters on the continent!

However, the most common place that is always in the news is America! I’ll say it and I don’t care but America….WTF?! Your gun laws make no sense…everyone is entitled to bear arms because of the 2nd amendment?? Isn’t that the same document that has been altered and changed many times through the last hundred or so years? So tell me why the rules for gun control can’t be changed as year…I mean it literally makes no sense, over 13,000 killed by guns in 2015! Whereas in Britain….about 50-60 people! I only ever see guns after a terrorist incident forces danger levels up and the police are forced to carry them around for a while! Apart from that, I never see them and I’m glad of that…who would feel safe, knowing that most people around you might be packing a killing machine in a car, jean pocket or in your face? Every couple of weeks or so, you see on the news that a mass shooting has occurred and more innocent people die because someone got a little angry one day and decided to shoot someone over it?

What justifies so many guns? To look tough? Keep loved ones safe? I’m not saying ban guns altogether but why does it seem so easy to get one and why can so many people access them? I mean I can’t go to my nearest supermarket and buy one?! At least make the process of getting a weapon much harder and why has your president just made it legal for Mentally Ill people to get a hold of them? Things change for a reason…no offence America but you’ve been a country for about 300 so years…much younger than the rest of us and we’ve all had experiences and made changes to our laws because it makes sense! It’s hard to obtain guns over here because it would be beyond stupid to make it easy…do you know what happens when it’s not that hard to buy a machine gun which isn’t legal yet some people still get a hold of them?

Shootings, people dying for no reason! Where does common sense come in here…I mean I have Autism and in America would probably be put on some kind of medication for it but even when I’m angry or mad…I can’t just grab an automated weapon and gun someone down…I go for a walk or talk to a friend or family member and calm down! Yet a guy can obtain weapons and go to a hotel in Las Vegas and kill over 50 people! I mean this year alone, America has had over 300 shootings! Almost one a day! Let that sink in for a moment…I imagine the morning conversations in Europe and America being quite different.

Europe

Mum: Your in big trouble when you come home tonight

America

Mum: Your in big trouble…if you come home tonight

The worst bit about it all is how many Americans DEFEND their gun laws! They have a right to them and will never part with them…I mean with 2018 coming up, will anything really change….I would like to think so, that even America, the most stubborn country sometimes….will wake up and see that all these deaths caused by a lunatic wielding a gun could have been prevented…if they just make it harder, not easier to obtain a gun and not just any guns….the automatics, rifles, machine guns etc What sane person needs a machine gun? I mean I read somewhere that the more mass shootings, the more people go out and buy more guns! Got to protect yourself from that nutter Billy down the block!

People die in other ways as well, diseases…car accidents….yet cars serve the purpose of transportation…the only service a gun should serve is protection…..yet how many people actually use them just in case the house gets robbed or a life threatening situation? At least one shooting a day people!

 ”The ONLY thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Donald Trump

Constant jabs and insults tossed about the world, mostly between America and North Korea! Missile tests, threats of annihilation…what is the human race at the moment? It’s like we’ve all lost the plot since the millennium began! All sense went out of the window and we get that bit more crazier each time a new year comes around! Can Earth just calm down a little bit before something serious happens, something that we can’t come back from? Maybe make it so you can’t go to your local Walmart and purchase a killing machine…stricter background checks maybe…especially at gun shows where they don’t even do them apparently! A bit of common sense wouldn’t go a miss! Just make the process a bit more reasonable and not like doing a spelling test, most can do! Most of the world learned from mistakes involving guns and changed rules to make it better…why is it so hard for you to do the same?

The way we are going, it won’t be robots, aliens, religious event or other worldly thing to wipe out the human race…we’re good at making things go extinct…does that include ourselves though? Wouldn’t shock me!

Thomas The Tank To Have Extra Girl Power

Thomas The Tank Engine is a children book and television series that has been around since the late 1940’s…well not the TV series but the book have and many have fond memories of the show but over the years, it has gone through changes, such as CGI, more songs, characters etc and in 2018, it appears that another huge change is happening in the heart of it all, Tidmouth sheds where two engines are being evicted but before we go into that, let’s look at the engines that represent the genders.

For the boys, we have.

• Thomas
• Percy
• Edward
• Gordon
• Henry
• James

And for the girls, they have

• Emily

I guess when you look at that, the balance is quite far off….by quite a bit! Probably because engines don’t think about gender or equality…because they are engines and have no such notion but alas, it’s a show written by humans so our notions must be added in so real life politics, issues must be included…even if it makes no sense because at the end of the train…it’s about an engine and who watches the show.

More female characters in the show, that’s fine with me and that’s something that confuses me a bit as well, why would it bother anyone if a show meant for children adds a couple of new characters in? Let me get this straight when I say that this is a children’s show that has been around for a very long time, 70 plus years so it is close to a lot of people who grew up with it, myself included and the addition of two new characters isn’t a problem for me but possibly getting rid of two classic engines such as Edward or Henry in order to do it….that I have a problem with! Is the Fat Controller being stingy and not bringing in Welsh coal anymore? (If you’ve watched the show, you’ll get that!) Poor Henry. 

Two classic engines from day one are getting the boot, possibly just being moved elsewhere on the island (fingers crossed) so the 2 new female characters, which will be forced down your throats for the foreseeable future can move in and that’s a problem to me…not that they are female but such a big deal is being made out of it…like women are never represented or something…like anywhere???? Most television shows I watch have female main characters, what is everyone going on about….is it just children’s shows we are going on about?

The United Nations, (the article doesn’t belong to me but the Daily Express) of all things is getting involved with this show…making Thomas travel the globe and make the show gender neutral…I had no idea that of all things to show how important gender equality was…Thomas The Tank engine was the way forward?! It feels like our children today are being told what is ok and what isn’t and it feels so controlling because as far as I’m aware, we all get so easily offended if both genders aren’t represented equally in entertainment programs and the innocent days of my childhood are long gone…it’s not like I ever went up to a girl in my youth and said

‘You don’t have a train representing your gender because you don’t matter!’ 

IT’S A TRAIN! Children don’t think about stuff like this at that age, let them be kids! I didn’t even think about which trains were boys or girls, it never mattered to me yet today, it means everything! The comment sections on any news article about well anything is a cesspool of offended people who act like they know everything….they can’t sleep at night because you don’t have 5 female main trains and 5 main male trains….it drives them insane and their children will grow up to be sexist monsters, NO THEY WON’T!

Perhaps ask your children if they like the change or not…don’t tell them it’s for the best if they don’t like the idea…what happened to having an opinion anymore? I respect this idea and don’t mind it happening but I know why it’s happening and it just makes me laugh a little because it makes no sense….adding two more female engines into a show for children won’t change anything! Why do you think it will? Steam trains or diesels in this show don’t have relationships of sorts…you don’t have couples or superiors etc it will promote friendships and the world, making it unimportant which gender it is doing it! I wouldn’t care if it was a male engine or female, as long as I like the character, that’s all what would matter to me, not be told…‘like the girl engines darling!’ All it will do is give the show a few more episode ideas etc

Don’t the UN have a better way of supporting Gender Neutrality other than using a children’s show to do it? Now…I know many will tell me to get a grip and that it’s only a television show but that’s exactly the point…it’s a television show for children…why is the news/media making a huge deal out of it, why do we see people online arguing over it….being called racist and sexist? Why can’t children decide for themselves instead of us lot telling them how they should think…if the world was a better place and everyone didn’t get offended every 5 bloody minutes over the gender of a train that isn’t even real!  They possibly wouldn’t think in the way that we assume they will!

I seriously don’t remember my childhood being this difficult at all, I never thought boys were better than girls and still don’t…I was a child, why would I think that deeply at that age…unless someone else influenced me to think the way that they want which is what we do nowadays, to be politically correct and nice 24/7 so we aren’t labelled as racist or sexist by strangers on the internet but why aren’t we allowed to come to these decisions on our own? If I was a child, I’d feel so much pressure to not accidentally say or do something that would offend someone else because we all constantly step on egg shells in 2017….I swear 2010 to 2020 will be looked back at as the decade we all lost our spines and got offended so easily.

Again though, it’s a just a show that’s trying something new and it hasn’t even had the new characters arrive yet but so many of us have already begun moaning and complaining because another treasured show from our youth has been changed for another generation to enjoy, believing that it’s forcing children to accept gender equality etc…is it really though? I mean a child could easily watch this and not listen to a single message from it, maybe they won’t care how many male or female trains are in the show they’ll likely want to buy them all anyway which is in my opinion, the main point for all of this….marketing…more characters, more money made in train toy sales…merchandising people, it’s what successful shows do!

At the end of the day, the show gets 2 new characters that happen to be female, hopefully Edward and Henry can still be in the show and the whole travelling around the world thing can be a success as well, who knows but it’s early days and remember, this is a show for children, yet we see grown ups arguing over it online…let the children decide whether it’s a good idea or not. Also, we are all losing the plot over the gender of a new steam train on a children’s show…try and remember that!

Autistic Boy Left With Nail In Head

The images in this post are the property of the Nottingham Post and is only used as a visual, not for anything else.

This story today is called Autistic Boy Left With Nail In Head and if you click this link here, it’ll take you to the story in question that we are talking about today! I personally find this incident disturbing and horrifying so be prepared if your easily offended or sensitive.

A boy in Mansfield, England has been assaulted by a group of vicious bullies and to top this all off, they threw a plank of wood at this young lad which had a nail stuck to it…which unfortunately when thrown at Romeo, attached into the back of his head, causing him to have to go to hospital. The nail was thrown so hard that it bent in his head…just imagine that for a second, a group of older kids felt the need to pick on a vulnerable child and throw a plank of wood with a nail in it at him…with his Father right there…I swear if I ever got a hold of any of these kids, I’d want to put them in hospital myself…especially if it was my child that was assaulted in such a manner…I wouldn’t but I’d be furious! That is messed up and disgusting behaviour because it was unprovoked, it was one vs many and it was pointless! Try that on someone who will fight back, SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN!

Now I can’t assume that the kids knew that Romeo had Autism but even if they didn’t, this is still appalling…why do groups of children feel to need to act this way, what does it prove exactly, that they’re tough but what if Romeo had died, what then? Wouldn’t be so funny then…all of these people would have to live with that stupid decision for the rest of their lives, it would follow them everyday, one stupid decision and don’t give me the ‘they were only kids’ line…things like this happen everywhere and the UK is a nanny state enough as it is…but then again, in the UK…you can’t exactly discipline children if they are naughty….Go on the naughty step…that’ll teach you!

When I was a child, if I was naughty….I was disciplined and you know what…I grew up to be respectable and responsible for my actions because I was taught what was right and what was wrong…does that happen today in 2017….HELL NO! Everywhere I go, kids do what they want and nothing ever happens to them, they run amok without a care in the world and they are smarter then we all seem to give them credit for, they know we won’t do anything and they use that to their advantage! Mum and Dad won’t punish me for my action so I’ll keep doing it, what are they going to do…put me in the corner for a bit…so scary!

Not suggesting hitting your child because that has a negative effect as well but we must have a way to discipline our children that isn’t violent but teaches them respect and to behave as well…I just don’t see sitting on a naughty step or a corner teaching them anything…I mean a child had a nail stuck into his head that was thrown so hard, it bent in his skull! If I had done that, I’d not see the sunlight for a year…I’d get nothing and I’d deserve nothing…my parents would be so ashamed, disgusted at me and yes I’d be upset at this but I’d understand it as well, I would have caused this and I needed to fix it! what will these lot get? Probably nothing.

Of course these bullies threw a board…what will happen to them? A slap on the wrist more than likely…you can’t really give these idiots what they deserve because you can’t do that to children anymore, they get away with EVERYTHING! I mean you have some dressing up as bloody clowns every October and November and carrying knives! Parents aren’t allowed to properly discipline children or they’ll get into trouble…no wonder acts like this are on the rise! And I know some like to wrap kids in cotton wool and protect them from all the kidnappers and molesters of the world, stop them from eating nothing but junk food and that doing anything mean to a child is making them a better person…but is it? No consequences for your actions….can do what they want and get away with it….is that really better? Surely a middle ground between the two is needed because at this rate, stuff like this will get worse.

Is this the kind of behaviour that we all have to be concerned about when it comes to kids bullying others? Not just name calling or being beaten up but to be physically assaulted with a foreign object and sent to the hospital? Why….why on earth is stuff like this happening all over the globe? This happened while one of the parents was around, the group did not run away before doing this…that just shows that they didn’t care one little bit and that sickens me to my stomach….just imagine the parents that this lot had if they act like this and I know you can’t always blame the parents for how children always turn out but someone has to be responsible for not understanding the severity of this action.

Then again, why did Romeo’s parents let him wander off in the first place? I’m not putting any blame on them but if they were aware that he does this then perhaps they should have gone for him long before they arrived home but you can read all about this story in the link at the top of this page. I bet they won’t let him do that again! At the end of the day, these kids won’t be disciplined, the parents won’t be warned and stuff like this will keep happening, the cycle repeats itself! What a crazy world we all live in!

Get well soon Romeo, don’t let this stop you from living your life!

Feeling Anti-Social Isn’t A Bad Thing

Introduction 

Warning- These are just my opinions

I write this blog as someone with Autism, I know what it feels like to feel alone sometimes and to feel down and worthless about it, like I’m the problem or something. At the age of 26, I feel like I have accomplished more than I was expected to do many others growing up and it’s a good feeling but the constant thoughts of self doubt and the times where I felt like I was going to be a constant loner my entire life. I honestly felt like no one would ever be my friend growing up because I was dealing with a lot of stuff that I didn’t understand which turned out to be my Autism in the end.

It hit home hard as I didn’t take the news well at all. I completely shut myself away from society for a few years and just became depressed, I was unmotivated in my future and just flopped at everything, even my GCSES which I had to re do in college a couple of years after I left school.

Next I would go onto to College and turn things around as I was able to make good friends who I still know and even met my now wife! Got good qualifications and was able to get into a nearby University where I got my degree. I don’t think that’s bad after being in such a hole for so long, hating myself and everyone else for how I was, something that was out of my control and to be honest would rather not have…takes a lot out of me to not over worry over the smallest of things on a daily basis, no wonder I’m often feeling sleepy but then again, I do have Gilbert’s Syndrome as well.

I did a lot of things I didn’t understand as a child that others found to be odd, like talk to myself and prefer spending time to myself because as I grew, I found myself becoming scared of interaction with other people. It felt like a pressure of some kind when I had to talk to others for a lengthy amount of time, I felt quite breathless actually, like I was going to pass out or I was worrying so much that I was going to say something bad and be alone again, I just one day decided that it wasn’t worth the risk and often spend my time by myself. Only problem with that was I got to comfortable doing that and as a result, struggled even more later on to try and make new friends and escape my bubble.

After School, College and University, I often reflect how social I was during all of it and what I could have done better. It’s not always the best thing to do but when you have the memory of an elephant, you can and maybe learn something for life down the road. Was I social? Kind of really, I mean I had friends, don’t get me wrong and I went out and socialized but perhaps not to what is considered  ‘normal’ I maybe it was a couple of times a week or two weeks and I had to try to convince myself to even want to join a society in University or talk to a class mate because 9/10 I would want to back out and remain by myself because I felt safer….lonely but safe.

So for me, I like being social and enjoy seeing friends from time to time but still like time to myself as well, I like both ways and can appreciate both positives and negatives for each and I view all of this as simply….well you can do what you want…if you like spending time with friends, keep doing so but don’t make others feel bad if they don’t want to as often as you do. If we were all a little less judgmental than maybe the world would be a little less of a terrible place because personally, I think we are very judgmental and like to comment on other people’s opinions, ideas or stories if we don’t agree and making the teller feel awful for it which makes it very unsurprising as to why many don’t want to spend time with others because we have now become a society where an opinion is pretty much a bad thing….thanks internet.

Is it bad to prefer ‘me’ time? 

Spending time with friends….it’s something that we all want to do, even if your an introvert…you do enjoy it from time to time. Some people who read this may not have even had a single friend in their life or aren’t good at keeping them, others will have many friends and are very social which is great as well.

I’ll be honest, from time to time I do enjoy having time to myself, it’s nice to be able to do something that I enjoy without the pressure of having to do something that someone else wants or you are doing something you like to do but not in the way that you would do it. I’m someone who likes to do things my way and can sometimes struggle to do things ‘other’ peoples ways all the time which was a reason why I struggled at University because of all the group activities and the constant pressures to interact with people because everyone else around you was doing it!

Last year I had Game nights with a group of my friends and apart from feeling nervous as to whether they actually like me or not, It was fun but it was also quite draining for me, I mean by night four I was wishing for them to stop! Not because I didn’t want to attend or anything but I would always feel very emotionally drained by the end of them every single time because I feel like I have to go into overtime quite a lot with keeping calm and not overthinking absolutely everything, like as I said before…convincing myself that my friends don’t like me that much, even though I have no evidence to back this up, yet it keeps happening to me all the time.

Is it ok to enjoy spending time to myself sometimes though? Do people like doing something by themselves or are we in a society where it is looked down upon if you don’t often spend time with other people? I think it is not a bad thing to be ‘anti-social’ from time to time, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy spending time with my friends and making new friends as well but, I mean it’s ok to have ‘me’ time sometimes and you don’t have to spend time with your friends all the time. I know they are there for me and if I needed anything like advice or time to kill, they would arrange something with me.

We have Facebook where you can see everyone interacting with one another daily and we live in a world where you can reach a friend or get a lover so easily with the click of a mouse, it’s easier than ever to make a friend if you really want it…compared to the 90’s yet you can still find many people who haven’t a friend in the world or even if they do, don’t often spend time with them and many see this as a problem. It’s like they think people who don’t always see mates as anti social or rude but quite often, their is more to what we can’t see.

Why?

I often ask myself why I prefer to spend time by myself, even though I have a wife and friends…why would I prefer to be by myself, even though I find myself quite fortunate to be in this situation? Sometimes I need to unwind and calm myself because life can get on top of me sometimes, everything can take a lot out of me, more than I think people realise and it requires me to just do something relaxing like go for a walk or jog, watch a good movie or play some games until I’ve rested enough.

Often if I don’t do this, I can have a ‘meltdown’ and it’s not fun because I feel very angry all the time and it takes a while to calm down afterwards and I honestly don’t see the point of getting to this point because it does nothing except make me look like a guy with anger issues.

So to finish off, We have a world where everything is judged….mostly negatively because we can all hide behind a screen and say what we actually feel…it’s called trolling…and in this day and age, people all over the world can see what you write and say online….every week videos of kids being beaten up by gangs or animals being killed by youths for fun appear on websites and it’s disturbing. As well, we can see how many friends everyone has and what they get up to all the time but you can even find Introvert pages where people express how much they enjoy being by themselves. If I was to know that this was how the world was going to be 10 years ago…I’d have panicked because nothing is really that private anymore, everything is judged and flaws are frowned upon because….well let’s face it…we suck as a species…I mean we often mock ourselves for the stupidest of reasons and have the dumbest reasons for the things we do quite often yet if we comment on them, we get mocked….makes perfect sense.

So basically you can speak your mind, just expect to offend someone for having your opinion. You can have friends but be judged because you don’t have as many as someone else on your Facebook Page and you can enjoy time by yourself but you’ll likely be mocked and called a loner for it.

Imagine the world 10 years from now….I shudder.

Happy New Year

Happy 2017 everyone, I went quiet for quite a few months and haven’t really done much blogging recently and I have reasons why that is. I’ll explain here and now why I have been quiet for quite some time.

I recently was fortunate enough to get married in August 2016 and have been enjoying settling down with my wife as we begin our life together. It was a good year for us as most of it was spend around getting ready for the big day and getting back to normal once it had passed and of course, if you were living under a rock, we all know what else happened in 2016….hope 2017 is a better year for the world!

I will continue blogging throughout 2017, mainly about Autism of course and it is a very important subject for me. It’s mainly from my point of view though but am always learning something new along the way as well. Last year, I saw how others coped with Autism and if I was anything like that at all or was I different and the answer was at times both. Sometimes I felt like I could relate to other people with it and at times, I couldn’t and that still doesn’t completely make sense to me now, I hope that it does someday

I feel like making a little video series and sharing it on here, just talking about my own experiences with Autism and no, it’s not a show off kind of thing where I brag about overcoming things because of my Autism, nothing like that but it’s just nice to sometimes know that your not the only one who felt like they could never make a friend, find someone to love them or do something that no one thought you were capable off. Nothing wrong with sharing a story or two with others!

So in 2017, I want to blog and make videos regarding Autism! Wherever it actually works or not remains to be seen but I won’t know until I try!

Happy New Year Everyone!