Love Yourself, Then Someone Else

Hey everyone. So to start off this is not a post meant to offend anyone. Please do not take it directed at you because it isn't. This is just me ranting about how I feel.

Basically I am first off, finally happy being single. The best thing I am able to tell myself is the fact that by being single, it will let ME pursue whatever I want out of life, in my case, to be an actor in the industry (movie/tv industry, not theatre not that anything's wrong with it as even it gives me experience with acting) but basically like I was saying...the best part about being single is the fact that it means I get to be my own person and no one is there necessarily grounding me to one place. Well aside from my mother, but she's just looking out for me like any mother would their child.

The thing I'm annoyed about however is my friend base where I live...not the city I go to school in 30 minutes away, but in my actual city/hometown. Everywhere I look people are getting engaged, or married. Not a day goes by that I don't get ANOTHER event invite on Facebook to the stag N do or BBQ or w/e for another one of my friends who is engaged. This just pisses me off because seriously most of these people are my age, or younger than me, or no older than 25. And while love is great and all, I'm happy for them in some ways, but to me I just can't help but think "YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED WHEN YOU'RE ONLY 22, ARE YOU CRAZY?" Like I said, while I believe love is great and all, there's a time for it, and that time is AFTER you've developed a stable job or profession for yourself, after you've done what I like to call "settled" your life. Where you're truly at the point where it doesn't matter if you get a partner or not, because you're at that point where you're ready to enter the next step of your life.

To me getting married under 25 is just TOO young. I mean look at the past, and I mean the far past, before the 70s, when people were getting married at 18. It was all fine and dandy for them because the boy would work and the girl would be able to stay at home with kids. But now, now it's just gotten to the point where we're returning to that stage, but unlike back then, the world has changed and so has the economy. In most cases (unless you're a doctor or high paying job), both people need to be able to have jobs to support their home. And how does one do that? To me it's quite simple, go to school, or trade school or some form of post-secondary education, get a degree, maybe do a Master's or something, and get into a Profession. THEN you can get married. But here in my city, it's like people are hopping on the marriage train just a short time after they have graduated from high school. I mean sure, maybe there are some people who are able to get their postgrad quite a short time after graduating and are making a good living for themselves, and that's great, but that's still a minority of people. The majority are still generally in school around this time, and frankly starting a family at this time is just too soon. What if you end up having a kid? Then what happens? Your post grad could be flushed down the tube, or you barely ever see the kid. In this city specifically, my worry is that the people getting married young are going to wind up where? Flipping burgers at McDonald's for the rest of their days just to scrape by. Where will I be? I'll be in Hollywood, making a name for myself and then having a family when I meet the right person. (Laugh if you want, I have all the confidence I need in myself to get here.)

Anyway, that was my rant. So to those of you who are single, especially if you're around my age, be happy you're single. You don't need someone to make you happy, and what's more, being single will allow you to be you, to make your life what you want it, and to not have to worry so much about supporting a family or anything like that. Yes, if someone presents themself to me, yeah I might wind up dating them, but don't think you'll see me going into a marriage anytime soon. Love may "make the world go round" but the fact is, the first thing you need to do is love yourself, then be able to support yourself, before you can EVER think about being able to love someone else. And also remember these wise words from RuPaul: "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love someone else?"

Love to all of you
Sean

PS. Autism-wise, nothing really big has been happening. I'm going to Florida again soon so my usual slight worry about flying is creeping up on me but otherwise nothing :) This summer really has been one of the best of my life so far :D

Ch-Ch-Changes

Hey Everyone!

So sorry about not having posted in quite some time (the previous stereotype post was actually posted on the 22nd on Open Salon, so it's been nearly three days since I last made an actual blog post. Things have been changing I guess and I just find it either a bit more difficult to write or too busy to do so. Now don't worry, I'll continue writing until the "due date" I set in January, but it might just be more spaced out rather than everyday. I hope you all will continue reading however, despite the changes.

The one thing I want to tell you all because I think it is a great thing regarding my autism. But according to my parents, they've noticed that with going to bed early and running, I've apparently matured and aren't all over the place anymore. I guess just getting exercise as well as early to bed has allowed my brain to begin re-wiring itself in some ways. I could be wrong but I think it's a very good thing.

That's all for today though. Talk to you all soon!
Sean

Toy Story 3, The Princess Diaries, and Other Stuff

Hey Everyone!

So yesterday was a great day. Got to see Toy Story 3, which my review will follow me just expressing that my autism seems to be in low key this weekend as I feel nothing really happened. I was able to keep myself from rambling on about Rogers Video coupons I bought even though I thought I was about to continue, I wound up not continuing on and instead saying to myself I'd just tell what I needed to tell my parents tomorrow (tomorrow being today :P).

Now Toy Story 3, what a movie is all I can really say. I grew up with these films, being 7 when the first film came out, and 11 when Toy Story 2 was released, so as you can probably expect, I was anticipating something that would really make me happy in finishing the series (unless they wind up making more Toy Stories with new toys which I pray to God they don't otherwise there goes the entire Toy Story franchise). The good news is it definitely did not disappoint. Tim Allen and Tom Hanks were in top form as Buzz and Woody, and the other characters were just as hilarious as I remember them. But sadly, and this is a spoiler here, some of the characters we had in the first film who were minor but none the less, still part of the gang had been given away or sold, including Bo Peep who I believe was Woody's love interest.

With the start of the film, we're treated to another one of Andy's fantasies of Buzz, Woody and Jessie against the evil Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, and Dr. Porkchop. This is then followed by a cute montage through the lens of a video camera of Andy and his sister Molly growing up. The toys are now unfortunately collecting dust in a toy chest, but Woody and the toys try to get Andy to play with them by using the phone and hiding Andy's cell phone in the chest. Andy unfortunately doesn't take and leaves the room. Sarge and his two army-men abandon the toys knowing that when the next yard sale comes, they'd be the first to go. One thing leads to another however and the toys are eventually put in the car to head to the daycare. What the toys don't seem to realize however is that this was never meant to happen and Andy was originally putting them in storage but they wound up almost thrown in the trash and thus decide to leave Andy. Woody on the other hand tries to tell them what really happened but the toys refuse to listen since Woody was going to be going to college with Andy anyway, so to him it wasn't a big deal.

The toys eventually try to get to know the new toys at Sunnyside Daycare and having seen many of the kids caring and playing with the toys gently, they were excited to finally be played with again. Unfortunately due to some trickery, the old toys at the daycare put Andy's toys into the "Caterpillar Room" which is full of toddlers ages 1-2 and this of course means that the toys are thrashed and beaten up by the kids, leaving them bruised when the kids finally leave. Only through Buzz investigating does he find out the truth of Sunnyside but before he can reveal the secret to his friends, he's captured and reprogrammed. Then Sunnyside just goes from bad to worse for Andy's toys as Buzz cages them all and has them follow a strict timeline.

Woody on the other hand was taken home accidentally by the daycare owner's daughter Bonnie. It's here where Woody winds up finally being played with and while he enjoys it, he still wants to get back to Andy. It is only through him saying his friends are at Sunnyside does he find out the dangers of the place and goes back to rescue them.

Thanks to Woody, the toys are able to escape through a garbage shoot but are stopped by Lotso the bear who winds up taking them with him into the garbage dump. While they're betrayed by Lotso and they fall into the incinerator, before they're incinerated, the three aliens from Pizza Planet whom Mr. Potato Head saved, winds up saving them using "the claw" to take them out before being fried.

The toys are eventually able to make it back to Andy just before he leaves, and they are then taken to Bonnie once more. Andy introduces each of them, and winds up playing with them and Bonnie one last time. It's at this point where I wound up crying because after growing up with the series, I couldn't help but feel sad after all of what has happened over the past fifteen years. The movie ends with Andy finally driving away, but not without first looking back at Woody and Buzz and saying to himself "Thanks guys.". This probably got me the most of all, but it was such a heartwarming film. And the dance scene at the end was also quite fun to watch just to lift your spirits after such a sad and touching ending.

So that's my review about Toy Story 3. I apologize if I spoiled it for people, but that's just how I review movies I suppose. :) Hope you enjoyed that.

As for the Princess Diaries topic, I love this series, and I just really wanted to quote something from the final book of the series that really put life in perspective.

"As you get older, you lose things, things you don't necessarily want to lose. Some things as simple as . . . well, your baby teeth when you're a little kid, as they make way for your adult teeth.

But as you age, you lose other, even more important things, like friends - hopefully only bad friends who maybe weren't as good for you as you once thought. With luck, you'll be able to hang on to your true friends, the ones who were always there for you . . . even when you thought they weren't.

Because friends like that are more precious than all the tiaras in the world.

I've also learned that there are things you want to lose . . . like that hat you throw into the air on graduation day. I mean, why would you want to hold on to it? High school sucks. People who say those were the best four years of your life - these people are liars. . . . Who wants the best years of their lives to be in high school? High school is something everybody should be ready to lose."

Just to interject here with my own thoughts, I have to say I agree. High school was probably the most horrible part of my life seeing as how I was still unaware of my autism and while I seemed fine amongst the popular kids, namely because I didn't hang around with them too much, it was my "friends" in my group that I hung around with who all but abandoned me because they thought I was too weird or I had pissed them off with my ramblings or interceding on their personal space or conversations. But as Mia says above, hopefully you'll only lose bad friends, and frankly in this case it's all to true because the ones I've kept are still great people, whereas the ones I lost turned out to be nice on the outside but completely rotten on the inside :).

Continuing on:

"And then there are the things you thought you wanted to lose, but didn't . . . and now you're glad you didn't."

So to me that's pretty good words from Meg Cabot, the writer of this book. And frankly it really gives an interesting outlook to life. So hopefully you all take it into consideration yourselves, as I know I have.

Finally the last thing I need to talk about is the teacher of the student I've been tutoring. He got his essay back that I helped him in the grammar and sentence structure, and now the teacher is refusing to give him a good mark which she said it's at about a 90% or higher level essay, because she thinks it's not his work >_>. Apparently she doesn't realize that at times editing grammar can make a paper look slightly different, or that perhaps some students are better at different things. They might be better at essays when their answers to study questions might not be as well written. It just ticks me off that she's doubting his work and not giving him a mark for it. Hopefully it all gets sorted out, but I just had to post a bit about that because of how frustrating it is.

Anyway...talk to you all soon!

Sean

HELLO WEEKEND!

Hey Everyone!

So it's finally the weekend, which makes me quite happy. Especially since tomorrow (Saturday) I get to see Toy Story 3 :D I'm definitely looking forward to it and I definitely will be giving you all a review of the movie once I see it. Autism-wise not much has happened in the last two days. I think I kind of came off a bit abrasive to my Mom when talking about my courses and how one of my courses I might be unable to take due to the teacher being out of the office.

On a lighter note, I was actually just accepted into the Creative Writing course at King's for the upcoming year which is AWESOME! Though hopefully the writing samples I gave on this blog helped possibly prove that I'm suppose to be in that course. But anyway, I think that's all for today and yesterday.

I'll talk to you all later!
Sean

School Blues -_-

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for the absence the past two days, been busy with things and since I kept falling asleep so early, I've kind of been forgetting to post. Just to recap; Monday I had to meet with an academic counselor in London after hanging out with Lauren, but unbelievably I waited an hour and a half just to meet with a counselor for about 10 minutes. It was so unbelievably ridiculous that despite me getting to the Academic Dean's office on time to sign up for a meeting, it still took an hour and a half! When I finally got that done I had to e-mail this Professor to try and get permission to register for her course but I get an e-mail from her telling me she's out of the office. So now not only will I possibly be unable to get into the course because she doesn't return till July 1 and the course selections start June 24, and there's only 20 seats available in the course, BUT I also don't know if there's a course I can take as a replacement should I be unable to get into the course! It's just stressing me out more than it probably should but I can't help but be stressed...this is my final full year of my Undergrad in Psychology...so I want to get as many credits as I possibly can before next April so that I only have a few left to take come September 2011.

As for Tuesday, that was a relatively dull day as it was my day off from work. Hell's Kitchen was about the only good thing about it that wasn't boring :P.

And today, Wednesday, I was worried I wouldn't be able to meet my friend to get a key to his place as I have to stay in London come the 26th and 27th because of Budget Weekend for the KUCSC. So obviously I needed to have a place to stay for that night but luckily my friend came through.

Autism-wise, I was rambling again too much about the course selection things and couldn't think to just stop and let it go, but you can hopefully understand my reasoning behind it.

Anyway, that's all for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday :P
Sean

Working Out, and a Thank-You to Everyone!

Well, that didn't work out the way I planned it :P. I hope you all had a good day today though. I have to say mine was sadly, quite dull. Apart from the normal working with Chris, and playing with my nephew, the only eventful thing that happened (if you can call it eventful) was me starting the next part of my work out.

I've actually been running three times a week and have been following this plan about how to go from a couch potato, to running 5K. Basically you start off by having a five minute brisk walk, and then start alternating between 60 seconds of jogging, followed by 90 seconds of walking and you basically repeat this for twenty minutes. Now of course, that's only the first week. The second week you up the time so you're doing 90 seconds of jogging and the same of walking. Third week you do 90 seconds again but cut the walking back to only 60 seconds. And basically the plan is to try and get you running for a total of 30 minutes with no walking breaks in between. I do hope I actually can stick to it because one of my big things is that I generally drop a work out after a certain point simply because I lose any enjoyment from it, and it's just a case of pain and annoyance. But 'm hoping I'll stick to it for the summer and hopefully will be able to tone some muscle that I desperately need :P.

Autism-wise, I think the only thing that really happened was I started rambling to my mom about something or other today. She had to tell me I was rambling before I even realized it, which I'll admit I feel a bit silly for but what can you do?

Anyway that's all for tonight/yesterday night, also just a little interesting tidbit. I calculated up all the views I've had of this blog on OS, and I've reached over 13,000 views! And combined with the 2,675 views on this Blogspot version of the blog, my blog has reached over 15,000 views! It's kind of a wow moment for me, and I really want to say thank-you to everyone who's been reading my blog. Those of you who have been faithful readers, reading many of my blogs I thank you! And to those of you who have just started, I thank you as well!

Have a great night/day/whenever you read this post :P

Sean

Gran's Birthday

Hey Everyone!

Pretty uneventful day for the most part except that I had a great time celebrating my grandmother's 92nd birthday. Hard to believe she's already 92, and me, I'm just 22 :P. Anyway autism-wise, nothing really happened at all except that I became apparently un-coachable because of my driving which I still don't understand. I see people driving with cell phones still, I see them texting, I see them driving with headphones or eating. Me? Two hands on the wheel, watching out, and just because I came up to an intersection even a LITTLE bit fast, and I emphasize because I was still in the process of slowing down and it would of all been fine none the less unless the brakes were cut :P, my Mom calls me uncoachable. No one likes backseat drivers, let's face it...and while I appreciate my Mom's help, it just frustrated me a bit that my driving was being criticized again despite her saying I drove quite well on my way back from Elgin Manor yesterday. And that's also my autism, not being able to let it go....

Sorry for the rant, and I'll talk to you all tomorrow.
Sean

School of Rock

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for missing Sunday, just didn't have a lot to tell, so I figured I'd just forget about it. Today was relatively normal, worked with Chris and watched Lemony Snicket's, and tutored Matt in English once again. The thing I was very happy to hear from my mom is that they talked with Matt's mother who said that his teacher said he's improving a lot, so I'm really glad I'm helping.

Autism-wise, I guess the only thing that happened was while talking to friends on Facebook, one of them stopped responding after I said something and I thought for a short time maybe I had annoyed them. Turns out I hadn't, but often when I think that, I start saying a lot of things, apologizing if I offended them which in most cases I haven't. It might not be autism, this, but even if it's not, it's one of my quirks that I don't really like because it could make me look crazy to them....go figure.

Anyway, that's all tonight!
Sean

Without You

Hey Everyone,

So today I've been doing some thinking and for today's post, rather than doing something about my day, I just want to post a beautiful song that I really inspires oneself to dream basically.

"I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest swing.
I had a dream.

Long walks in the dark through woods grown behind the park, I asked God who I'm supposed to be.
The stars smiled down on me, God answered in silent reverie. I said a prayer and fell asleep.

I had a dream
That I could fly from the highest tree.
I had a dream.

Now I'm old and feeling grey. I don't know what's left to say about this life I'm willing to leave.
I lived it full and I lived it well, there's many tales I've lived to tell. I'm ready now, I'm ready now, I'm ready now to fly from the highest wing.

I had a dream."

And here's the video featuring pictures from Bride Wars. The singer's name is Priscilla Ahn. Sorry for the video being slightly cut on the side, it's just due to Blogspot:



Edit: Okay okay, I changed my mind. Basically today, I had a photo shoot with my old friend Lisa, and I had a blast with it. Following of course was me getting my blood work done that I had put off for so long just because I continually forgot to go but oh well, it's done now. After that was work with Chris as always, where we just finished off Bewitched and then watched New Moon. After this was basically a really dull evening of video games, tutoring and watching some tv.

The only autistic thing I can think of that happened was me finding it difficult to sleep once more because I had to be home alone for the night as my parents went away for the night. They're back soon so I'll be fine sooner or later, just tonight was difficult.

Anyway that's all tonight!
Sean

Birthday Are Fun :D

Hey Everyone!

So my 22nd birthday was awesome in my opinion. I got cards from my family members, went out to dinner and to the movies to see Kick-Ass with one of my best friends, Jean, and then came back and watched Star Trek. It was a good time all in all.

Autism-wise was that I at times interrupted Jean a couple times more than I should have. She didn't mind of course, but I still wished I hadn't.

I can't really say much else today. Sorry people :(

Have a great night!
Sean

It's Coming...

Hey Everyone,

So question for everyone, why do we celebrate birthdays? Yes, yes, we've turned another year older and are developing more mentally everyday, maturing in our minds and erm...bodies. But anyhow, why do we celebrate growing older? Personally I think it's simply a factor that we celebrate that we are getting older and wiser and as a result will be able to look back on our years with more sensibility and respect, and also will be able to critique things in the past we've done that we felt could have been done differently. But what is your opinion on this? Am I right? Or do you think we celebrate birthdays for a completely different reason?

Why am I asking this question of you? It's quite simple, tomorrow is my 22nd birthday. Shocking no? 22 years I've been on this planet and frankly I simply can't believe that I'm 8 years away from the big 30. So anyway, that's basically all I have to say about this matter, and I want you to just think about why we celebrate birthdays. Maybe you'll get some ideas and want to share. If not, then share them with your friends :).

Just so you know, I may do this once in a while from now on. Instead of talking about my day, I'll ask you guys and gals questions to think about, or just talk about something I've been thinking about myself.

Autism-wise, today the only thing that really happened was going to London I accidentally forgot my key to my friend's place, and since I felt so bad about it I kept bringing it up when my Dad and I drove back home. He eventually told me not to worry about it, and it's not as though he had to go home to St. Thomas to grab my key and bring it back so I could stay the night because of an exam, we just needed to get in there to grab the last few things so I could leave the place as my friend was moving out of said place and therefore I obviously couldn't stay there anymore.

So night everyone!
Sean

We Break the Dawn

Hey Everyone!

Busy, busy day compared to yesterday. Had to head over to King's for my interview for Website Commissioner for the KUCSC, then had to head to main for music ensemble practice, and then back to King's for class. The ensemble practice went find in my opinion, I'm getting better and better at harmony as time goes by, and I think I should be ready for the performance in class tomorrow. I just hope it works out find.

As for Speech class, it was basically just more of the class doing their manuscripts. This consisted of course of speeches ranging from Humanitarian Intervention, to Feminism, to Star Trek. It definitely was an interesting group of speeches and we're going to have so many to do in our final class next week since there are at least 12 more speeches to go, mine being one of them which I plan to do on love. Sex and the City has definitely given me an interesting look into love so I figure why not give it a shot?

Lauren, John and I headed to Christina's after, where we just chatted about King's Players some more and HOPEFULLY I'll be getting a position on the VP Council for KP because I'd love to be "on the front lines" :P. During this, once again I felt like I had to interrupt in certain parts of the conversation or got very frustrated when I couldn't finish my sentence. I think this is part of my autism, because something in my brain basically tells me to get quite frustrated when I can't finish what I'm in the middle of saying.

That's all for tonight!
Sean