Into My Autistic Mind: My Year so far

Hello everybody, this is George Harvey (aka The Autistic Blogger). It’s taking me a bit longer to finish the last part of my Life, Animated Review. So in the meantime here’s another peek into my Autistic mind. You all know the drill by now. Everything you read below will be the raw, unfiltered thoughts that go through my head as I’m writing. Only this time, I’ll be trying to focus primarily on what I’ve been up to the past couple of months. Enjoy:

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It’s hard to believe it’s already been two months since the New Year. I’m thinking of fireworks and the ending to My Little Pony: the Movie. Which had fireworks. I just made “New Year” have capital letters. My sister is home and playing music on the radio. I’m sitting in the dining room. The table is turned in a new position to what it used to be. It’s apparently so the room looks bigger. My room has been completely repainted. I still can’t get the ending of MLP: the Movie out of my mind. Now I’m thinking of the Rugrats in Paris movie and a scene with Angelica and Chuckie. Saying that name makes me think of the Child’s Play movies – and the original film’s poster. Now – SORRY – sorry again my typing is a bit off. I keep mistyping and putting things in capital letters. I’m typing on my laptop instead of my iPad like I usually do. I remember an old kid’s show called Out of the Box that I used to watch with my sister on Playhouse Disney. I just paused to look at the bullet points I’m trying to stick to. To think, by the time I post this it will be the first of March – excuse me, March 1st. Then the old £10 notes will no longer be useable and people will have to be 16 in order to buy energy drinks, according to the new law. Give me a second. Sorry about that. I just had to move some things around. I needed to plug in my laptop as it was running low on power. Sorry, I just tried to type something there, but then thought better of it. Okay, now my laptop is charging. I just had to flip the switch. I’ve been quite tired today. I was up until 4:45am last night watching WWE Elimination Chamber on the WWE Network. I can’t believe I’d never subscribed to it before now. I’m thinking about somebody I sent an email to today. Anyway, I’m hoping when Wrestlemania comes around this year that I’m not working the morning after. If I’m free that Monday morning I’ll be able to watch the whole thing live Sunday night. But if not, I’ll have to watch it on catch up instead. I’m sure my friends will be watching it live too. Anyway, I remember New Year’s Eve. Sorry I’m constantly thinking of MLP. It’s probably because I watched somebody’s blind reaction to it on YouTube last night as well as Elimination Chamber. I didn’t get up until 11:45 this morning. And even then I had an hour’s nap to make up for the hour I missed sleeping this morning. I just had to say hello to somebody there. As I was saying, I remember New Year’s Eve. I didn’t have any plans until my aunt invited me to go out to dinner with her, my uncle and my cousin. There was a man there who wasn’t too happy with the service and had to be physically thrown out of the restaurant for disturbing the peace. I had a hard time spelling “restaurant” there. Thank goodness for auto-correct. I’m thinking of the Rugrats again. It was definitely one of my favourite Nick Toons. They even released a couple of PlayStation games, which I would play at my dad’s house. Anyway, I remember after dinner I went back to my aunt’s house and I had my laptop with me. I was racing to finish not just my last edition of Into my Autistic Mind but the review I’d been working on for five months. I’m thinking of an episode of SpongeBob and the Simpson’s Hit and Run game. I was able to upload both pieces onto my blog with something like 5 or 15 minutes left before the New Year arrived. It was actually kind of thrilling to finish them before the countdown. Since the New Year a lot has happened. One second, I’m thinking of an episode the Powerpuff Girls and a Lilo and Stitch movie. With everything that’s been happening I’ve been very busy. I had wanted to post something other than this edition of Into My Autistic Mind, since I do like to give my readers a bit of variety and I never want to seem lazy. However, with the deadline approaching fast, Feburary being – I can never spell “February” right on my first attempt – February being such a short month and all the hours I’ve been working, I knew I’d never complete on time. I think I’ll save it for a later month when I can actually put more effort into it, instead of rushing it to completion. I want to avoid doing things like that now. Which is why one of my New Year’s resolutions was to take my writing more seriously. I’ve been going over some GCSE English revision guides I bought a while back, I’ve been planning things more clearly and thinking about when best to write. I think it really is helping. Just this month I posted a review of the DS game Pokemon Ranger and it only took me a few weeks to finish, instead of five whole months. I just thought of a Comic Relief segment that was made a few years ago. The one where Alan Sugar is a contestant on Dragon’s Den. Now I’m remembering the one with Smithy (James Cordon/Gavin and Stacey) and various celebrities debating who should do the appeal film in Africa. There’s also the one where David Tennant was first playing Doctor Who; the one with Doctor Who and Lauren Cooper (The Catherine Tate Show); the one with Lauren Cooper in a war of words with Peggy (Eastenders). Wait? Was that last one a Comic Relief sketch? Actually no, maybe none of them were. I might be getting mixed up with Children in Need. It’s a shame Terry Wogan passed away a couple of years ago. I remember that sketch where he appeared alongside Lee Mack on the set of Not Going Out. I’m thinking of the Don Bluth film All Dogs go to Heaven for some reason. I’ve just heated the tea that I have and made a few text messages. Another thing that has kept me busy these past couple of months has been my drama. It wasn’t long ago I was performing in a panto of The Wizard of Oz. My characters were: a posh school boy; a munchkin in a red outfit, which I really liked; a crow with a Jamaican accent; a forest animal; a Poppy; and Winkie Soldier, who starts off tough, but then reveals he’s gay. Did I mention this was a modern retelling of The Wizard of Oz? It was a bit more like The Wiz. We even had the song Ease on Down the Road playing at the end of Act One. Apparently, it’s the biggest song in musical version of The Wiz, but in the movie version it wasn’t performed well. They just has Michael Jackson (as the Scarecrow) and the actress playing Dorothy performing the number with their backs to the camera and filmed it at least 30ft away. I’m thinking of the Spy Kids movies. But I did really like playing those parts. We had a real dog playing Toto, before he becomes an actor in a furry costume once Dorothy arrives in Oz. I could tell you a lot more about the panto, but then I could also write a whole other piece on that. I’m looking forward to going back to the hall where we rehearse this Sunday. We’ll all be watching a DVD of Dream. Which is what we called our show that was dedicated to Disney songs. Out of all the shows I’ve done so far I think Annie Get Your Gun was my favourite. Have any of you ever heard of the song Muffin Time? Go look it up on YouTube. It’s really catchy and gets stuck in your head. I’m thinking of an old PlayStation 2 game I had called Spyro: A Hero’s Tail. I actually had two copies of the game since the first one got scratched and became unplayable. I’m only just realising I’ll have a lot of editing to do after I’m do. This piece is already two pages long. As for my work life, things have been improving. There was a very long period of time where I wasn’t getting my contracted hours and I was starting to dislike working at the store in Welling. Since the New Year I’ve returned to Eltham and things have been a lot better. Being a small store it’s easier to get around and you get the chance to do more than just one job all the time – before I was only ever working on the tills. Now I work on the self-scan, de-card the store, help tidy up, etc. Plus, since the store isn’t overstaffed like the Welling one was, I’m getting my contracted hours now. In fact, the last two weeks I’ve been given almost double my weekly hours. So all in all, things are going well for me at the moment. However, I know this year will bring a lot of changes. Not too long ago I completed an online course in SEN, and I’m hoping this will allow me to find employment as a Teaching Assistant. I’ve even purchased another course which is tailored to exactly that. I’m also hoping to use what I learn in the book series I’m planning to write someday. I’ve been putting it off for much too long now and I really want to see if I can make a break as a published author. I might even get my very own place to live. It’s something I’ve been interested in doing for a while and it seems like the ideal time to do it. I also think I should try online dating as well. So much to do, so little free time to do it all. I’ll have to make sure I stay organised. I’m thinking of another Powerpuff Girls episode now. Actually, two. Now three. Now Disney’s The Kid. Now Holes. Now Goosebumps – which I wrote a review on once. And now Rugrats the movie. Now Doug’s First Movie, which I’ve never actually seen myself. I’ve just seen clips and snippets. This could go on for a while if I let it. I’ve said pretty much all I want to say. Hopefully, by the end of next month I’ll be finished with my Life, Animated Review. Then I can start debating about what to post for the 3rd Anniversary of this blog. I’m thinking of an old Cartoon Network show I used to love called Cubix. This is a good place to stop I think. I’m less than 25 words from this piece being 1900 words long – introduction included. If I think of anything else to say while I’m editing maybe I’ll add it in somewhere. I won’t change things too much though, as these are meant to be my raw, unfiltered thoughts. Whose Line is it Anyway just popped into my head. And wrestling and the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and King Kong vs Godzilla and the original American remake of Godzilla. I’m just rambling now. I hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve had to say. Now I’m at 1969 words.

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If you have any questions regarding Autism or some of my pieces on it, then please feel free to leave me a comment – I’ll be happy to answer them. As I said, I will try to complete the last part of my Life, Animated Review by the beginning of next month. I hope you’ll enjoy it when it’s released. And until then, stay tuned.

Into My Autistic Mind 2

Last week I posted ‘Into My Autistic Mind’, which allowed readers a glimpse into my thoughts. Because of a generous comment made about it by somebody who’s as passionate about raising awareness of Autism as me, I decided to do another one.

This time I’m in a different environment, at a different time of day, with different thoughts on my mind.

Again the following lines may seem like random gibberish to you. But they are the actual, unfiltered, thoughts I had whilst writing this blog post.

I only have a short time to do this. It’s 9:46, my shift starts in … wait how many minutes is that before 10:30? Well it doesn’t matter it’s changed to 09:47 now. People are going in and out of the door to my right. I sit on this sofa so often before I start work at ASDA that practically everyone knows who I am just because I sit here. I can here the music that plays in the store, someone else just came through the door and a light has gone dark to my left – it’s motion activated. I’m thinking of an old robot dog that used to be sold called Texter or something. I’m remembering and advert of him and I just had to make three corrections in my writing. I still remember the advert for that dog. Now I’m thinking of a scene from ‘Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva’. I love that movie – I even wrote a review about it. I love the games too. The crossover game with Phonex – sorry – ‘Phoenix Wright’ was stressful though. What can I say, I’m a puzzle-solver not a lawyer. I’m glad I have auto-correct on my iPad sometimes. I’m still thinking of that scene from the ‘Professor Layton’ movie. Oh great now in effort to forget it I’m thinking of ‘My Little Pony’ again, but only briefly. There’s a window to an office a little way over to my right. Now I’m thinking of the host – sorry a phone just rang – as I was saying, I was thinking of the host of ‘Deal or No Deal’ and Mr. Blooby, but now I’m thinking of the Rock and WWE. I’ve not seen many of the Rock’s movies but he’s great on the microphone. ‘My Little Pony’ keeps trying to sneak into my head but I’m not going to let it. I almost wrote head as ‘hear’ just now. And ‘as’ as ‘and’. And ‘as’ as ‘an’. Gosh, that’s the trouble when you have so many short words beginning with ‘a’. I’m thinking of a play station – sorry, Playstation is one word. I’m thinking of a Playstation game I used to play, called ‘Spyro: Year of the Dragon’. Now suddenly the DVD menu of ‘Shrek 2’ is in my head. It’s really funny. Now there’s an anime in my head that had vampires in it, now ‘Monsters vs Aliens’ and an image of Barack Obama in 3-D glasses. And now Pokemon is in my head for some reason – thank you again just now auto-correct. I’m trying to focus on other things but it’s hard. I’ve got ‘Powerpuff Girls’ in my head now. Clearly my iPad doesn’t like words like ‘Spyro’ and ‘Powerpuff’. Now another Spyro game is in my head. I just misspelt ‘another’ and almost misspelt ‘misspelt’ (twice). Now I have a ‘Crash Bandicoot’ game in my head. It’s part of a watchmojo.com top ten video. I love those videos – and they’re published everyday. But my favourite – having trouble spelling out ‘Internet’. My favourite Internet … Wow I just paused a long time. What I’m trying to say is I like Mat Brunet – not sure that’s the correct spelling. But his videos on animation are just great. He does reviews, animation look-backs (I corrected look-backs twice), the Epic Mickey files and more. Wow, I suddenly can’t think of anything, that’s weird. Oh, but now I’m thinking of David Tennant, Billie Piper and ‘Doctor Who’. I’m thinking of the first official episode those two actors were in together after the Doctor regenerated. For some reason ‘Conker’s Bad Fur Day’ is on my mind – a really mature video game that involves a binge-drinking squirrel among other things. Drinking has reminded me of one of the final episodes to another anime. And one of the character’s saying ‘Dokey-Oakey’ (clearly very drunk). It’s 10:10 now and I’ve only got 20mins left. My word-count says 3,718 words but I know I have other things on this document beside this post. I’ll copy and paste this onto the actual blog later and attach all the tags. I just had to go over a few sentences there to correct them slightly. Now I remember Woody from ‘Toy Story’ in an activity centre computer game I had once, based around ‘Toy Story 2’. I had a ‘Lion King’ screensaver for my computer once, which changed weekly. I just had to scratch my wrist there. Other thoughts are still coming into my head, but I should stop now. Otherwise I’ll keep writing and I’ll start my shift 1 or 2 minutes late like I usually do. But I do like this sofa. I’ve done all sorts of things on it before starting my shift, reading, playing my DS, writing reviews, thinking of movies like ‘Mary Poppins’ – that thought is happening right now actually. But anyway I should stop now.

Hopefully this one long paragraph has allowed you to get even more of an idea of my life and the thoughts that go through my head nearly every second of the day. If you like what I’ve written, then check out the first ‘Into my Autistic Mind’ post and leave me a comment. I should have something different for you next week, so keep an eye out for the next post. Stay tuned.