TEN THINGS THAT AUTISTIC NICK HAS BEEN DOING TO COMBAT BOREDOM DURING MY SELF ISOLATION

Since the coronavirus outbreak hit Australia, every citizen without realising it has morphed into someone from the Hunger Games.

First it was the K-Mart mums Facebook hack group that everyone had to be part of, it starts out pleasantly enough, you like a few posts, you read the various threads and then one day you have that moment that all those mums live for.

It’s called the hack of the week. It’s the one thing that divides these K-Mart mum’s group

It must be ingenious and must save you time and money.

You cannot just post any old hack it has to be one that ends up going viral and you get a week’s worth of fame.

That taste of appearing in news articles online doesn’t ever leave you and their end game is to have the hack of the week each and every week.

Nothing will stop them in their gain for hack supremacy.

Then it became about how much toilet paper and pasta you could legally shove into your car before it became deemed a death trap by the highway cops.

As soon as the scaremongering began, it was every person for themselves in this dog eat dog world.

People began to adopt the all for one and one for all mentality, and as soon as supermarkets opened out would come the competitiveness of each Aussie.

People were shoved, pushed and spat on.

Shop assistants were being abused, Google alerts were being set up for when someone in eight suburbs over had found some precious hard to come by toilet paper, but it didn’t end there, the next item on the shelves to be snatched was pasta, dry, wet, or in a ready made meal. It too was taken until the shelves were left bare.

Aloe Vera became the next sought-after product to be swiped and made into home-made hand sanitiser.

I’m still very bitter about this last product. I use this to shave with as I can only shave with a plant-based gel.

No thought was given to me when you were all shoving it into your baskets, and then smugly walking towards the till, where you proceeded to hand over your chemist loyalty card to gain 10 points.

No! You just smugly paid for the gel and then hurried home as fast as you could to watch your step-by-step YouTube video made by some Byron Bay local.

I hope your sanitiser explodes in the night, seeping all over your Carrera marble countertop and as you sleep a little drop falls slowly into your farmhouse sink.

And as for the rest of you, well I hope that with all that extra pasta you bought but didn’t actually need, I hope that by the time you’ve made your 28^th pasta dish your sick of it.

Because unlike Lizzie from MAFS (Married At First Sight) an Australian reality show, where people get ‘married’ (not legally) and then live with that person which they called a social experiment to see if you fall in love with them.

Basically, it’s really where people enter into a relationship only to pick each other apart and point out their flaws and shortcomings, with a group of cameras’ around to capture every moment.

Lizzie had a genius hack.

One which everyone should employ.

Basically, Lizzie has some what I’m going to call ‘Overnight’ fun, when it’s over by the next morning, Lizzie isn’t expecting to have any breakfast made for her, so as she slips out into the cold light of the next day, she reaches into her handbag and voila nestled inside a plastic lock and seal resealable sandwich bag are some biscuits.

Now that’s a hack that the K-Mart mother’s group don’t have a post about.

But let’s back away from Lizzie, she has to remember which part of town she’s in and where she can catch a bus from, or where the nearest train station is or does, she have enough credit on her phone to book an Uber driver?

Here are my top then things that I am doing to combat my isolation boredom

ONE

I’m listening to podcasts when they are available here is my list

MOVIE REVIEWS IN 20 Q’s

itun.es/nz/Vsedfb.c

Or Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/3RZcVIbJXrnzSmaeB50wHd…

Find us on Pod bean here:

www.mritqs.podbean.com

Stitcher:

https://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=57173403&autoplay=1

TASTELESS WITH EMILY HIGGINS

https://www.tastelesspod.com/?fbclid=IwAR2nnhEeYHTlmSq2OgpOxf-huT-w8w5HEcWLjS5zmshR8T0Nj3fMYptv6tk

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tasteless/id1345840002?mt=2&fbclid=IwAR1ONgJZXcWz71m66FqbarPXl2ng8WqDMXVb8LlE4LFx9Uhij17cWRI14Ek

TV BLACKBOX AND TV BINGE BOX

Visit our website: https://tvblackbox.net

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/tv-blackbox-mcknight-tonight/id1415436461?mt=2

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/tv-bingebox/id1502393371

THE RETRO CINEMA

To listen to the Retro Cinema episode’s, click on the links below

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-retro-cinema-podcast/id1149687923

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-retro-cinema

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Media–Entertainment-Podcasts/The-Retro-Cinema-Podcast-p909089/

THE CONTRARIANS

http://www.wearethecontrarians.com/

TWO

I’m doing daily workouts via YouTube and the body coach I’ve already done the 7 days of sweat challenge and now I’m moving onto home fat burners

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvn3HlSxYdM&list=PLyCLoPd4VxBvRUzoyE1MDE_BR60d5B4JC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXmdXilQaqA&list=PLyCLoPd4VxBsbpNdYQH1K5nFhaPYyhFDz

THREE

I’m going on daily walks around the suburb that I live in just to get some fresh air into my lungs and clear my head. Which in turn helps to relive my anxiety due to the fact that there are no biscuits left on the shelf so I cannot live my life like Lizzie from MAFS and have a readily handy snack as I step out into the cold light of day adjusting my eyes to the surroundings.

FOUR

I am keeping in contact with close friends by either texting them, messaging them via Facebook Messenger, or telegram. As a family me, my sister and my mum regularly check in on each other to make sure that we’re ok.

FIVE

I have bought myself a new word search book and each day I sit outside in my garden and do one to two-word searches. I bought mine for $4 from K-Mart. *Please note that the book was purchased before the outbreak occurred*

SIX

I’ve been doing some yoga with Sammy J

SEVEN

I’ve been playing solitaire on my I-Pad trying to beat my personal best time of 25 seconds. So far, it’s not happened yet!

EIGHT

I’ve been meditating as I’ve had a few panic attacks recently this is a great one that I’ve done.

So, you sit up against a wall and close your eyes, you then imagine that you are a rock in a rock pool, as you hear the water coming down from then waterfall, it comes towards you and washes over you. The water in this instance is your worries and stresses being washed away. You can also get yourself into a relaxed state, by getting comfortable, scanning the body for tension and relaxing the muscles

Selecting a favourite peaceful place which is real or imagined

Focusing the imagination using all 5 senses

Using affirmations such as repeating ‘I am letting go of tension’; or ‘I am feeling peaceful’.

NINE

Posting funny content on my Facebook page like this one from a few weeks ago because we should allow ourselves and give ourselves permission to laugh.

TEN

I’ve been listening to music and watching music videos on YouTube, remember when they were a thing? It was the pinnacle moment in a singer songwriters’ career when a music video could make or break a person’s career. Nowadays it’s all about how many streams and downloads they’ve had and there all shooting their video clips (how times have changed) on their bloody tiktok accounts! Because they’re millennials and they’re lazy.

Remember you are not alone in this, we’re all in this together and as such Emeli Sandé has written a song titled ‘You are not alone’ which is very handy for this week’s blog.

Carry On The Conversation

How are you coping during the coronavirus?

What things are you doing to entertain yourself?

Let me know in the comments below.

As always, I can also be found on Twitter:@AutisticNickAU and on the Autistic Nick Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/AutisticNickAU/

Thank you for reading and I will see you next time for more thoughts from across the spectrum.

PS For all those people who literally took every box containing pasta here’s some recipes for you to enjoy as you look back into your pantry and wonder why you bought 25 packets for when in fact you didn’t need to.

https://www.womansday.com/food-recipes/food-drinks/g2324/pasta-recipes/