ASPECT Conference presentation transcript

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Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me here today. Hope you all enjoying the conference event so far. My name is Mathew Townsend. This is my second presentation with the ASPECT conferences. Today I will talk about ‘Master of Aspie: sharing perspectives’. This is a second version from my first presentation. Though things has changed a lot since, so it is important to reflect on those aspects. This is an exciting thing for you all. By the way this is my first time visit to Melbourne!

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-          So what about my world today? I am currently completing my Master degree thesis on ‘How does different vegetation, material and building type impacts on the surface temperatures?’ This study is at the University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus, up in Brisbane. The Master of Environmental Management degree will be concluded by the completion of my thesis which is on the 3^rd of June. I am expected to graduate in mid-July.

-          Over past years I entitled my passions to my personal values and goals. I am passionate in environmental sustainability and political science. These interests explores frequently every day because the influence of my like-minded friends. I do have other interest that inspires me such as climate and weather, astronomy, urban planning and design, fitness and riding a bicycle.

-          Before my first presentation at Sydney in 2014, I only visited to the United States and Canada as the main overseas destinations I been to. However, I have added more to the list more recently as part of my career experience. I visited Vietnam, Hong Kong, China and Macau.

-          My career pathway can be challenging because of competitiveness I have earned especially in the past year. I would feel desired to become a politician to save our global issues from my personal experience. Otherwise I am more likely to end up working for an employment, hopefully!

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So before moving onto sharing my perspectives. I wanted to briefly describe my situation, so it helps to give you a big picture of what a person with high functioning Autism and hearing loss lifestyle currently at this stage of life.

-          What happened to me in the past year? I have moved out of regional NSW area to the city of Brisbane to start a new life. Studying at the well-known university in the world, volunteering in many events and organisations, had few short employment opportunities, a three month internship. So this is not only ones that has changed my life. It is also that I never made so many friends. I used to feel lonely more often before moving to Brisbane because there are nothing to do especially for people at my age. So I met lot of likeminded people especially through my university, which leads to meet more new people out in the community of similar values. The network has grown since then so I can meet new people from anywhere.

-          Changing the way how I interact with people can be advantageous thing that would help to broaden my horizons and open the gates to the learning different perspectives. So yes I did change the way how I put people’s position in the conversation. Engaging a conversation is really difficult, but the more you try is the better you get along with them. So what changes I made? I finally made a decision of my life is to disclose my challenges. How hard is it to me to listen when they are speaking, explaining the environmental factors that distract the conversation, and describe how I miscue the social skills.

-          Did I motivated to learn new things? The simple answer to this question is yes. Since I mentioned that I made a move from a regional area to a city earlier last year. What lead me to make this decision? Opportunities. Usually someone on the spectrum doesn’t like change. So they usually confined to one place for the majority of the time due to their passion and obsession. I realised that it didn’t made me happy when I stayed at one place for long time because of nothing is offering me. So it convinced me to see the city where I should able to learn to be more independent.

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Now let’s talk about learning and sharing perspectives. This part will give you an insight how I worked with my friends giving a perspective onto each other’s especially to a singular point of mind. This will help you to see where I am coming from, and how did my friends managed.

-          Awaring the way I behave in reflection to my friends’ reactions – this is something I am not normally good at knowing myself that my behaviour did impact on my friends’ feelings, emotions, and comfort level and ‘what to say back’. How I become fully aware of this? After I disclose my challenges to my friends in the earlier days of the friendships, this become a way to help me to learn how to reflect my behaviour. I tend to become obsessed talking about a specific topic, which that most of my friends do have similar interests but sometimes I didn’t know it is too much for them. So they politely tell me we are talking about something else because they understand that my conditions is responsible of the obsessions. The sensory overload in the environment is another awareness that my friends started to understand how to minimise the challenges. For instance, background music or other noise is too loud for a conversation. So they recommended to turn it down a bit or relocate to a suitable place. Sometimes they are mindful about my challenges, but also I am mindful for theirs.

-          Learning to speak up about the challenges – this is critically most important thing that happened to my life. This method has changed my life, made so many vast improvements especially in areas of friendships, relationships, communication strategies and social skills. In the early days I used to have social anxiety, because I have a fear people become aggravated about my challenges. I overcame this when I felt comfortable at one stage speaking to a new friend last year, she encouraged me to build trust with people and making new friendships is something to speak about what challenges you have they will understand. It about expressing my feelings in social settings, this has improved today. Seeking support and advice is an everyday thing because of new situations emerges thus require new strategies. But again, it improves over time.

-          When someone speaks out about their personal challenges and life issues, it normally encourages other people to do a same. In my case when I express my feelings of communication isolation and other challenges, it has encouraged some of my friends to tell me their issues especially with anxiety and depression, privately. None of the friends in the larger circle does know there is some people have these issues. So what I believe I have admired people to understand about the aspects of the challenges, which that helped me to understand theirs. That when the anxiety comes from, because I won’t take judgement of their behaviour. But hey this is a really good thing to share perspectives?

 

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Now I am going to speak from my perspective on what I have learned from the challenges.

-          What communication and social skills I aware that I may not adapt to? This is a tricky question but it is reflective to my friend’s behaviour towards me. The communication barrier is more on the hearing loss rather than the spectrum side. So my group of friends who are able to response to each other’s requests on time, I was unable to respond that quickly because I couldn’t hear them properly. It a same how I respond to a social skill or setting, most of the time it hard to know if I am doing it appropriately. My reflections towards them is not a same when they do to me originally.

-          Sensory complications especially noise, light and crowds. Hanging out with friends, going to work’s social gatherings and community events that I like to do. There can be sometimes the environmental conditions stops me from going, or giving me extra hard time. When the music is high, I am unable to engage in conversation with the person. This is a primary issue I face every day where loud background noise within a social setting puts me in uncomfortable mood. I am always looking forward to have time to converse with people but these type of environment is prevalent these days thus making difficult to learn new social skills which that I missed when I was younger.

-          Making conversations. Sometimes I noticed myself I can be one sided when chatting with someone. Although I feel having a habit of this, thus make me feel guilty. It turns my friends away from engaging a conversation with me, or initiate with me. So I realised that I need to learn to balance the conversation to the point of talking about the other’s person situation rather than talking about myself. This boost my friends’ confidence of engagement with me.

-          Quotes and metaphors are something bothers me a lot. When people make these statements, I always place in my position to ask a question to someone to clarify what it is means, specifically. I believe that when I missed learning key literature skills when I was younger, that should have helped me to understand these statements today. So I will continually ask my friends, and family, depending on the circumstances to seek clarification of these quotes and metaphors from such conversations and media.

-          Nonverbal communication such as eye contact, body language and social cues are impacting my ability of developing relationships with people. It is very difficult for me to learn without the natural impact; so I have no role models in my life who that would able to teach me at the specific social setting I am currently in to explain the situation.

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Negative feelings – most of the time that when I get those feelings when I know I am coping the challenges. It’s brutal. It’s difficult.

-          Comparing myself to others: that is something I forced myself into the negative territory seeing other people have more things or things that I struggled to earn. I understand that my challenges doesn’t mean I can’t get them, although I can feel the pressure in my way like obstacles blocking my way. I couldn’t help myself trying to go through these obstacles, but what made the pressure to be relived is to forget about what other people have or not have. I learned to focus more on myself, which that made me become happier.

-          It can be that I didn’t know someone else is talking to specific person, or my voice is not loud enough, or even the person’s hearing wasn’t so well. I tend to avoid assumptions of why people are not listening to me is that I have a hearing loss where that made people excuses of poor communication. So my friends also told me same perspective on this when they try to get attention when they are talking to people. Sometimes in conversations, especially with group of 4 people or more it usually becomes imbalanced.

-          I personally own a Facebook account since the end of 2008, it was the reason I joined because I moved out of family home for university studies and traveling. So, Facebook in general doesn’t always make me happy because I tend to over read things even when I didn’t know whether it’s a joke, exaggeration or people aren’t responding back to you. I tend to get depressed over this, it generally make me feel lonely because there not usually someone to talk or share time with.

-          It is extremely rare that I hurt my friends’ emotions and respect when I misread the nonverbal communication, more so of the body language/movement. For instance, should I follow that person because everyone else is following her? Majority of my friends didn’t understand why I following them, so they are female friends and it about female things that is nothing to do with my business. I didn’t entirely understand the movement from the first place. This never happened again because when I disclosed my challenges, the nonverbal environment became clearer.

-          Do people in general not being confident to engage in a conversation with me? This is an everyday challenge of a person with a hearing loss. Whether the people observe my hearing aid, they assume that my conversations is not on par as everyone else.

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What we should do to minimise these impacts? The impacts of communication challenges, learning social skills and isolation. This is my personal experience of what and how made it happened which it works well for me. Be mindful it doesn’t work for everyone, but it is a good guidance to alleviate most of the challenges.

-          It’s a social responsibility advice, as I mean my personal experience comes to make advice because it works. A professional advice is different because they are not you.

-          Increase advertising and media tools compromising the awareness of the behaviour, challenges and potential advices to support these people. Advertising in to the mainstream world like we seen for sexual health and domestic violence at the bus stops, billboards, television commercials and so on. Imagine we swap all of these advertisements to mental health, disability and diversity and other related awareness features. People will start to acknowledge the important aspects more than our personal beliefs.

-          Like I previously mentioned about encourage to speak up about your feelings, expressing them and seek clarification. Although this is a way to convince yourself to explore the challenges and how you want people to support you. This will improve your health and wellbeing.

-          I am not trying to make trouble here because there are psychologists in the audience listening to this. I had 7 years’ experience of psychology and counselling sessions. These sessions only refer myself as in the issues are personal rather than learning the communication and social skills. I have been recommended, and taken advice to learn those skills from the psychologist. Though I only see the theoretical side of it, hence it does not mean improve my practical reality of providing these skills.  You need friends to be with you to observe and give advice/feedback on your behaviour/skill. This helped me so much more than just seven years of those sessions. Especially in past year I learned more practical side than the theory, thus build my confidence in the social environment, and encouraged me to speak out about my challenges.

-          Always the best thing a person can do is to be yourself, motivate your life to do things. From my experience, sitting down at the computer all day, watch television and that doesn’t make me happy. I was hungry for social connection but my attitude is self-centred because I was complaining the way how people treat me.

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Biggest thing I learnt more recently is that life is difficult for everyone no matter if they are on the spectrum or not. It is because the influence of my friends who shared me their personal experiences, thus helped me to understand the bigger picture.

The communication and social skills is still challenging today because the environmental conditions is ever changing and always new objective turns up.

How to learn to share perspectives with people. This is an important aspect to find support and help your situation within others. This reduces assumptions and avoid communication issues.

We need to increase awareness through the mainstream media especially advertising and education.

I have a Facebook page I run, it aims to bring awareness of diversity and inclusiveness. I also share my passion for the environment, politics, and global goals from the United Nations. The Facebook page name is – Mathew Townsend Positive change for the future.

Thank you for your time being here. Hope you all learned many things.

Experience in Hong Kong

Yes, I went to Hong Kong! It was part of the field trip experience with University of Queensland. I stayed with the team in Hong Kong for a week including couple of days trip to Shenzhen in China and Macau.

I was so excited to gain experience in an amazing population density and urbanisation environment. China in general, have largest population in the world. It have one of the best public transport systems in the world. Hong Kong MTR is the world's most developed public transport network. On my first day arriving Hong Kong, it was so colder than I expected. Had to put a jumper on, even for first time in several months despite coming from Australian summer. First day was clear skies with some odd haze about. I enjoyed the first view of skyscrapers on the first night seeing beautiful lights across the Victoria Harbour. It is one of the largest skyline I ever witnessed since Sydney, New York City, Chicago and Miami. Hong Kong city have the most highrises in the world.

The city and country is the most developed than I expected. Public transport systems, housing, capital investment, businesses and globalisation amongst the factors to become the most developed country. My first subway experience was using the airport express line before getting the hotel was incredible. The trains moved so extremely fast. Familiarly, took the trains in following day to the first visiting sites as part of the field trip was something caught my attention of how integrated the subway stations are! The subway stations are incredibly enormous in size, just like size of large shopping centres, underground!

Navigating around Hong Kong was just tad easy, may be the city's size in terms of geography is small but the public transport system is very convenient. The public transport wasn't the only benefit I witnessed, the public housing operations is advanced and professional compared to dismounting issues in Australia. There are some restrictions to apply for the public housing only when you are under the maximum income level, and you must have a job for the financial support. It is very different policy in Australia that the majority of renters are on welfare. Though the housing estates are so enormous compared to the master planned communities that I have seen in the US. These skyscrapers, consisting of 40 floors or higher are typically residental apartments! And they are clustering up with other skyscrapers which make the sky view dense.

Hong Kong inspires me to understand the planning issues and made recommendations to improve Australian and other western nations' development initiatives such as housing and public transport operations. One day I crossed the border with the team to China. The destination we visited is Shenzhen, a city of 15million people. Shenzhen is another typical place of increasing public transport and housing demand due to growing population capacity. Shenzhen's planning system is quite different to Hong Kong. It is such a large city with thousands of cranes up in the sky, building lots of new skyscrapers! I learned that the city's population was at 300,000 in 1980s, compared to 15million 36 years later, and it still growing! Thus why there are so many cranes.

Shenzhen, and China in general is something I find unique in terms of publicity, laws and standard of living. They drive on the right, no public freedom or democracy and security guards are everywhere, even at a hairdresser! The food is lovely, as expected because we have Chinese restaurants all over Australia and the US. Though it not healthy.

Later in the week I visited to another country, Macau for another single day trip. Macau is another autonomous city and country like Hong Kong. It is a small island south of China besides the South China Sea. Macau is famous for massive casino developments and gambling culture. I witnessed another 'Las Vegas strip', which that reminded me of my experience at the real Las Vegas in the US. Macau have high GDP thanks to wealthy Chinese business people! The other side of Macau is the former Portuguese colonisation, which is the part of culture and history. I enjoyed these European culture because I feel so belong to the place. Lovely heritage buildings, architecture and landscapes.

The old Macau is my favourite part of the trip because it have strong sense of belonging and it is place making. I felt lack of this in Hong Kong and Shenzhen where capital investments dominating the urban landscape where new environments take over the cultural and historical significance. The field trip made me to think more about how we design a city, plan effective transport systems and housing operations. This reflects to my political beliefs in Australia that why it very much needed to build on.

Confessing about Autism

People make their own confessions about things they have done wrong or negatively influenced someone. Though in my case of confessing about Autism is not a negative approach. I wanted you to discover my challenges and obstacles of having high functioning Autism.

Do I appear normal, physically? Yes? It doesn't matter what I look like to see if I have Autism or not. That is an enormous assumption from the society looking towards to people who labelled themselves as having Autism. My confessions of having high functioning Autism may reflect your perspectives towards my behaviour and actions/reactions. The following list of confessions are made by my personal experiences:

Sensory issues: I have hearing loss which would add pressure on my sensory issues which that Autism affected on. My sensory issues is not as severe or problematic as you think. It affects my moods and ability to do things. The background noise is the most bothersome distraction when I try to concentrate on the people's conversation and things that I try to listen to. Noise is not the only sensitivity I cope with especially when I socially interact with my friends in the public environments; I am also sensitive to crowds. I tend to get lost in myself in crowds if I am on my own or unsupported in this environment. For instance I went to the local new age music chai tea event for young like minded people, I don't know anyone goes there. As the music and crowds gathers up, I tend to get lost in finding opportunities to initiate interactions with new people. I used to cope social anxiety issues when I was younger, but these days I am out of there. Some people judge me having social anxiety is because I appear acting like one when I become lost in estranged noisy and crowded environments. My hearing loss wouldn't able to assist me to listen to someone's conversations. Though if the people who knows me well, the environment will be understandable.

Social cluelessness: What's the difference between a civil greeting and a signal of romantic interest? How loud is too loud?  When is okay to talk about your personal issues or interests?  When is it important to stop doing what you enjoy in order to attend to another person's needs? These questions highlights my life in social environments, whether its a new environment or with current friends. My behaviour is easily reflective to my observation of seeing someone's actions and words towards other people. I tend to copy, especially learning the cues, to do a same to the people I personally interact with. For example; this time I saw someone hugged each others as appeared in greetings or in during conversations, I have an urge to do a same to any of my friends but their responses is different. The social rule critically highlights that I may doing the wrong thing. My mind doesn't tell me the truth unless it is happening for right or wrong reasons. I am easily approachable person, and I enjoy giving people's times happiness and inclusion. Though not all the time I am doing this job for right reasons. People can see me off standish. This is not true, because I aware that I am actually giving people a good time and be more passionate about.

Anxiety and depression: Yes I cope these issues, similar to the people who are not on the spectrum. Why I cope them? I don't know whether my Autism causes the mood disorders, or whether the disorders are the result of social rejection and frustration - -but whatever their causes, mood disorders can be disabling in themselves. This can lead to meltdowns. You observed that, right? It is very hard area to cope because my actions of 'expecting' something in a positive manner or influence becomes bleak and jeopardised. My brain becomes too logged into positive outcome, then the external impact or influence becomes negative. Thus my reflections is negative from your reflections. The anxiety and depression symptoms are very familiar to the people who are not on the spectrum, but in my case it is prolonged and consistent because the lack of support and understanding my challenges and obstacles.

Emotional deregulation: Contrary to popular opinion, people with autism have plenty of emotions.  In fact, people with autism can become far too emotional in the wrong situations. This is the same area where "I didn't know I am doing this wrong" and "What I did is wrong when it appears not wrong for the others?". I know it is very tricky for my case. I am easily disclose my emotions to people because I understand that being passive won't solve your problems.

Difficulty with transitions and change:  I am usually have a hard time with change -- but people with high functioning autism take the issue to a whole new level.  Once a pattern is established and comfortable, people with autism (by and large) want to maintain that pattern forever.  If a group of friends goes out on Wednesdays for nachos, the idea of going out on Thursdays for chicken wings can throw an autistic adult into a state of anxiety or even anger. My mind is processed to that time, place and date, and purpose. It helps to schedule my time with balancing my other commitments. I struggle to cope changing other plans if the first plan is changed. These obstacles usually become aggressive.

Difficulty with following verbal communication: Sometimes I may be more than capable of doing a task -- but I feel forgotten to following the verbal instructions. I cannot balance between the verbal and non verbal communication at the same time because my mind isn't wired to that. That why it appears stressful for you to deal with my inability of doing that. My mind is a switch, imagine the on and off buttons is for the verbal and non verbal.

I am aware of above challenges would improve over time, but it is not curable. I highly accept that I have to deal with that for the rest of my life. I am not giving up on life because of these obstacles. Should you accept that a same?

I have other inabilities that influence my lifestyle which influenced by Autism, and hearing loss:
Writing - grammatical and punctuation errors
Romantic interests
Dealing with other people's anger or expulsion
Daydreaming
Motorneuron activities such as sports
Speech patterns and stuttering

As you can see, the term "high functioning" does mean what it says.  But high functioning autism is not an easy or simply diagnosis to live with.  For you many caring family and friends, a support to understand my obstacles or challenges doesn't mean I have to be different or try to be a same as your behaviours. I accept that I am different and I am comfortable the way who I am. Should we all inspire the world making a difference for the people not on the spectrum to learn to accept that the behaviours for people with Autism isn't too needy as they think?

Credit from theoretical article by Lisa Jo Rudy: http://autism.about.com/od/aspergerssyndrome/fl/Why-High-Functioning-Autism-Is-So-Challenging.htm

Dealing with meltdowns

Someone with Asperger's (ASD) regularly experiences meltdowns, the symptoms are relating to the situation that is unexpected, or wishing to expect to occur. It is a symptom from anxiety and depression. In general, 1 in 2 people have anxiety and depression around the world, and say it is normal. People with ASD is prone to meltdowns, which is also normal but on different demand.

From my personal experiences, I get into meltdown when my anxiety kicks in. I do not have medications or treatment to eliminate this issue, but when people with ASD the brain is wired differently, thus treatment take effect differently. I usually take consideration to share to my family and friends about how I feel, in return I get treated by explaining the situation that is not a problem for me.

Though during the meltdowns, my brain tends to automatically locks or trapped in negative environment. The 're-wired' part of the brain couldn't handle the situation thus hard to escape, whereas the 'bad chemicals' couldn't release. Though I do eventually get out of, usually helps by talking to people. No matter its my friends, or a counselor. But the problem with speaking to a psychologist and counselor is the timing of the meltdown. I am easily brain locked in very extremely different perspective than being consistent and positive. I cannot describe my moment when speaking to someone while being positive. Hence two different perspectives.

So my family and friends get a fair share experiences of my meltdowns. In return, they are my best mentors and role models whose eager to help me to escape it. I encourage anyone to explain to my counselor because of their perspective is clear when I am in brain locked moment that I wouldn't explain. This measure seem effective to me.

So why I get meltdowns? How they get started? The earliest memory I get of where and how it coming from is usually from being apathetic and jealous of someone/something that I cannot get. For instance, that person with less experience got a job while I have more experience that couldn't get a job. Then I tend to brain locked being frustrated and disappointed. I can't feel how I get into this. It just seems my mind automatically senses it and react to the situation. I have seen people tend to fall into meltdowns in a similar way as me, especially from my perspective I couldn't understand why I have these when I shouldn't have experience it.

Meltdowns easily discourage people. I lost friends and opportunities from these moments. I had people blocked me on Facebook, walked away from me and not bothering to talk to me in reality. When I observe people do that after my meltdowns, I become discouraged to do anything because people's reactions from me make me feel disappointed. I feel like have no support. I probably experienced this countless times, even more than anyone else on the mainstream. Just until more recently, my friends learns about who I am whose developed awareness including my hearing loss. They tend to avoid disappointment in me. I am lucky to have them and that what friends are for.

How to avoid meltdowns? I wish I can eliminate this problem, but I have to deal with it for rest of my life since the fact there are no cures for ASD. Just like my hearing loss, I have to deal missing out a lot of information because people. Next time when you see me, and as well anyone else with ASD, please take consideration to remind us that nothing is wrong. Its normal.

Adelaide - enter deaf life

I have recently went on the trip to Adelaide during January 2016. It is a city, within the state of South Australia that I have never been before. Why I went to Adelaide? I wanted to reconnect with the world of deaf and hard of hearing people. I grew up through schooling years with deaf people. I lost contact with them shortly after high school and first years of university. So I reconsidered myself to bring my world back to them.

I have found myself in a more comfortable environment in terms of communication. The years of consistent verbal communication and listening skills with the hearing people has been challenging. One or very few of my friends does sign language. I do not hang out with them as often. Though my attendance to Adelaide is to represent the Queensland's deaf team for the Australian Deaf Games 2016.

My experience of getting into Adelaide and beyond is different compared to visiting other cities and destinations around Australia. The city is smaller than Brisbane and others I been to. Wide streets with very little traffic. It has tinder dry heat climate. My face and lips were crumpling after 24hours I got there. Personally I have experienced dry heat before in Townsville but nothing like Adelaide because of the consistency. Adelaide itself does not have similar demand of tourism to the east coast of Australia. Thus the nightlife thrives. Every morning after 7am I see a group of people walking down the street after the clubbing. Especially on Monday morning! This made me wonder of 'boredom' in a city, especially being so far away from other popular places.

Reconnecting myself with the deaf people is my highlight on this 10 day experience at the games. On the first night I met the deaf Fijian people. That was wonderful moment! I came in surprise of meeting hundreds of new people specially from other states and the Pacific Islands. I was able to communicate in Auslan effectively and consistently, since the times I was speaking and listening to all of my hearing friends in Brisbane. This reminds me of my counseling sessions of making friends within several groups. Now I have two major communicating components. Speak verbally and sign language.

The event and my experience in Adelaide has inspired me to develop further in my career. My life goals has not changed but have additional aims and objectives to make myself proactive and enjoyable. With very little awareness and support for the people with hearing loss has astounded my support. I have new goal to help and inspire hearing people that people with hearing loss also have talents, opportunities and goals. The deaf community is very diverse compared the culturally diverse countries.

The conclusion of the event has brought my sporting proaction and continually develop personal life goals and skills within diverse people. I was so glad I bought my tickets to Adelaide at the very last minute, otherwise I would not be positive today as gained these experiences in past week.

My trip to Vietnam

Oh how to start to write this experience! Back in July 2015 I got accepted to do academic field trip to Vietnam with University of Queensland. This is an exciting new experience. I never been to a developing country nor let alone the eastern cultures. I went with the university's field team at the beginning of December (2015) for two weeks. This was my first international trip since late 2012 when I spent eight months in the US. I felt so overdue to leave Australia. This field trip was solely based on understanding environmental and climate change challenges in the Mekong Delta Region, which is part of southern Vietnam.

I left for Singapore from Brisbane early on 5th December for a changeover flight to Ho Chi Minh City (or Sai Gon). The flight was way shorter than I took between Brisbane and Los Angeles; so I wouldn't worry much of the exhaustion of time zone change! The flight experience was average, due to limited amount of food. I wasn't expecting that professional from Singapore Airlines. Finally got to Singapore, that was something I am excited because it is in the middle of the world and it is well known hot tropical and wet monsoonal climate. I waited for couple of hours before taking the next flight to HCMC, while I was sightseeing the airport. It was amazing huge place. You had to take monorails from one terminal to another, including different gates!

Just before boarding, I noticed our flight got delayed for 30 minutes was due to insane monsoonal thunderstorm hitting the airport! It was different experience observing it. This lead to lightning and bird strike warning. Just reminded me that how hot and humid the air was when I was exiting and entering the monorail between the terminals. The sticky heat 'air blowdryer like scenario' filled the gaps between the doors. It is amazing that people are living in this part of the world. Though, the flight to Sai Gon was uneventful just until the final 20 minutes of the flight. Seeing this amazing lights of HCMC. As the seatbelt light turns up this signals the beginning of 20 minutes scenery view of the city lights. This was easily compared to amount of city lights from horizon to horizon of my experiences before landing in Sydney and Los Angeles! No wonder Sai Gon homes for 8.5million people. It looked so well alive.

Finally getting out of the airport. The security was minimal and smooth sailing. Once got to the opening of the sliding doors. This thick heavy heat filled moist air blown onto my body mixed with strong odor of cooked rice and diesel fumes! I never witnessed this air so amazingly different, even at an extreme level. I am surprised that is breathable air! I got so sweaty quickly after about 5minutes wait for a carpool taxi ride to the hotel. My body just woken up suddenly by the strong buzz of this city. The taxi ride to the hotel was some crazy experience! Beeping horns, jam packed scooters without using the lines on the road and that. It was best display of defensive driving I ever witnessed in my life. Great driving skills from the cab driver =)

The hotel was quite unique but comparable to ours. The huge difference is that the demand is on different scale; the air conditioning sticks to the hotel rooms and the foyer but the corridors and elevators just hot, sticky and smelly! The first night sleep was different but easily manageable because of exhausting long day. The next morning comes with excitement. Observed the beautiful sunrise from my balcony (rooming with one of the guy from the field trip team) at 6.30am. The air just so soggy and hot already, even the sun just like half an hour old into the day!

First day in Vietnam and tripping around HCMC was great. Attempted to cross the road filled of scooters that gives way of the pedestrians. This is a WIN-WIN situation. Couple of girls in the group got anxious about standing in the middle of the traffic without help. Though it was hesitated. The day activity was learning about the Vietnam War history, the challenges of governance from Ho Chi Minh (the famous politician) and went to poor socioeconomic suburb in the south-eastern parts of the city. The first day was something that Vietnam is about. Everything is different and new.

On the next day we had to leave HCMC down to the Mekong Delta Region for a week. Got to stay at Can Tho City, which is another large and bustling city in southern Vietnam. Though it nothing on similar demand to HCMC. Spent few days at the university there and went on couple of trips to the delta region including the world famous RAMSAR site near Cambodia border, the Tram Chim National Park. Again, everything was about Vietnam. I have observed lot of cultural and lifestyle influences whilst travelling through the villages on the road and hiking around these places. Defensive driving from our bus tour driver made another award for greatest driver in the world!

Many days I noticed how close and low are those powerlines! It is very dangerous to have them at the poles at your height and also hanging as low as 2 metres. I a had fear of electrocution few times when walking past them. Though over the few days I got used to navigate around them, just like how to be calm crossing the jam packed scooters roads. The weather was continuously and consistently hot and humid. Every day it exceeded 32C with 80% humidity. I got consistently sweaty. Thankful for those cheap water bottles from the supermarkets that kept me hydrated!

Just before returning to Can Tho we went on a small two night trip to the far south-western part of the country adjacent to Cambodia and the Gulf of Thailand where the equator crosses. At first, I noticed the weather is feeling different. The air is very still. Just before we stayed at Ha Tien we witnessed the world textbook best sunset ever! Likewise if you Google searched Vietnam in pictures, there will be so many images showing about sunsets and sunrises. Vietnam is so great at those! This little town is quite underdeveloped. There were so many streets aren't fully maintenance and have poor infrastructure. The marketing environment is low compared to Can Tho and Sai Gon. On next day we went on the boat to the most isolated rural communities inland of Ha Tien towards Cambodia. This trip is about learning indigenous lifestyles, the aquaculture industry development and environmental challenges. The trip got cut short by the Vietnamese's military people because we got too close to their army base without notice! We got our passports taken for processing. This was so old fashioned way of security checkings which that take hours to be done.

So we had to change our plans for the afternoon and the following morning due to our passports absence which that needed for permits for further trips. The rest of the day was uneventful, just until after dinner I witnessed an 'equatorial' electrical monsoonal thunderstorm! The lightning and rain was so brilliant! This was similar I observed at the airport in Singapore, a week before.

Next day we head back to Can Tho for homestay experience. It was for four nights. This is another milestone for me as I never had a homestay experience before. The family, food and environment is just beautiful and lovely. Greatest hospitality I had in my life. There was some foods that I never ate before, involving FROGs! It tasted like chicken. Everybody else disagrees with me after I told them I ate the frogs. The family has taught me patience, forgiving, service and appreciation of people. It is something that is different to Australia, US and assuming other western nations that misses out on. I find this is a great asset and learning curve for me to be with people and appreciate their time and service. Vietnam is all about giving and serving. The food and gifts was a majority appreciation.

Another week was gone, suddenly the time got close to leaving the country. I wasn't much of a tourist on this research trip. Stayed one more night at the hotel in Can Tho before a long bus 'defensive driving' ride back to HCMC. The final day was different compared to all other days. The skies was more polluted. I easily managed to stare at the high noon sun for at least couple of seconds. This was due to influence of pollution layer that made a smoggy appearance. That was another story that I didn't get a single sunburn! Thanks to consistent cloudy and polluted skies, I stood uncooked! The trip back home was uneventful again just til to some turbulence over Indonesia from electrical storms.

The trip was the best I experienced and it is something I am very much needed to have time off. Something new and different. I only spent AU$170 for 14 days worth of food, gifts and vice versa. Thanks to strong Australian dollar in amazing cheap exchange. Thank you Viet Nam, the families, Can Tho University and HCMC (Sai Gon) for amazing service.

Off to do next trip to Adelaide and Hong Kong in the next three months!

Communication and challenges

Hi readers,

It hasn't been awhile since my last post. My life got busy in past two months. I finally found a spare time today to express myself about the communication and its' challenges. Everybody in general I find communication is a challenge. Whether you have disabilities or not, the challenges is happening.

My frustrations with communication is highly reflective of poor awareness of understanding my challenges. It quite difficult to understand different communication strategies when you meet people. Although as I have English as second language, dyslexia, hearing loss, autism and sensory issues I find myself challenged in the conversation environment. A suitable environment for myself should eliminate the communication challenges that upon reflects from my disabilities.

My poor writing and grammatical sense is influenced from dyslexia which is a coincidental issue from autism or Aspergers. My hearing loss is part of listening and speaking skills. Combination of those is impacting on my lifestyle heavily. Especially in a social environment where I meet people. I find it very hard to meet right people to communicate with. There may be lack of awareness or understanding this what causes my isolation of not communicating with people.

My sensory issues also impacting my suitability of the environment. For instance, going to a loud and noisy environments like bars/clubs, music festivals, high traffic areas and thereof I find communicating is very impossible. The only way I can communicate in these sort of environment is in Auslan. However, the noise of the environment can impact in my senses; which that gives me headache. My brain cannot process multitasking especially in these situations. Likewise in group conversations where many people are talking at the same time, my mind cannot process that. I have faced lot of forced reactions from my friends conversations whereas they couldn't wish to communicate with me. This is part of me, thus pressuring me into social isolation. Here a series of some pictures illustrating my experiences.

You can see what happens in these illustrations. See what you think it happened in each of those?
1. antisocial reactions from the person doesn't want to continue the conversation by asking repeats. This is a huge turn off, and its very offensive for any deaf and hard of hearing person. People do want to know, at least they are trying to listen to you.
2. Assertive communication cycle - I have trouble maintaining this cycle, whether the person is passive it makes me feel aggressive about it.
3. Group conversations becomes out of hand. Lot of people talking at the same time, speaking at irregular pace and tones. Its too overwhelming for a deaf and hard of hearing person. This is not a normal conversation. I learned not to overtalk people, because it is rude.
4. Pathways - I tend to struggle to choose from what best ways to socialise people in suitable environments. People and friends tend to reject these outcomes. I find this very disrespectful to judge the person's communication barriers by selective social environments.

Hope you all understand.