Learning More About Celiac Disease

July 22, 2011

I didn’t really know what a blog was until the last couple of years. When I first saw one it was a woman’s online journal about her experience having celiac disease, or an allergy to gluten found in wheat and other grains. I was diagnosed with celiac disease about ten years ago, but it is still useful for me to find new writings about it and how to have a successful diet and lifestyle while having this affliction. I have a female friend who thought she had celiac disease but it turned out that she actually had a gut changing bacteria that she picked up in Asia somewhere. She has to have an operation on her stomach soon and she still appears to have the problem even though she’s been treated in several different ways for it recently.

When she first started having problems she thought it was celiac disease, and in fact though it is not, it is still good for her to eat less wheat so she continues to do so. When she thought it was celiac disease though, I benefited because she is a thorough person and finds everything she can about a subject. She sent me a whole bunch of articles plus a link for a free online blog or two where I could learn more about my own symptoms. I learned quite a bit reading the free online blog because the woman writing it was from Portland, Oregon which is just a few hours away from where I live. I have several friends there and so I learned some rad restaurants I could go to both in Seattle and Portland.

I went down there to stay for my birthday a year ago or so and we were able to go get gluten free fish and chips plus gluten free beer and birthday cake as a result of reading the free online blog. I was very excited about this. As a person with celiac disease you get used to not going out for your treats and usually only getting to have treats at home. People pretend they know if something contains gluten or not but it fact most people are fairly ignorant about the subject. Due to reading the blog by someone with the same syndrome I have, my life opened up a little bit and I got to have some fun I wouldn’t have had without reading it. Since then I still explore blogs online and I’ve found them to be a useful link to community and experience in this weird technological time.

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A Great Choice After High School

July 19, 2011

Studying creative writing is a worthwhile experience.  Each teacher teaches differently and so even if you take tons of different writing courses you will come up with diverse bursts of creativity from within you depending on how you are studying writing.

I always wrote on my own and so by the time I realized I wanted to study writing I was so ready to be around other writers and to have a writers group around me.  I got this because I chose to go to an arts school where I could focus primarily on creative writing.  It was very exciting to be surrounded by other writers.  It was a boarding school and was a high school but it attracted the cream of the cream as far as the young students who went there.  Once one of my writing classes had a local public high school visit and the students from a writing class there read their poems and then we read some of ours.  There was no comparison.  Most of the writing students at my school were really good and had great teachers who had helped them to access their writing voices and it certainly showed.

I definitely did have a sense of writing community when I went to that school.  I identified myself as a writer.  The different types of artists there grouped together and identified strongly within their own groups.  The actors and music people all spent time together as did all the writers and visual artists.  It was very exciting for me to be surrounded by other writers.  I was seventeen years old when I went to this school.  I received criticism from my grandparents for choosing to go there as a post graduate from high school because they had given me the money I spent to go there when I graduated.  When it came down to it I didn’t care.  They thought I should spend the money on a car but I knew that I needed a year to decide which college I wanted to go to and I wanted more than anything to have a chance to write and only write without having to take other requirements.  I took four writing courses per semester at that school plus one visual art course.  I don’t think I’ve ever spent a more productive school year.  More than anything else in my life, attending that school helped me tap into my writing voice and I had grown incredibly by the time I was finished.

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Newspapers As Personal Entertainment

July 15, 2011

Journal is a word that has multiple meanings.  Since I’ve always been an avid reader I love reading all kinds of books, magazines and newspapers. It’s always a treat to find a new one, especially if it has crossword puzzles in it.  Where I live, about once a week in the mail I find a […]

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A Fun Week Night Experience

July 12, 2011

In the past I joined all kinds of different groups in hopes of learning something important. I took part in a dream group, a journal writing group, a womans group, a belly dancing group, an improv acting group  and a writers group among others. I did take away quite a lot of knowledge and personal […]

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Searching The Internet: An Adventure

July 8, 2011

I used to spend a lot more time surfing the internet than I currently do. When I had an internet connection at my fingertips in my home, I would do google searches for fun on anything I was interested in. I learned pretty quickly that it was dumb to give out my email address. In […]

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Meet New Friends Through Blogging

July 1, 2011

If you want to learn about nature or art or shopping, or just about any topic out there, there are most likely some free blog sites on the internet where you can join in and learn. When I was first exploring the internet I found some free blog sites that were devoted to makeup lovers.  […]

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