Doughnuts and my 5 stages of grief

I feel that by naming this blog the way I did, perhaps I unintentionally provoked fate. I moved to a new city, made new friends, thoroughly enjoyed myself and so many more things. However life chose to keep things interesting by bringing to my doctor's attention the fact that I have coeliac's disease (one of the words designed to be difficult to spell) thus I have said goodbye to cinnamon swirls, bread, pasta, many takeaways and liquorice.
When dealing with this change I went through the 'textbook' stages of grief

1. Denial
There is no possible way I could be coeliac. The doctor is wrong. I had spent the early part of 2011 discovering a skill in baking and was loving making cinnamon swirls and muffins. Ignore the idea and it will go away

2. Anger
This is stupid! I love baking, I love food, it's not fair and there is no way I'm taking this lying down.

3. Bargaining
Instead of going gluten free how about I just take supplements, that should work... Or I'll just eliminate the big stuff. Sneaking little things doesn't matter.

4. Depression
The fun stage of realising the reality of being coeliac. Including the day I bought 1kg of flour for $8.00 whereas I would previously get 5kg for that price, and promptly went home and burst into tears. The discovery of a new food each day I can no longer have... no pasta, tiny teddies, mallowpuffs, deep fried moro bars, tim tams, KFC, cafe food, naan bread, common takeaways, pita bread and so much more. The weight of all the things on the 'Do not eat' list was enough to provoke me to tears on a couple of occasions

5. Acceptance
Well I can only say I'm slowly getting there. I can accept that I have to turn down much of the food offered to me, going out for meals will no longer be simple, the remainder of my life will be different. However in a way I am lucky... 10 years ago there wasn't a market for gluten free food, it hadn't become a 'health craze' as such and speciality food was scarce. I have it easier than those before me so in a way I should be thankful.

And so the five stages have drifted through my life in the last few months and each of them turn up again from time to time to remind me they are there, and I catch myself staring longingly at doughnuts... just wishing life was normal once again.

monotonous conformity

Many of us spend life jumping from label to label trying to identify what makes us who we are. I'm a musician, an artist, an athlete, a budding tortured soul, or a loner, a goth, a nonconformist... Isn't it the rule though that as soon as the label gets comfortable we realise its not what we think we are at all. Perhaps it is just a part of being human that leads to the desire to categorize ourselves the way we so easily categorize our surroundings, like life is simply a nomadic tribe of nouns so that we look around and see car, apple, person, people...
Life is boring when we introduce ourselves with "Hi I'm ___, I'm __ years old, I live in ____" it just screams monotony. Who really cares about age and location when you meet someone for the first time, but yet we still conform to the social norms that dictate we must feign at least a fleeting interest, despite knowing as soon as the person walks away their name will slip from our minds and follow them, in time for us to hear the next barrage of useless facts from the person next in line to introduce themselves

Settled

Ive so far spent over a week procrastinating about sorting my internet. Like many first year students im living in a hall of residence, and because of the course im doing i get to pay $60 to get a password and username different to my usual one so i can use the internet where im staying. as well as other costs to let me get internet in my room. oh and as a lil bonus i cant access msn or yahoo messengers on this network. its only a tad annoying.

im pretty lucky that so far i have had no problems with homesickness, and i moved in nearly 2 weeks ago. Being away from home is pretty awesome though, i can actually go out at night and have myself a good time without having to be back by midnight or so on because dad has told me to.

anyway this is just a brief note to say im all moved in (and my room is tiny or as a real estate agent would say - cozy) and the food is amazing, so im going to have to start hitting the gym pretty shortly so as to avoid becoming obese within a month

The Changing of the Years.

2009 has officially drifted into the distant past and 2010 is staring us in the face like one of the pictures with eyes that follow you. Asides from talking about the creepy pictures the big thing for me is that in 2009 i identified as meing in my last year of high school, and now in 2010 im getting ready for my first year at University. Looking back University was always in the distant or not-so-distant future but now i have less than two weeks until i need to have my bags packed and be in my car driving away from the home ive had for the past 18 years. The first things on my to do list include trying to not get lost in a new city, settling into a new room, making new friends, and desperately trying to defy the odds of putting on the 5kg that seems to be given out to first years with their orientatioin packs.
One cool thing about Uni for me is that i no longer have to put on a uniform 5 mornings a week like the blue tartan dress and twice folded socks that still haunts me in my nightmares, though this change means that i will most likely end up wearing whatever is closest to hand when i roll out of bed and run out the door while trying not to be late to lectures, so if anyone sees someone running around a campus in an outfit that looks like it was put together by a chimpanzee with no taste whatsoever its probably me and im probably late.

For now im going to take full advantage of the 2 short weeks i have and engross myself in the television for the night!