The last day of September I started a new job and submitted my presentation to FARE for the FARECon featuring Teen Summit I will be speaking at this November. At the end of my presentation I announced I will be looking for writers to write about their food allergy related experiences in school, work, travel or other to provide a new perspective on the website. I do not make any money from this website, but I do pay for it each year, so the submissions would be from volunteers looking for somewhere to have their voices heard and share their stories.

I also mentioned above that I started a new job. I am no longer working at the bakery I was at. Even though my time there has come to an end, I still had two years and two months worth of experience and in the end I learned so much. Not only did I do the front counter, clean, organize, set up displays, but I learned how to bake and I even was a temporary manager for a bit.

My new job is at a clothing retail store where I do the register and may also do customer service. It is nice to have some different work experience.

Regarding my allergies, you would think maybe it would be a safer place to work, but maybe not. My epi-pen's are locked in a locker. Only one assistant manager so far knows about my allergies. The break room has lots of snacks and food. The store itself sells many types of chocolates and candies involving nuts.

With this I realized something important. The food industry is way more than restaurants and foodservice places. You are never going to escape food. Food is everywhere.

And this somehow is a good thing.

With all these changes I realized my current major can only transfer into other hospitality programs and my courses are so specific to the field that I don't have enough general education courses to transfer into any other programs for my bachelors.

I am not really sure if I want to study hospitality for my bachelors as I realized I want to do something more. I haven't exactly decided yet what I am going to do, but I keep going back to what I've been thinking about since the beginning of my college search.

The best feeling in the world is having the ability to help others, make a difference, work together with others and accomplish something that provides others with some form of information or support. For awhile I told myself I found this in community service and that hospitality was the closest thing to that, as it has very similar concepts. That simply isn't true though. Everyday all kinds of people do important things that they are passionate about and help others.

I am passionate about food allergies. I love writing, especially for you my readers. I like to share my stories and knowledge and be able to help others learn something and not feel so alone. I love organization and having some sort of plan, even when it changes a million times. I love creating, thinking of ideas and making it happen. I love designing the little blog title images and putting together this website itself was so much fun. I love working with others to create something that in the end helps others.

I am a writer. I am a designer. I am an artist. I am a baker. I am an event planner. I am a leader. I am supportive of others and their dreams. I am lovable and capable. I am more than the girl who proved that she could do anything despite her food allergies. I am the girl who is on a journey to find how to put her passions together and teach others how to do the same.

Take the risk.

#change #risk