Overeaters Anonymous

This week has been an exciting week for me. Now that I'm in my Community Rotation, no two days are ever the same. For example, Wednesday I attended an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. It was really fun and really interesting. OA is just a support group, so they don't promote any diet in particular or anything like that, they just get together and talk about their struggles. (Most are overeaters, but there are also anorexics and bulemics) I think it was most interesting because they talk about the emotional triggers of eating and psychological issues related to food. And let me tell you, I heard some interesting stories. But I really enjoyed going. Everyone there was so nice and welcoming. I even got a lot of hugs when I left!

Then Thursday I spent the afternoon at the metabolic clinic for children born with errors in their metabolism. I know none of you care, but it was really interesting. There are few other diseases in which the only treatment is diet. There is one disease in which patients need to remove all protein sources from their diet entirely. If they don't, the result is mental retardation. Can you imagine living with a disease like that, knowing the possible consequences? I'm actually thinking about doing my 1 hour presentation on that disease, but focusing on mothers with the disease and the results of their pregnancy based on levels of control-it's called maternal phenylketonuria in case any of you are interested!! Ok, now I'm done boring you, but it was really an interesting part of my week.

Then today I got up at 4:45 and went to St. Louis again with our internship director and the other Senior Interns to once again represent our internship and try to get people to come. It was kind of a boring day, but it was nice to be out of the office. And I saw Rachel Noirot again. I seem to run into her everywhere...

And now it's the weekend! I am so excited, I really don't have much to do this weekend, which is unusual. Tomorrow I'm going with Derek and the youth to rake leaves at a home for women and children of domestic abuse. Then for the rest of the weekend...I don't know. We'll see! Tonight I've been playing Playstation2. Derek rented me a poker game and it's a lot of fun! I won over $4,000 too! Too bad it's not real money! (Actually that's probably good, because the first time I played, I lost all of my money!) Ok well, I think I get the record for most boring entry, sorry.