New Job

I have now started my new job, in fact I've been there a week now. It's been good so far: My colleagues all seem cool to work with, the work seems quite varied and interesting and the working environment is much more pleasant than the last place I was working.

As of yet I've not had a chance to get my teeth into any real coding, that's still to come. At present I'm just acquainting myself with the software and the environment and building my machine. I did try CentOS on the recommendation of one of the guys I work with, but it sucks so I've decided to sling Gentoo on - which is what I'm doing right now. Better the devil you know...

Soya

It turns out I am one of the single most awkward vegans alive as I discovered, rather uncomfortably, on Wednesday that I am allergic to Soya. Well, I already knew I was allergic to it: If I eat a lot of it at a meal I get serious stomach cramps and ... well, let's just say "other related problems" ... But little did I know that I could have a really nasty reaction to it. Ever since I went veggie I've had more Soya in my diet, as it seems to be present in an alarming number of veggie dishes. It's almost as if most restaurants don't know how to make foods without meat in, so they just replace the meat with Soya. And, since becoming veggie, I'd noticed some little slightly itchy bumps on two or three of my knuckles. Nothing to be alarmed about, but I had noticed them and pondered their existence.

All of this week I had noticed that the little bumps had started to spread to other knuckles and the backs of my hands had been quite itchy. Then on Wednesday they suddenly covered the backs of my hands and, when I got home from work I discovered I had them all over my back too. Down my legs, and all over my chest I had lots of small (about 2mm wide) red dots that looked worryingly like blood blisters. Every inch of skin on my body itched like hell, and I was incredibly heat sensitive as if I was sunburnt.

After a little background reading, and a hunch, I decided that it had to be Soya that was causing it, and decided to cut it from my diet starting from that evening. The next day the bumps were starting to subside and I was starting to feel a hell of a lot healthier. As of today (2 and a half days on) I still have the marks left behind by them, but they are clearly fading. My back still looks like a million mosquitoes went to town on it, but it too is much better than it was and isn't nearly as itchy as it was. The red spots are all very pale now.

So there you have it: A Soya intolerant Vegan. Next I plan to decide that I don't like vegetables. ;o)