Frequently Asked Questions

I’ve been asked a few questions enough times that I may as well just answer them all in one place. Going back through my ask box, some of them are sort of odd, but hey, I’ll go with it.

  • Who are you? What are you?

Hi! I’m Arallyn. I’m human.

  • No, not like that! Are you a historian? A medical person? A student?

I love history. I love medicine and biology even more. I’m not a historian or someone in the medical or natural sciences field. I’m just a blogger. A blogger with a massive collection of texts on medical and natural history.

  • Did you go to university? What did you study?

I did, and I studied Biology and Dairy Science. I’ve worked in both fields, but I much prefer biology and lab work. I’m a born lab monkey, and can do grunt work like a pro (and love it!).

  • What’s your profession?

I write about dead things and deformed things, and sometimes really unfortunate things, for a few different sites. Mental_floss is the most fun one to write for, though.

  • Why did you start this blog?

I have a page that answers that.

  • No, no, was there something that triggered you to start it?

Mostly Mariana’s insistence that it was a good idea. Wouldn’t have bothered without her pushing me to do it.

As for what triggered me to start it, my cousin gave me a book for Christmas a year or two ago, poking fun at the fact that I used to be a paranoid germophobe when I was between 9 and 11 years old. I loved getting the book, and was reading it a while back, and that led to me researching the prevalence and history of scurvy. I found the history of a bunch of nutritional deficiencies, which led to the history of other diseases/afflictions, and my love of history and medicine kept me reading and wanting to share these bizarre and fascinating facts and cases.

The natural history part of the blog just sort of happened. I have a lot of animal experience and know a lot of cool facts about animals, so I figured I may as well share some nifty old illustrations with the trivia I seem to reserve most of my brain for storing.

  • Why haven’t you responded to my message?

I’m busy, little chickadee. I respond to what I can, and I really appreciate all of the supportive and kind messages I’ve gotten from readers (part of why I don’t respond to those is it’s nice having them stay in my inbox ;P). If you have a legitimate request, concern, complaint, or otherwise relevant and understandable message, I’ll get to it. Always do.

By the way, I’m probably not going to respond to it either way, but if you’ve decided that your life would have more meaning if you randomly insult people, could you PLEASE make your insults relevant? Otherwise they just clog up my inbox.

  • Where do you get your material from?

I have a page that answers that.

  • How many files do you have?!

Why does this question always come with an exclamation point? Currently I have 34,628 files in my medical history folder, and 19,967 files in my natural history folder. They’re 5.87 GB and 4.10 GB, respectively. I’m always adding more, and my external hard drive doesn’t have about 1.5 GB of additional material that I have on my laptop.

Either way, I have a lot. And yes, I’ve (at the very least) skimmed through every single page I have. Most of them I’ve read.

  • Will you have my babies?

Are you ginger? Do you want full custody of the child? No? Move along.

Also: Why have I been asked this multiple times? This is not a question normal humans ask. If you’re aliens trying to blend in, you may want to take note of that.

  • What do you look like?

This, almost exactly. Ugly sausage-fingers, weird face and all. My hair is brighter red, and I tend towards jeans and sneakers, though.

  • Can I have your blog?

I require blood sacrifice and the right hands of three people of my choosing. 

  • Do you have a personal blog? Do you have other blogs?

I have an insipid and boring personal blog here.

I have a Regency through Edwardian (and a small amount after) cultural history blog here.

  • Do you have any hobbies?

I like hiking and traveling, but I guess those aren’t really hobbies of mine. I love to read. I play video games. From time to time I get really into crafts. I like playing with knives.

  • I love your blog!

Aw, you’re a sweet chickadee. I hope you learn something! It makes me happy when people learn about the things I love knowing.

  • You are a terrible person who is far too opinionated/you’re crazy and/or psychotic.

No, I’m not opinionated enough/yes I am crazy. Wibble.