Who writes the posts on this blog?

Well, she is female, a koala, prone to malteser* moments, Scottish, in her mid  20s, a bit crazy, could talk the hind legs off a donkey, friends are  important to her, she loves to sing, a health scientist, a youth  worker, has very strange fashion sense with a weakness for  shoes, can’t walk in heels but can ceilidh dance in them, an emetophobic, a chocoholic, a ‘divorced  kid’, incessant tweeter/twitterer (?), blogger, an ENFP, hates pink, left part of her heart in South Africa, wishes to live in East Coast Australia, a Jambo**…who heads up a pregnancy crisis centre (something she’s very passionate about) and tries to follow the teachings of Jesus (not often very successfully).

Oh, and she has a bit of an addiction to American TV Dramas.

*malteser = blonde on the inside, brunette on the outside!

**jambo = supporter of Heart of Midlothian Football Club

Where does the username ‘BrunetteKoala’ originate from?

It started when my sister just kept growing, and we started calling her ‘Giraffe‘. It spiralled from there, and it was decided that myself and our brother needed an animal nickname that suited us too. We chose ‘Monkey‘ for my little brother (no explanation needed there), and they chose ‘Koala‘ for me. It was to do with my constant sleepiness, the fact I’m fairly small, and I’m known for my constant giving and receiving of hugs. Now, we refer to each other as ‘Giraffe‘, ‘Monkey‘ and ‘Koala‘ – I was even saved on the housephone as ‘Koala’.

My sister also maintains that the nickname my Aberdeen friends gave me - La - is short for Koala. Not Laura Anne (who’s she?!)

Incidentally, Edinburgh Zoo is the only place where you’ll find koalas in the UK, but before you make the joke, I don’t live in the zoo.

Why is your blog called Learning from Sophie?

Essentially this questioned was answered on a blog post I wrote in January 2009. But to cut a long story short, just after I was 17 I became pregnant unexpectedly and due to circumstances at the time I had an abortion when I was 10 weeks along. I’ve always thought the baby was a girl, and from there I knew that if I’d continued the pregnancy we would most likely have named our daughter Sophie. That particular experience has influenced a great many of my decisions since, and more than likely lead to the current job I have co-running a pregnancy crisis centre, as well as educating and raising awareness of issues surrounding unplanned pregnancy and abortion.

The (pretty much) full story from why the pregnancy was a ‘crisis’ to having the abortion to going to church to recovering from Post Abortion Stress to working in a pregnancy crisis centre can be found here.

Scotland, that’s in England right?

No. It’s a different country, and if you said that too loudly in a Glasgow pub you’re likely to be greeted with a ‘Glasgow Kiss’ (an affectionate term for headbutting someone). Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are the 4 countries that make up the United Kingdom (UK). It is a bit confusing, I admit.

We’d like to ask a question of the blogger, how do we do that?

Well, you could speak to her in person. But she’ll probably forget what you said within 2 seconds of you saying it. She’s more of a visual or kinesthetic learner you see. Better to write it down. So leave a comment below or send a tweet to @koalainscotland via Twitter.