Hah, I love the commentary. In particular: "I wrote a term paper on leprosy in medieval Europe in high school. And I wondered why everyone thought I was odd."

For my "informational" speech in my freshman uni speech class, I spoke about spontaneous human combustion, complete with a poster of remains of people who has supposedly spontaneously combusted(visual aids were required!). It's good to know others have similar academic leanings.