My name's Blake. Andrew (hence "Andy") is my middle name, not that I've ever gone by it. As much as I dislike the notion, this is a résumé, so I'll leave my trusty cynicism and perverse transparency to the Questions section. On the brighter side, I'd like to think I'm compassionate (more toward animals), I enjoy helping people learn while desperately failing to stay humble, and I appreciate genuine intellectual and philosophical conversations. I cherish originality, composure, and grace far over any measure of achievement, ambition, or industriousness.

On a more predictable note: I like hiking, playing basketball, spending the day in a museum, walking on the beach at night, listening to audio books if they're read by the right voice, and going to the movies with a purty lady (whew, got that "personals ad" shit outta my system).

I appreciate music for its ability to get my blood flowing and give me goosebumps, but I also recognize the imposter of euphoria. I feel its effect wane with excessive use, and I know that disappointment lies at the end of mindless obsession. Like anything else that's essential and emotional and "speaks to my soul," I would prefer to just let it happen. I'm not one to aggressively pursue, bottle, and snort all the good things in life; I find it cheapens the experience.

I spend most of my waking, daytime hours helping kids with math. If I was to venture at a career, it would probably involve teaching math! I'm building my teaching skills in a low-key environment, while attempting to manage my own fears before sacrificing an entire classroom in the name of experience. My nights are usually spent reading, watching movies, playing games, and then trying to glue meat to my bones at the gym (I make no claims of being swole, buff, shredded, ripped, cut, torn, eviscerated, or "kaboom," but I'm darn sinewy!).

laughing when no one else does, solving puzzles (alright, I'm only half decent), reading slowly, climbing trees (skinning my knees, chasing seagulls, eating cand--... okay, so I'm not that childish), forgetting by trying to remember, empathizing with those who have just embarrassed themselves, finding the most poetically convoluted way to say something that simpler terms would have expressed significantly better

either my hackles and darting eyes, or my soothing purr, that depends on you!

Books: Secret Tactics, Monster Blood Tattoo series (not for plot or dialogue, but for illustrations and characters), Chronicles of the Black Company, The Kingkiller Chronicle, Watchmen, Candide, Things Fall Apart, The Good Earth
Movies: The Legend of Drunken Master, Fierce Creatures, Hot Fuzz, The Prestige, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; almost anything Jackie Chan, Pixar, Guillermo del Toro, Christopher Nolan, or Hayao Miyazaki; I'm a major audiophile when it comes to sound effects, and I can't pass up an ingeniously choreographed fight scene
Shows: TED Talks, Louie, Game of Thrones, Blamimations, Mythbusters, American Dad, Family Guy, The Daily Show; as much as I like many of these shows, I only watch a little TV every few days, occasionally catching up on a few episodes online
Music: Ok Go, Beck, Gnarls Barkley, The Strokes, The Black Keys, Cake, Kanye West, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus, Weezer... yes, I'm white; every genre has something good, but even my favorites have just a few gems in a sea of garbage; most of my music library is one-hit wonders, obscure movie-soundtrack pieces, and maybe a song or two from each band/group that I can stand; I'm not sure if Epic Rap Battles of History counts as music, but I do partake!
Food: I love just about every type of food, but the lures of phở and sushi are particularly difficult to resist

sanity, reason, poetry in motion (the visual idea, not the song or the organization, or any of that commercial garbage), goosebumps (not the books... although those were an integral part of my childhood), hidden strengths, and wit

how I could be gruesomely mangled and crushed by any one of the powerful machines or structures that facilitate my daily life.

Reading, writing progress reports, watching a movie, going to the gym, criticizing anyone and everyone with my roommate,... and apparently revising these precious dialog boxes

I used to play Dungeons and Dragons and some other table-tops.

any of the following applies:

you're one of the marginal percent of women that even feels the need to message men first (alright, this one's obviously a requirement)

you're okay with meeting up in the physical world, which I'll respect as a sign of bravery, since I've been informed it's a rather creepy venture for women

you're willing to make real, critical, scathing judgments beyond complaining about traffic (although I can see the merit of damning overpopulation)

you believe there's more to life than perpetually setting and meeting goals, even if you're not sure what that is