I joke that I'm on my 3rd career.

My first was my major: I got my Bachelors in Astronomy. Unfortunately, I'm mildly dyslexic and it destroyed my ability to do high level math so my GPA wasn't too stellar (no pun intended) so continuing with that wasn't an option (although I still write for the astronomy news website Universe Today).

So my second was going into teaching. I currently have my license and am working to find a teaching position but it hasn't happened just yet.

Now I work in estate sales. I travel the country to purchase antique jewelry and other such things. I describe it as a cross between "Antiques Roadshow" and "Pawn Stars".

In my non-professional life, I'm a pretty big homebody. I attend quite a few conventions where I give talks and occasionally meet up with the St. Louis chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronisms, or take my telescope out with the St. Louis Astronomical Society, or join a random M:TG draft tournament (I don't have enough cards to make my own decks), but other than that, I don't get out much. With all the travel from work, I'm usually pretty tired.

I'd like to find more things that I enjoy doing that would require me to get out more.

Teaching, costuming, writing

Cooking: Been cooking at least once a week for my family since I was 12 and full time once I moved to college. I'm currently working to be far more adventurous with my cooking and trying new recipes.

Dance Dance Revolution: Yeah.... I got addicted 6 years ago and used to play several hours a day. Sadly, there's no good places that are cheap in St. Louis so I don't play as much anymore.

Math: For my degree, I'm not actually that great. I'm somewhat dyslexic and when your superscripts and subscripts switch themselves around and your equations rewrite themselves, it's a bitch. But by most people's standards I'm a math genius.

Costuming: I don't think much of my costumes, but apparently other people do. I've won an award with every costume I've made and been asked to do commissions, but I still don't consider my skills up to the task. I want a serger machine.

My sense of humor: I'm a sarcastic bastard.

_Books_
Anything by Terry Pratchett
Creationism's Trojan Horse by Barbara Forrest
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Holy Sinner by Thomas Mann
Myth of a Christian Nation by Gregory Boyd
Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehram
Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Wicked by Gregory Maguire

_Movies & TV_
Star Wars (some more than others...)
Gurren Lagann
Lord of the Rings
Moulin Rouge
Romeo + Juliet
Pirates of the Caribbean
Code Geass

_Music_
Dido
Muse
Goo Goo Dolls
Apocalyptica
Green Day
Nine Days
Nobuo Uematsu
Savage Garden
Vanessa Carlton
Vertical Horizon
Yoko Kanno
Incubus
Ani Difranco

_Food_
I'm up for most foods. Just nothing too spicy.

1) The internet
2) Caffeine
3) Free time
4) Good food
5) Logic
6) Did I mention the internet?

The best way to get people to understand scientific thinking and logic and why people distract themselves with poor thinking.

Occasionally I'm at a convention but usually just relaxing by myself. Sometimes with a friend.

I don't smile very often. It's not because I'm not in a bad mood. I just am neutral most of the time. I think it's scary that the American mindset is such that if you're not happy *all* of the time, something is wrong.

You are:
- intellectual
- passionate about improving humanity and capable of using rational thinking to do so (as opposed to methods that just SOUND good)
- geeky/nerdy
- likes (or is at least interested in) conventions and costuming
- going somewhere in life (college degree or close to)
- scientifically literate
- liberal
- self-confident
- non-religious