Greetings Steemit Community,

I'm new to the Steemit platform and intrigued by the model. I'm committed to learning more, and to finding the niche where my contributions will have the most impact.

About Me

A little about me. I live in the north Georgia in the United States. I have a PhD in Music Education, Piano Pedagogy emphasis, and teach in small liberal arts college for the fiat necessary to live and operate in society. In addition to my professional pursuits, I am a permaculturist, and have developed the .5 acre lot where I live with Apple, Pear, Persimmon, and Fig trees, as well as a host of companion plants including nitrogen fixers, medicinal herbs (except for the illegal ones), and culinary herbs. We also have a small flock of chickens.

We would love to find a larger homestead and expand, but before we can do that, we must dispatch some student debt. The small school where I work does not pay enough for us to make rapid debt reduction a possibility, so I am attempting to find some additional means of income. I don't really think Steemit is that mechanism for me, but it might work great for my wife.

Crypto and Me

I bought about $700 of Ethereum and Bitcoin last fall. Ethereum was at $12 when I started buying. Bitcoin around $500-600. My funding mechanism stopped allowing easy conversion to bitcoin, and with the new semester starting, I lost contact with the crypto world for awhile.

Imagine my delight when on a whim, I checked prices, and my ethereum holdings had increased by about 3000%.

Since then, I've been leveraging the gains in value by diversifying into other cryptos, and purchased an off-site mining rig. I've been mining Zcash for about 2 1/2 weeks now, and have decided to expand. I'm researching the main cryptos now to make sure I understand the benefits and features of each. Right now I'm working on understanding Steem.

My Steemit Plans

For the next 3-4 months, I'll be using about 10% of my mining gains purchasing Steem and Steem Power. Then, based on my experience, introduce the platform to my wife and/or devote a larger portion of my freelance efforts to it. I'm in the middle of the white paper, and have a basic grasp of the platform, but feel like I need to live with the technology awhile to truly understand it.

Help me out!

Please help point me in the right direction to use Steemit according to best practices. I'm looking for people to follow, and the right community for my contributions.

Thanks,
may214