Greetings to all in as many languages as I can pretend to speak.

Why am I here?

I've already been on here a few days and posted a few things, but I'm still new so I think an introduction would be nice. I've been interested in cryptocurrency ever since I turned $100 into $1,000 in a couple of days back in that bitcoin boom of 2012. Since then, my sister @grottbags has returned her passion for it and brought me here, and well, here I am!

So I want this introduction to be more than just about me though, so I want this to be a reflection of what my Steemit page will be about, too. I'm a very passionate individual in general, and a tad obsessive, and I'm very eager to spread my experiences to others that want to hear it.

With that in mind, let's get on with the photo-heavy introduction! (I don't know how to make the photos smaller... sorry)

History... I feel old.

I'm 29, British, and left the UK in 2010 and pretty much never looked back (My first smart phone I got in Korea... old). The experiences I've gained over these 7 years to me are utterly invaluable, and many memories still come back to me on a daily basis with melancholy and contentment.

After getting my Bachelor's in music, I became angry at the inherent grading system and decided to move to Korea, rather than get a master's. The easiest way to do this was to become an unqualified ESL teacher, which was terrifying. Thankfully, the students taught me how to teach them, and over time I became pretty good.

After two years, I saved up enough to travel around like in Europe, Nepal, Thailand and ended up in Vietnam where I lived for a further 2 years.

()

My fondest and most frequent memories of my life come from Nepal where I spent a month in the Himalayas, hiking for up to 9 or 10 hours a day, uphill (or downhill on the second half). The sights, the people, the culture were all stunning beyond belief.

Here's some more photos:

As you can see, throughout that month, we got to go through forests, jungles, tundra, desert, plains, rocky wastelands...almost every kind of climate within walking distance (kind of).

Here is an interesting perspective. I want to be clear that my camera is pointing UP. Those rocks are sticking out over my head. If you point the camera down, you see the angle a little better in the photo below:

Yeah... we were walking on a 12-inch wide pathway that looked like it had been carved out with a broom. We were told not to shout or take photos due to the risk of, well, dying. I was foolish enough to poke my hiking stick into the gravel, causing a mini avalanche which made me run like a rabbit on lava.

In a 2-day stay over in a small valley-town called Kagbeni, I spent my time observing and meeting some locals, all of which live many days' walk from any substantial city. Some of the kids would be trekking with us for half the day just to get to school.

Well, after this life-changing experience was when I went to Vietnam for a year and a half and started to expand my teaching to music, social studies, science and generally got more training to become an actual teacher in an international school.

Now

My final stop was Shanghai, China, where I have been living for over 3 years now, and though I consider it one of the most flawed and problematic countries out there, it does me well living here, and getting a deeper perspective and understanding of China is an important thing to have in an age where China is exploding with wealth and global influence.

One way I have been doing my part in China is through my love of animals. I have grown up with pets since I remember even being alive, and I've used my passion to rescue abandoned and abused pets here. There is NO law against animal cruelty here, so it is indeed completely legal to grab a street dog, cut its head off and drink beer from its skull if you so pleased. It's a harsh and shocking reality, especially when you see that what I just described isn't always that far-fetched, after all.

Both of these cats I tried to rescue, but inevitably failed. The first one from severe anemia, the second from an incompetent Chinese adopter who let him starve and jump out of a third story window. This is just another series of memories I have to live with. But, I do my best, I've had some successes. Here is my cat, born of a street cat himself:

...maybe 'success' is too strong a word...

Well anyway, now I'm working as an English and Audio Production teacher in an International School, and I have a great opportunity to prepare students to be better, more civilized and ready for their future life in the US. To me, that's a valuable contribution to the world.

Other passions

Naturally, being a music major, one of my biggest passions is music. Eventually I hope to have my own recording studio, and this is one of the many subjects I was considering focusing on here, if there is demand for it. I've made music for movies in Germany, England and China, as well as some commercials, and I enjoy making various electronic and acoustic music in my free time.

I'm also hugely interested in Psychology, Biology, Cosmology and other sciences (the ones easiest to get a layman's grasp on), philosophy, culture & history, politics, gardening and, well, almost anything that comes my way.

Taking that into consideration, the name of my account is 'Devil's advocate', so I intend to discuss topics I'm interested in from the less popular perspectives. This may be very controversial stuff, like one of my recent posts about pedophiles, others may be simple, like how to feed your cat properly. I will always base my posts on science and data far more than my own opinion, so if you find something outrageous or stupid, please feel free to let me know, rather than call me a bunch of rude words. I mean, you'd be wasting your time anyway since it really doesn't affect me emotionally.

If I ever get popular, I was thinking of doing a request-based thing where I can make music on request, or write a perspective on any subject.

Speaking of which, here's some music I did for a movie once:

https://app.box.com/s/t50bdlhnwjefk4j9vna8

I know a lot about music, education and animals, but I hope whatever I end up doing here, it'll be of use to somebody. Thanks for reading this far!

Cheers!