190 days ago...

It had been 190 days since I joined Steemit, and my life couldn't have been better. Before then, I had been a stressed graduating college student and couldn't be bothered with creating blogs and arts and everything else in between.

Then came the game-changing call from my big sister @arrliinn who had me have an account set up here on Steemit and just have a "look around" it. You can find more of the story on one of my earliest posts entitled Life minus Steemit, life plus Steemit, life ahead.

TL;DR My sister forced me to join, I obliged with empty enthusiasm, and enjoyed the platform from since.

Me as a content creator.

I'd always loved writing. As a high school student, I wrote for the school paper but saw it as an obligation more than anything else. I have tried keeping a blog site more than once in the past 10 years, but knowing the lack of people who read it, I thought 'Why bother at all? It felt so unsatisfactory.

Some of my drawings this year. I've always loved to draw, but before Steemit, it had been a long time since I last did. The Steemit community helped me reconnect with my most-loved stress reliever.

Then there's me and my crazy hobby of drawing. I'd been an enthusiastic 'artist' since I was a kid, and I enjoyed keeping my deviantART account updated every once in a while. I would accept drawing commissions sometimes, but still, it did not make me feel better.

The past 6 months

Those are two ways Steemit has helped me this year with: I got to write while expecting rewards, and I got to reconnect with drawing, with the satisfaction of knowing that others liked some of my works, too. The past six months so my improvement in both. I got to know:

• how to write interactively;
• how to engage more;
• how to draw better; and
• how to create content. Period.

People to thank for.

The past six months also saw me meeting more people, and getting to know them, too! I would like to take this time to give out my thanks to @tonyr. He'd been instrumental in my newfound love for traditional drawing with his amazing weekly drawing contest some few months ago. I got to interact with other artists, and I got to enjoy Steemit. So thank you, Tony!

Then there's @raizel, who'd been an extra supportive Steemit friend since the beginning. He's an awesome artist who enjoys doing animations that I definitely look up to. Thank you for the endless support, Raizel!

Ate Zara @zararina is also definitely one of the people who made my Steemit experience better. Exchanging chikas and simple conversations with you had made my Steemit 2017 awesome. Thank you, Ate Zara!

Of course there's @curie. And the people behind the project. You pushed my abilities; you're the one that made me write better, draw better, engage better, because quality matters, too. You made me see beauty in others' posts, and made me critical of some. And you made my past 6 months interesting. Thank you, @curie! I'll keep supporting you until you see to your end goal.

Finally, the people behind @bayanihan. Particularly, to my fellow Bayanihan curators @deveerei, @jassennessaj, @dreamiely, @immarojas, @themanualbot, and @juvyjabian, and our awesome sponsors. I got to connect with the #philippines community because of you, guys. Because of this project, I saw how Filipino talent can be on a whole new level. Let's keep doing our best for the community.

Curation

I've been a curator for Project Curie since... I can't remember. The thought of pushing other Steemians to keep doing better, it feels amazing.

Since Curie, I'd been an active curator for the #philippines community, too. The @bayanihan project, which began in August but only officially announced September, aims, more than anything, to support Filipino Steemians.

And because of the effect effective curation has put to smaller and beginner Steemians, I realize the impact curation in general holds.

From bigger curation, to community curation, to personal curation.

I've run some SQL query to quantify my curation in my 6 months here on Steemit.

How my votes were distributed since June 30 this year up to today.

In the past 6 months, I have distributed my votes to 2139 unique users! Awesome! And, hear this, I have upvoted 1498 unique authors since the first of December. How did that ever happen?

I've been trailing @curie and @bayanihan. Sometimes I had to drop one or the other, what with VP getting drained, but hey, it was worth it. The thought of having distributed my votes to all these people, big or small, mattered so much.

I personally didn't like resteeming.

As an author myself, I personally dislike resteeming. My own personal posts get lost in the sea of resteemed post, and I kinda didn't appreciate it. Above is a graphics of my resteeming activities in the last six months, and you'll see just how it decreased over time.

At this note, please support the Philippine community!

Support #philippines

If you're a Filipino like myself, help support fellow Pinoy Steemians by following our curation trail on either of these two platforms:

• Streemian; or
• Steemauto.

---

Steemit had been amazing.

It has been good to me. I'd love for others to feel the same way, too. I love reading posts about how this platform got to change lives for the better. I'd love to hear yours, too.

Thanks for reading!