Hello World!

This is my first post here on steemit and I'm super excited at the potential I see for steem to revolutionize the way people think about value creation and the world in general.

I learned about this place after a friend told me about a facebook like site where she was earning money for upvotes. But I'm already heavy on instagram and snapchat and until recently facebook. I didn't see a need for yet another social media. I was finally convinced to join a week ago after realizing that I needed an outlet for my growing desire to both learn and teach.

I don't really know what else to say. I guess I feel privileged to live in the time we do. Think it about for just a minute.
We've watched the rise of blockchain technology and we've seen it's impact as it grows from it's infancy to it's current stage which I think is just now reaching toddler stage. I see this wonderful tool we've built and I see nothing less than the opportunity for us to revolutionize the world at every level. This is our baby and I hope we raise her right.

For the past two years I've worked off and on as an independent contractor from sites like freelancer. Work is spotty on there unless you're tied to an agency. It doesn't help that in some of my early projects, I bit off more than I could chew and got a few bad marks on my reputation as a result. But I've learned so much from those experiences and they've shown me that we can know our limits and still push past them to get to the next stage.

I have skills in C/C++, Javascript, Golang and most recently I picked up solidity. I wouldn't say I have super strong skills in any of them, but at least I can hold my own now. Solidity has turned out to be the easiest to learn but the hardest to work with. The lack of tooling and a decent workflow slows down everything! However I've learned a lot about what not to do at least and in the future I'd like to talk about the lessons I learned.

I'm working on a personal project right now. It's a game (gambling of course), backed by Ethereum and I've learned a lot of lessons building it. If you don't mind, I'd like to start off my more regular postings with a discussion on Solidity do's and don'ts and then deconstruct my game as it stands so far. I think I've also found a way to bridge between Ethereum and Steem at least in theory that I'd like to talk about. It could be helpful especially with current ETH gas prices running between 90 and 200 GWEI. Having a DAPP that could select which chain to use based on current execution costs, would just be cool... Wouldn't it?

As for me personally, I graduated highschool in 2010 with honors and then I finished my education with a BS in Computer Science in 2013. This was a year earlier than normal, but I had an advantage because my AP credits from highschool and an early start doing some community college as I finished high school, but it's hard to break into this industry. I'm not ashamed to say my day job is at a local burger joint and I'm a hard worker, but at night I dream of becoming a worldclass software architect. I don't earn much right now, but I took all of my left over paycheck this week, went to a bitcoin ATM, bought some bitcoins and then used most of it to buy steem with help from a friend, which I've now powered up. I plan to figure out the voting thing and start trying to find compelling content to upvote, so if you like me and what I have to say, follow me please!

In the meantime, I think to reach my lifetime goal of being a software architect, I'm going to need to prove myself by contributing to open source projects and making a name for myself, because sending my resume out blindly isn't working. So I'm here and if you want me to take a look at something, I work for upvotes and good references! :)

On a more personal note, I'm a gamer, but I hate the FPS shoot 'em ups. I love RPGs and especially the MMO variety like WoW, but my favorite game is Final Fantasy X-2. Although the game isn't really the greatest, in retrospect. I still love it and have played it through a few times. I didn't even know about it until it had been out for 10 years! Can you believe it? I know right?

I only found out about it because one of my friends started calling me Yuna. I guess because I was about her age and I guess I kinda looked like her at the time (She's 17 in the game and I was 20 that year but whatev's) . I played it for a few hours and then suddenly found myself sucked into the game and the next thing I knew 5 days had passed but I beat it! My boyfriend wasn't impressed, and that binge playing cost me a relationship. But I think I'm better off alone or at least with someone who understands what it's like to get sucked into a story like that.

This is what I love about RPGs. A good one is really a story where you're part of it. They're so much more than the run and shoot mindless violence. One day I hope to come up with a compelling story that I can make into an RPG. It's one of the reasons I wanted to learn computer programming in the first place. I used to write stories when I was younger and I don't know if they were any good, but it was fun for me. Maybe I'll get brave and share some here sometime.

That's all the time I have for today. I'm shy and trying hard to break out of my shell. My goal is to blog at least 3 times a week, but I'm mostly active on instagram and snapchat and I'm going to try and bring my friends from there over to here, so I may not be able to reach that 3x weekly goal, but I promise I'll do my best to ensure what I do post is more compelling. I know I sound a bit shallow here, but I promise I can be deep, haha!

Thanks for reading this and I look forward to getting to know you!
@saragarmee

p.s. The image isn't mine and isn't me. I'm a huge anime fan and umm borrowed this from zerochan.com because I like it and there seems to be a rule here about every post needing a picture. She's Yuna from my favorite game, Final Fantasy X2.

p.p.s. I've found the settings option! I went ahead and set my postings and my comments setting to 100% power up. I think that's a really cool option because it means my upvote will be useful eventually. I plan to stay 100% power up so I can upvote any friends I can convince to come here. But if you want my upvote please feel free to ask.