What's up! I've been two weeks now on steemit, and I've only commented or resteemed several english posts, without making a proper presentation in this language. I'm from Venezuela and my first experience with english was at the age of 5 (I think). When I was learning to ride my bike, I used to do it on two very long streets in my neighborhood to go as fast as I could, and to wave my hand at people. The true reason for that? Because I wanted them to see, that I was capable of both riding my bike and to wave at them at the same time. Not that long after, my next move was an attempt to hand make a sort of licence, a folded in two piece of paper and cartonboard with the following script inside: "EXPERT IN BICICLET" (Biciclet 'cause here we call the bicycle "bee-seeclet-ah"). I was so excited to show my credential to every person that I ran to when I was riding around the block. After that, it didn't take too long for me to work on my english, and by age 11 I was already having the best grades on that matter. We start (Venezuela) to have english courses around the ages of 9 and 10, but I was already hooked into playing a lot of computer and Nintendo. I still love to play, but the power I felt by learning another language was something that changed my life altogether. I didn't need to study much, just paying attention in class was enough, because I could understand any subject and lesson very well without lots of effort. Had the best grades and by the age of 15, I could speak and write at least to the point where I could engage on a conversation and write about many topics as well.
Year 2002. This is where the tragedy starts. When I was still in highschool, a political crisis arose. The president at the time had every intention to turn the country into a communist state (He did so, we're still suffering it) and a dictatorship was the main rule above all. You could loose your job, company or even your house if you weren't aligned with these ideologies or politics. My father joined a strike from the oil industry PDVSA, one of the largest in the world, to try to change the president and the entire future of the country, but man, did they fail. Over 30 thousand workers lost their jobs and of course, their families suffered this the most. Being under age there wasn't too much that I could do about it, no more than to study and to help in the house. My father had at least 3 years with the problem that no one could hire him because of a government order, until a friend of his risked his company to do hire him (he's now been working there over a decade). You could see these people selling food in the streets, and doing tons of "illegal" work because of the president cutting their chance to have a fair job. People that worked in the oil industry for over 20 years didn't get even a recognition, they were all fired without any remuneration for the time spent working in the country's best and biggest company (to that time, of course). Needless to say, this turned upside down the faith of Venezuela. Many people left for another future, and now, almost 20 years after the PDVSA strike, millions of venezuelans work and are doing way better far from here. Fair to say as well that my family and I are still living in Venezuela. This is not an ideal scene, even for people outside, because they still have family living here too, and the conditions to do so are precarious, very difficult times indeed.
Being the fact that this is an #introduceyourself post and I'm talking a lot about others, I'll return to myself. I do speak and write two languages very well. I am an artist, I draw and paint on every canvas you can imagine creative lettering & illustration, I'm currently an apprentice in a tattoo shop managed by @victatt and @eliotattoo8130, you can see all of their work there and we're currently developing safe tattoo inks. Its process is a promising yet very hard work to accomplish. The conditions in this country aren't any better since the government never gave their power and have already been at charge for 20 years (they still don't want to turn over anything, even with their long list of mistakes and criminal record). And this is not only a hard enough scenario where you have to think every day if we must all leave this country and look for a more healthy and accesible environment, a place to live better in peace, surrounded by better people and ambitions. I'm also a graphic designer and part of my artistic abilities also include science, gardening-farming, and music too! I play guitar and I sing, but I also play bass guitar, and a little of drums and keys.
Something I can say about me is that I've never stop growing as an artist, and I won't stop ever. From reading, drawing, writing and painting at a very short age I went to photography, oil paintings and murals, I grow tons of beautiful flowers. And I aim to grow many vegs and fruits too. I admire the visual and kinetic part of nature which we can help to create, manage or simply observe. We need art to make a statement of uniqueness and practical thinking protest. We don't need to be full time robots in a world full of repetitions, we need original content in our entire planet and its nature as much as steemit does.
My attempt at this network is easy. I try to enlarge my reach, my art, my words, my pictures and clips. I'm also enjoying the fact that here we can find a lot of people, amazing artists in this platform trying not just to work, but to share their and this awesome lifestyle. We do like to be succesful, but I think that the most important part is that we are people really trying to help and support each other. I can relate to anyone of you and I also think that if you give me the opportunity, I might as well have a very artistic and intelligent response to make something greater than before. I do believe that more than steemit itself, the main goal is to continue to grow individually by supporting other people's work while we're at it. This isn't just a place to post, this is an entire world of opportunities. I thank you guys for keeping this network alive, to let me keep growing and fulfilling my part. Kudos to you and respect!
Daniel Vásquez, 31