My road to Steemfest 4
Time for an update from my side, after reading Eric's post I knew it was time to start writing again. While I started writing about my road to steemfest pretty quickly after the announcement that it was going to be held in Bangkok this year, there has been a little pause in my posts about that topic. It's not that I avoided writing about Steemfest specifically, but actually I've not been in the writing flow that much lately. It's not that the Steemfest topic has left my mind, not at all actually. Low Steem prices have temporarily made me lose faith of actually getting there, but at the moment (even now the price is still dropping) I ignored that thought, because for all we know the price may suddenly rise a lot giving me all kinds of new opportunities to make it happen. One thing is certain, my trip there will be funded by my earnings on the platform combined with some other things I got up my sleeve. I don't have a regular job for an employer, and with only my boyfriend's salary we aren't going to be able to make it happen either. It's an expensive trip to get there, while the day to day cost there will probably be a lot lower than here in Budapest.
So how exactly am I planning on getting there?
First of all, try to up my game when it comes to writing. I have tons of things I can write about, and still haven't even posted about our holiday since we got home weeks ago. Although these earnings aren't near close to being enough to pay for a big part of the trip, I know there are several ways to get there. Rome wasn't built in one day either, right?
SourceTime for another approach to make it happen. In the end it doesn't matter how I will get there, but that I will get there. Maybe there are tons of ways to fund my way there that I haven't thought about at this point, it wouldn't be the first time lol. So I decided I would try to focus on that in a fun way....
I made a vision board to help me visualize
Although I realize this may sound pretty crazy for a lot of people, but yes, I did that.. I made a digital vision board that has been my screensaver since I made it about 6 weeks ago. In the past I've managed to book a few successes by practicing the law of attraction and I thought it was about time to do that again. The vision board is not only meant for Steemfest though, but also focussing on my project World of Reviews..
The initial plan was to start the project some weeks ago, but as some other things were more important, I decided to get that started around the same time as Steemfest. If all goes well (read: the little one being potty trained) our daughter will go to school from September, and that will suddenly give me so much more time that I can actually work from home with focus during schooltime, something that is currently mission impossible as the little girl is a handful. It has been quite frustrating for several weeks, especially when my boyfriend was away for a business trip 8 full days.. After we went on a short holiday a few weeks ago, I decided it is what it is, there's still plenty of time, and I can still make it happen.
I made a plan combining the project with Steemfest, to me everything in there is connected, to others it may seem like a weird collection of pictures and text, which is fine lol.
I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of people in real life
A few weeks ago, I had my second anniversary on Steemit, and especially during the last year I've met so many cool people on the platform. A very diverse group of people, some I met in one community, and others in a completely different one. But we all have something in common, we love Steemit and we're here for the long run. Even if prices are down, we still all post (even if it's not daily for several reasons, in my case mainly real life lol) and we still stay in touch reading each others posts or comments. I've learned quite some new things during my Steemit journey, and I'm confident that there is still a lot of new knowledge that I will gain in the future. The coolest thing to me is, finding so many like-minded people on many different topics I write about. I'm not the blogger that always writes in one certain niche, as I have too many things that I find interesting, and there is too much to share. Sticking to one topic is not my thing and it doesn't seem to matter that I'm not your average blogger sticking to one niche. Sometimes I have fun conversations filled with humor and foolishness, other times I have deep conversations with people I just met. On Steemit I have a voice, and it has also became a sort of diary to me for the future, memorizing certain moments in my life. Steemfest will definitely be one of those cool experiences that will be remembered forever.
Steemfest will be filled with "first times" for me
Starting with the fact that I've remained anonymous online for the past years due to several personal reasons, this will be the first time I meet other Steemians in real life. One exception that is, because about a month ago I got an unexpected message on discord from @janine-ariane that she was in Budapest, and would like to meet up. And I did, and we had such a great evening. This was the first time for me meeting someone in real life, and it all felt very natural, and if she's in the area again, I hope we can meet again! On Steemfest it will be kind of different though, because that's like throwing yourself in the open with hundreds of "strangers" who aren't actual strangers, because with quite a few of them I have had interaction for quite some time here.
SourceThen there's this other huge thing that I find pretty scary and exciting at the same time, the flight! First of all, I've never travelled alone to another country. Of course I've travelled a few hours by train in the past, but that's as far as my alone traveling goes at this point. Never have I done a flight by myself, and never have I been in Asia before. So not only will I be flying alone for the first time in my life, also I will be flying to Asia for the very first time in my life. Which is something that I find a bit scary as exciting at the same time.
While my boyfriend has travelled to Holland alone just a few weeks ago for a business trip, it will be the first one for me. He already experienced being apart from us for 8 days, and we have experienced being home alone for 8 days without him. The other way around will be a first experience as well for me, I've not been away from my youngest before. Of course I've been somewhere for maybe half a day, but never a night, let alone more than a week. However it was challenging at times when boyfriend wasn't here to help when he was on his business trip recently, she did fine without him and I made sure she had a lot of distractions. Hopefully it will go just as smooth the other way around when I'm in Bangkok, because it's quite a few miles away! The difference at the time of Steemfest is, that she'll hopefully be at school during that week, and probably be very exhausted.
Oh, did I mention that this will also mean that I will have a full week of me-time and will probably have adult conversations for a week instead of mostly hearing toddler talk during the day.. How cool is that?
For now I will just remain calm and have faith that I will get there
It feels like this year is exactly the right time to go to Steemfest, and on top of that it will be a life changing experience traveling for the first time by myself plus I will probably experience a culture shock in Asia as well. So how it will all plan out, I don't know yet, but I'm sure I will make it happen. Luckily there are plenty of opportunities to win tickets, so if I can win one in a contest, that would mean that I would have so save a few hundred bucks less.
See you at Steemfest :)