Hey @smooth, first and foremost I want to thank you for this initiative since I believe that it’s a massive opportunity for many Steemians to attend Steem Fest, considering how expensive the ticket might be to some, especially in the current market.

A bit about myself

My name is George, I am a young Romanian, and I’m currently studying marketing mostly because I like the financial and psychological aspect of it but, that’s such a small part of my life that it’s far from defining me. I often find it somewhat difficult to talk about myself but, if there’s one thing that defines me the best is **truth**, authenticity. At first, being authentic and different was just a fun thing to do since I always enjoyed surprising people. But, over time, it became such a huge part of my personality that I think it defines me the best or, at least it represents what I’m trying to strive for, the best. ![3.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTR3bga6ctV9FbUAjbYSWMCieffKYAKKHeiMKMFGq33VW/3.png) *_{That's my face}* **Authenticity** is a value that I picked up very early in my life thanks to a handful of brilliant mentors, and it turned out to be the thing that impacted my life the most since it feels so refreshing not to follow the fake path others try to push you on. I’m trying to keep things as simple as possible in my personal life and don’t bother myself with too many worthless belongings and meaningless noise since I think it’s an essential thing I have to do so I can achieve the freedom I want to. **Freedom and Truth** is the journey I have knowingly or unknowingly taken up in the last couple of years. There isn’t much more to say about myself, or nothing that’s available in my conscious mind at this moment but, I can surely tell you a lot more about my activity on the blockchain.

Steem and I

I joined this blockchain in mid-June 2017, mainly out of curiosity, after I stumbled upon it through youtube. I got hooked right away because everything seemed so incredible, and thankfully I met some amazing people right off the bat that pushed me on the right path. I remember that I used to spend sometimes even 10 hours a day in the first few months, only commenting on posts and chatting with people on Steem.chat or Discord. Now, I am probably spending even more than that a day sometimes but, mostly focusing on developing projects, and creating content. There are quite a couple of things I could mention that I was part of but, I will try to stick to the most relevant ones. * One month and something into this whole thing, and I found out about @OCD, and I managed to somehow become part of the **curation** team, and stay with it since then. That experience impacted me tremendously not only because I was in a position from where I was able to help a lot of people but, also because I managed to make a couple of strong and long-lasting friendships. But, besides all the curation I did in the last year, the hundreds of posts reviewed and curated, I am also a believer in flagging, and the freedom of users to express their disagreement on rewards through it. I think it’s an essential part of the platform but too few people are doing it. * Everything was going fine, and all of my efforts got rewarded far more than I ever expected to once I became part of @Sndbox in early December of 2017. Being part of the incubator not only allowed me to polish my content creating skills but, also to develop other projects with the primary goal of helping others. One of those projects was the Sndbox Summer Camp where @anomadsoul, and I **mentored** 30+ Steemians and helped them launch a handful of **successful projects**, as @projectgiving, @celfmagazine, and @steem-times. * I also put the basis for the Romanian Community, @SteemRomania with a couple of fellow Steemians, in order to grow and support the **community**. Also, later, I launched the @SteemChronicles magazine with @macchiata so the Steem community can have a **printable magazine**, free for anybody. But, due to exams, life in general, and other more urgent projects we postponed the magazine until last week when we started working on it again. These are my main accomplishments from the last year and so but, it’s merely a beginning because the next year is really going to be game-changer for sure.

Free Ticket?

I am determined to attend Steem Fest because over the last year I managed to build quite a couple of strong friendships, and I think that now is the time to meet in person the people I interacted with so much. As I said in the beginning, I live in Romania, and even if I managed to make a bit of money in the last year, 277 euros it’s still a huge price considering that it is a whole salary over here. The entire trip to Poland will probably end up costing me at least as much as two months of expenses so, a free ticket would surely make a huge difference, and be of great help. After the things this blockchain offered me, and the people I met in the last year, I can’t see myself missing out on this edition of the festival even if I will probably end up spending over the course of a couple of days, as much as my college fee for a full year. Again, thank you for doing this initiative, and all the best to you.