Hi guys. I've been around for about 2 weeks now, but I've never made an introduce yourself post. I didn't have many interesting and positive things to say about myself, and I didn't want to sound like a scammer using a sob story to scam money.

However, Steemit has really saved me and given me hope, and I really wanted to show my appreciation to @dan, @ned, all the other devs for creating Steemit, and also everyone in the community, because without you guys, it would not have taken off.

It's one thing to create an innovative and successful company, but when your company has actually saved people's lives and given them hope, that's a huge achievement in itself.

Let me tell you guys my story.

Our family immigrated to Canada when I was 7 years old, and while we were not rich, life back then was really carefree. I never had any worries, and my parents would never show any of the hardships that they faced. I didn't even realize that our family was quite poor until I was in my 20s. Thinking back, I am very lucky to have had such a wonderful childhood. On the other hand, because my parents never shared any of their pains and difficulties with me, and I've never had to do anything outside my comfort zone, I didn't have enough maturity and skills to survive in the real world.

Then everything started happening at once. Because of events and things I really don't want to reveal in public or even think about, our family was broken apart and I dropped out of University after 3 years, with $30,000 (CAD) debt.

Because of these events, both of my parents became severely depressed, and after a while, my mom kicked me out.

I have no job, can't find a job, and I have no source of income. Here, you can see my bank account.

^{The reason the last login was way back in April is because I'm too scared to check my deminishing balance}

I literally have less than a months' worth of money left.

Here, you can see the door to my room. It has no lock. But I can't afford to rent a better place.

And here, are my shoes. Yes, I still wear them. Protip: if you are getting blisters very often, wear two socks on the same foot. It works wonders, even if your shoes are like mine, and your socks are full of holes. No need to spend money on super expensive protective socks.

That's my laptop, it's barely held up together with tape. And in case you're wondering, those are pizza boxes. Why? Because I don't have a table or chair.

Everyday, I have to sleep for about 16 hours, and the rest of the time, I'm either watching anime, drama, youtube videos or otherwise surfing the web. I think it's a kind of a defense mechanism from my brain, because if I didn't sleep so much or occupied myself with with these things, I won't be able to handle the stress of knowing I could starve to death in less than a month. You know, I think a lot of people are under the impression that you can't starve to death in a first world country like Canada. But I am really close.

I have considered committing suicide on multiple occasions, since the thought of starving to death while homeless is horrifying for me; but I don't know much about committing suicide, and I was scared that it'd super painful, I'd fail, become paralyzed, and have to live in constant pain for many years or something.

It was at a time like this that I found Steemit. Steemit has really saved my life, and given me hope.

Now, you're probably searching through my post history to see how many viral posts I made, and after finding none, you realize that I'm just a lying con artist trying to bank on people's empathy. But hear me out.

I have never made a super viral post, I don't pretend to have done so. But last week, I made a post that managed to get Dan's attention, and earned ~$250. Now that in itself doesn't really solve any problems, but because of it, and after reading a couple of posts here on Steemit, I realized that there was an arbitraging opportunity between STEEM, SBD and bitcoin. (I'm writing another post on arbitraging soon.)

This is my bitcointalk account. I did some signature campaigns back in the day, along with a bit of dust from faucets I put on bittrex, I managed to save up about 0.45 BTC. I never bothered to withdraw it, because I felt bitcoin would go up in the future, and also I would have to go through a lot of verifications and work, and 0.45 BTC doesn't really solve any of my problems.

So with the 0.45 BTC I originally had, and the earnings I had from my posts here on Steemit, I tried my hand at a bit of trading. I've never done trading before, and I didn't know what to expect. But it was surprisingly easy. I did extremely well the first day (well, night... it was at like 3am in the morning...). I wanted to make this post right there and then, but I couldn't because I wasn't sure if I just got really lucky that day, or if this arbitraging opportunity can really last. Now after a week, I'm quite certain that there really is an arbitraging opportunity here.

In a week, through posts on Steem and arbitraging between STEEM, SBD and BTC, I managed to go from 0.45 BTC to ~1.18 BTC. That's about $480 dollars, or roughly $68 dollars a day. And that's not counting the valuable Steem Power I earned. Now, that might be nothing for some people. But for me, it couldn't have come at a better time. Just that would be enough to cover my rent and some other expenses.

My monthly spending including rent and food, is about $800-900 CAD. That comes out to about $700 USD, which is only about $23/day. I could make $23 in 2-3 trades, which seems really doable. Plus I could continue making posts, and if they earn some, great.

Now trading doesn't have much to do with Steemit. However, it is only because of the special relationship between SBD and STEEM, and the Steemit internal, no fee market that makes this possible. I would not be able to out compete against trading bots that arbitrage between ETH, DAO and BTC, for example.

Steemit has given me so much hope.

But there has been another thing that deeply bothers me. My grandfather has been diagnosed with dementia, and he is in the middle stages. It hurts so much to see him like this. I have a very deep bond with my grandparents, even more so than with my parents, because I grew up with them when I was little, and I also went back to China for a whole year in grade 4, living with my grandparents. My grandfather is the best grandfather in the world (sorry, yours will have to be 2nd best :P). He really really loves children, and he never gets angry at anyone.

Dementia is a horrible disease that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but it's especially bad for my grandfather. You see, with dementia, you normally lose the ability to take in new information and recent memories first. But the memories from the far past still remains.

My grandfather's family were landlords, the largest landlords in the surrounding area. When the communists took over, families that used to be landlords were treated absolutely horribly. China in the 50s and 60s was bad enough even if you didn't have a landlord background, you can't imagine what it was like for people with a landlord background. My grandfather's father eventually committed suicide, and his brothers also suffered horribly at the hands of Mao.

I will be writing more on my grandfather with a little bit more Chinese history, because I think he is an amazing person that should not be forgotten like this. I want to record his life story in some form, so that it's not forgotten forever.

^{My grandparents a few years back.}

Anyway, because of the dementia, my grandfather is constantly remembering the horrible times in the 50s and 60s. The expression on his face, and the trembling that happens when someone mentions Mao, is something I will never forget in my life.

My grandparents love it here in Vancouver, and they became permanent residents of Canada a few years back. However, even though there are a lot of Chinese people in Vancouver, not being able to speak English is still a huge obstacle, and we are the only family here in Canada. Because of my grandfather's current situation, they will have to go back to China, where they are more familiar with, and can get much help and support from my aunt, and my grandmother's brothers and sisters.

It pains me to think that I will not be able to be there for my grandfather in what is possibly the last few years of his life, to not be able to spend more time with him while he still has some memories of us. He has done so much for me, and yet I can do nothing for him.

But Steemit changed that.

Even if I found a job at McDonalds, I would be tied to the location, and not able to do anything. However, because I can post anywhere in the world, and arbitrage STEEM/SBD/BTC anywhere in the world, now I can consider going back to China for a while, to help take care of my grandfather, and just to spend some time with him while I still can. Even if I could become a billionaire or whatever in the future, I will never get the opportunity to spend time with my grandfather ever again. Being able to treasure these last moments with my grandfather means the world to me, and Steemit is making it possible.

My plan now is to save up a bit of money for the plane ticket, visa application costs, and also a bit of emergency money so I can survive for a couple of months even if there was a bad month of trading or something. It shouldn't be too hard, since while living costs have risen a lot in China, it is still quite a bit lower than Vancouver. Hopefully I can do this by the time my grandparents go back to China, which will be before the end of the year.

Again, I just wanted to thank @dan and @ned, and all the other devs, as well as the whole Steemit community for making all this possible. You guys don't know how much I appreciate it.

P.S Is there anything you guys would be interested about regarding China? For example, when I go back, I could perhaps make some travel or food/restuarant posts... anything else that could be potentially interesting? Thanks.

P.S.S In case you're skeptical, wondering why I haven't had any trades since that first day, I started trading with another account, after searching multiple times, and not finding anything saying that multiple accounts are not allowed. The account is @kujira