_{By cegoh on pixabay.com}

---

_{Have you seen the tiny cake steemd.com adds to your age on your "birthday"?}

---

One year Steem! Yay! I should do a post about ...

Well, about what?

I already did a Q&A post when I hit a reputation of 70. When I was looking for that post, I noticed it's already 7 months old, and I only increased my rep by one point in that time ... well, shit happens.

Still, let me give you a very short recap of what happened to me in this past 12 months (not necessarily in order):

• Posted 4 articles on my first day because I was so excited
• Got a $400 curie vote
• Was discovered by @blocktrades who seemed to enjoy my stories, at least for a while
• Joined steem.chat, was soon made a moderator in #general, always never regretted it since
• Made friends with a bunch of nerds on steem.chat
• Was added to the OCD team by @acidyo (left later to spend more time with steemSTEM)
• Joined steemSTEM and became part of management faster than you could say "science is cool"
• Experienced HF19, still waiting for HF20 to this day
• Experienced the birth and rise of @minnowbooster and other vote bots
• Did several science challenges (1, 2,3)
• Became briefly involved in a flag war
• Saw STEEM rise to $8, saw SBD fly away from the $1 peg
• Mentored people
• Coined the term "sceince" (curse you, first tag!)
• Participated in the 1st steemSTEM meetup at CERN
• Created several accounts for new members using steeminvite (thanks @pharesim for this cool tool)
• Delegated a huge chunk of my SP away to people who need it more (once as a giveaway but also to several other occasions)
• Started the steemSTEM honor members
• Started my "spam blog" @suesa-random
• Started a blog for Spanish translations of my stories @suesa-spanish in cooperation with @kex
• Posted the apparently most offensive April Fool's joke ever
• Made friends with more people than I could possibly name, as I would totally forget someone important and then they'd be sad (drop me a "suesa, do you not love me?!" in the comments if you need reassurance we're friends :P )
• Made a bredlik contest that got some pretty bad entries, but made @lemony-cricket start writing bredliks for me

You see, I've been quite busy, as I've probably forgotten some things that should go on the list too.

Since February, I've been active a lot less, especially when it comes to posting. I used to post once a day, but working on my bachelor thesis, that became impossible. Luckily, I'm going to turn it in on the 2nd of July, so I'll soon be free to write more again!_@suesa

So, what's the outlook?

I will ...

• start posting more again (duh)
• keep pushing steemSTEM
• plan the next steemSTEM meetup that takes place September 20.-22. 2018 (updates on that will be posted on the steemSTEM account)
• keep supporting newbies in the ways I can (on steem.chat, opening accounts, delegating to people I believe in, finally continuing with my mentoring program, ...)
• try to find new ways to attract people to the platform
• meet many more cool Steemians
• hopefully attend the next Steemfest, if there is one
• keep having fun on this blockchain

Especially the last point is incredibly important to me. I'm not here for the money. If I were, I'd push out one mediocre post a day, maybe two, and collect the money. I wouldn't invest time in steemSTEM or helping newbies. I'm here for the community, for all of you, and that's the reason I'll stay.

So is that it? Another boring anniversary post?

Of course not, you know me! And you know that you should always read till the end for the good stuff.

What's the good stuff?

You have a few options!

1. There are still some burning questions on your mind? Ask them in a comment, I will answer. If I like it, you get the usual 5% upvote I give good comments.

2. You know I love bredliks, right? Write a good one. An excellent one. Follow the bredlik rules described in the contest post I linked above. Receive a 100% upvote (~$1 depending on the current Steem price.) If I find it especially great, I might even transfer you some Steem ... but you'd need to really impress me.

3. Leave me a comment with 3 random words. I will write a short story and compile all short stories in one post that will be posted ... whenever I am done writing them. Your name will be attached to that story.

Still not satisfied? Have some science!

In the spirit of pride month, let’s talk a bit about homosexual animals!

I looked around a bit and promptly found a study looking at the sexual preferences of male rams which apparently prefer male-on male mating in 9.1 % of cases and seemed to be bisexual in 22.7% of cases (Price et al., 1988). But that’s an edge case, right? Just like the people who studied the pressure with which penguins poop.

Nope. According to Zenchak, Anderson & Schein (1981), “the failure of some adult rams to mate estrous ewes is a consequence of their preference for rams as sexual partners.” They’re gay. And according to Roselli et al. (2004), it’s associated with their brain’s anatomy. (Hey, look, a study that’s not from the 80s!)

Different monkeys seem to generally enjoy homosexuality too. Like, really enjoying it. There’s a study that has a focus on the female orgasm in stumptail monkeys. Additionally, I’ve stumbled across several publications about Japanese male homosexual macaques and Japanese female homosexual macaques. Leca et al. (2015) found out that these female macaques even tend to favor female partners over male partners when presented with adequate mates from both genders, which makes it a conscious choice, not just an action out of need.

---

_{Pool party! (By andrew_t8 on pixabay.com)}

---

Oh, and male flying foxes (a species of bats) apparently like to give each other the equivalent of blowjobs.

Now, not only mammals get to be homosexual, that’d be boring.

You have maybe already heard of the all-female lizards, Lepidodactylus lugubris. It’s challenging to be heterosexual when there are no men, although sometimes, the females seem to mate with males of closely related species (Yamashiro, Toda & Ota, 2000). Aside from that, offspring are mostly clones of their mom. Now isn’t that just splendid?

This ability to reproduce without the need for males has also been observed in Orconectes limosus, a species of crayfish (Buřič et al., 2011). Although it’s questionable if that makes them lesbian.

But hey, it’s relatively easy to induce male homosexuality in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) via genetic manipulation (Yamamoto, Ito & Fujitani, 1996).

The gay is everywhere.

Craving even more? Have a short fiction story!

---

_{By melkhagelslag on pixabay.com}

---

”What’s your name?”

”Uh … Rose. My name is Rose.” The short alien looked up to the human and tried to produce something that its guidebook described as smile. She hoped she got it right.

”What are you doing?”

”Smiling?”

”Please stop.” The smile dropped out of Rose’s face and she looked down to the floor in shame.

”I’m sorry”, she mumbled. ”Just trying to fit in.” The human sighed.

”It’s okay. I know your species is just about to finally enter the galactic alliance and you’re very new to this. But it’s not good to start a conversation with a lie. So please, again, what’s your name? Because I’m certain, it’s not Rose.” Rose looked up to the human in confusion.

”Why would you assume I lied to you?”, she asked. ”Why would I lie to you?”

”To fit in? Why would an alien be named Rose? It’s a name derived from a plant that’s found on Earth, my home planet.”

”It is? That’s interesting. It means something completely different in my language. But I guess the translator isn’t converting it to yours, because the word sounds the same.” Rose tapped the little device attached to her earlobe. It looked like jewelry but was a sophisticated translation device that had been handed to her upon her arrival on the human ship.

”You’re telling me, that completely by chance, the language of our two species evolved in a way that created the same word, just with different meanings?”

”Yes.”

The human shook its head.

”Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. But tell me then, what does your name mean?” Again, Rose tried something from her book. A grin, this time.

”It means the patient one or rather the one who waits.”

”Interesting. Why did your parents name you like this?”

”My parents? Why would the name be given to me by my parents?”

”They didn’t give it to you?”

”No.” Rose shook her head, the human signal for disagreement. ”A name is something temporary. It describes your current task in life.”

”And your current task is to be patient, to wait?”

”Exactly.”

The human frowned.

”Wait for what?”

An explosion, not too far away, shook the ship and threw the human to the floor.

Rose’s grin grew wider.

”This. And may I introduce myself? I am Kleyvisa. The one who betrays.”

MORE?!

---

_{By Myriams-Fotos on pixabay.com}

---

Nope. That was it. See you around :)

---

---

---

_{GIF was created for me by @saywha and @atopy , rest of the signature by @overkillcoin}