Hello Steem Community!

I am so happy to FINALLY be on this platform. The road to getting my account has been rocky and I definitely made all of the mistakes one could make. I first signed up under Japachi back in 2017 after hearing about Steemit from my husband. Not understanding the importance of Steem's Rule #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 AND 8 of NOT loosing your password, I wrote down my password on a piece of paper. The holidays rolled around and I never got the chance to log back into my account and do my introduce myself. When I finally got the time to sit down and do it, I entered in my password from my chicken scratch piece of paper and to no avail, the password would not work! And I tried at least 50+different combination passwords, changing the letters and #'s that I could have misinterpreted. So there I was, not even having posted anything, and I had already had broken Steem's most important rule.

With my cell phone tied to my non-accessible account, I tried to think of other ways to get a phone number. I got a google phone number to see if I could create an account with that. After waiting 2 weeks, I came to realize that Steem would never accept a google phone number. In desperation, I then went to the local grocery store and bought a $20 phone so I can get another phone number. This has GOT to work. I came running home, went through the account setup with my new phone number and entered all of my information in. As I hit submit and got to the final page where Steem tells you that they will get back to you once your account is approved, I realized another rookie mistake that I had made. I had gotten so excited to get my account setup that I had used my previous email address that was tied to my original Japachi account. NOOOOOO. It was like someone was telling me this was not something I should be doing.

Luckily, my savvy Steem Husband was able to figure out how to create an account by using an existing account. As long as you transfer money into the account, you can create these right away. SO here I am, IAMJAPACHI, logged in and actually being able to post. Not to mention, I got some steem power to help me out :) I am so grateful to finally have an account and be able to use it...so to all of you Steemit account holders, do not take your account for granted!

And now, a few things about me:

1. I am a JapaChi, a name that my college friends came up with to describe my heritage of being half Japanese and half Chinese. It is a pretty unusual mix since the Japanese and Chinese historically have not loved each other. Wars. Rape. Typical not nice neighborly things to do to one another.
2. I grew up in Los Angeles and I probably will never leave. Minus a 4 year stint in St. Louis for college, I have only lived in one place. How can you beat the weather???
3. I LOVE to travel. To me, it is like a meditation. I am only able to truly relax and forget about the craziness of my day to day life when I am in a foreign country trying to figure out where the hell I am! I have been to 28 countries and hope to double that in my lifetime.
4. I enjoy eating great food.
5. I LOVE wine. Pinot Noir is my wine of choice. It is light, fruity and not too sweet.
6. One of my main goals in life is to cultivate and have meaningful relationships. You could have everything you want in the world, but if you have no one to share it with, it becomes meaningless. Relationships have carried me through the good and the bad times. I really would be nowhere if it were not for my family and friends.
7. I really enjoy reading health blogs. I am actually kind of obsessed. I believe our current health system is backwards and I have been on a quest to figure out my own health challenges from a root cause analysis as opposed to the western medicine methodology of treating symptoms.
8. I enjoy meeting new people and learning about their stories and life experiences that have shaped them into the person they are today. To me, meeting new people is a way for me to get a small glimpse into a world that I may never experience just because of where I was born, when I was born, how I was raised, who I have met, etc. I have been put on this earth with the limited interactions and experiences that have shaped me into the person I am today. Learning about someone else's journey is like being able to get a small glimpse of what it could be like to have gone through their life experience, helping to open my eyes to a different perspective. I actually think of it similarly to traveling, but traveling through one's life's experiences. For instance, I could never know what it is like to grow up in India. However, I love meeting someone who has so I can feel like I can have an understanding of what they have gone through and glimpse into their world. With that being said...

This brings me to my final point, I would LOVE to meet all of you in the Steem community. To hear your stories. To hear your perspective. And to connect over commonalities and differences.

Looking forward to the future,
IAMJapachi