Hello Laura,
Welcome to Steemit. I'm very curious about the comment you made:
I'm slowly beginning to realize that steemit.com is not exactly the way I thought when I heard of it.
Would you mind elaborating about what your initial thoughts were and how/why these ideas have changed? I think most people come here with some sort of pre-conceived idea and then after being here a while, reality sets in.
I only heard about Steemit as a social media platform that pays you for content and was intrigued by that. I joined without knowing anything else and just jumped in to find out. I made a few mistakes at first but did a lot of research and soon understood what I was dealing with. Then hardfork 19 came along and changed things a bit. Now the price of steem is taking a nosedive and further changing things. From all of this, I learned that Steemit is in constant flux and nothing remains the same except for the fact that you can earn Steem and SBD by participating in the community.