To the person I have tried to be so nice to as a friend, thanks for showing me how immature you can be.
You approached me for TFCD photo shoot and I gladly accepted without any demand. Having read my website’s terms and conditions for shooting, you still demanded me to produce at least a photo for you that night just a couple of hours after the shoot. Subsequently you messaged me almost everyday in Facebook with the objective to rush me for the photos and even insisted me to pause my earlier work (a project that I had taken up a few day before our shoot just because you did not confirm the date earlier with me) and start on your photos. When I tried so hard to explain that it would be going against my principle and fairness, you assumed it was my fault.
I admit it is my fault – for assuming someone is like an angel too early. I dare not look back at the ultimately nice article I have written about you that contains only about your positive points. I feel stupid for rushing the photos out for you. I have also wasted lots of time and effort just to reason with you who behaves like a kid.
For all you have done, I really want to thank you for teaching me a good lesson in my life. I need to stop thinking that people are totally nice just because of innocent looks and initial good manners. I need to quit exhausting myself just to make people happy. I need to start believing age defines maturity and sensibility.
You can continue to be pissed off although I should be the one taking up your place. It simply shows how much you are thinking about and for only yourself. I’m disappointed but I will be fine soon after sorting out my mind on how I am going to treat new friends, or perhaps, one-time assignment team-mates. As for you, I’m not worried since girls usually have many guys who will surround them despite abnormal attitude. I hope some of these friends would treat you truly like a princess.
68547070 Telemarketing Singapore Spam
Here you go, dear company of Singapore number 68547070. Thanks for waking me up and making me so sleepy throughout the day. I did not pick up your foreign talent staff’s call because I was expecting such call and I did not want to lose my temper.
I did a Google search for your number when I was fully up and I felt I was the smartest guy on Earth for I got it right. There were so many complaints about you online.
Let’s just wait for next year’s new law from IDA to be implemented and I will report you for sure if you continue to do such disgusting thing.
Let me highlight – NO, I’m not interested in any of your investment or insurance product. FULL STOP.
Note: I assume the caller is a foreign talent because most of these nuisance calls I have received are from either Indian or Pinoy so far.
Spread the Love – July 2013
“If you can’t afford staying in 5-star hotels, at least get a sister-in-law who works in a company that supplies products to them.”
During the month of July, my sister-in-law got some free credits to get some bathroom and bedroom items from her company’s warehouse as staffs’ bonus. Her company had been supplying the items to high class hotels. They were actually rejected and old stock that her boss needed to clear from the warehouse.
It was a Saturday morning and everyone knew I usually went to bed before sunrise and thus would not want to get up so early to join them. Each family member who went along would get additional credit points to grab more items. In fact, I did not have much idea about the entire thing until my family returned home with items like pillows, towels and floor mats in different sizes.
I got a large share of some of the items, which was a long pillow for king size’s bed. By using that, I could easier turn about on my single size bed. The pillow was long enough for me to share with anyone who would not mind squeezing onto the small mattress with me. I received a large bathroom towel as well and it could easily dry me up after a wet shower. I also got some face towels, which were smaller and more portable for swimming.
These freebies were just some extra bonuses of life. It was the kind thoughts from family members that mattered most.
Luckie got a nice pillow as his bed as well!
Marketing is Most Important for Photography
After doing portrait photoshoot for nearly a year, I have to concede to the fact of the trade/hobby – marketing matters most. My experienced ex-classmate, Benson, has warned me a few times that the real photography work will take up just a small portion of time of most professional photographers.
The most popular photographer may not be the most skilful photographer. There is definitely some standard in most popular photographers but most of them are being overrated by their “fans”. There are actually more hidden talents in Singapore who can amaze me with their work. It actually takes some experience to differentiate a good photograph from a normal one. I’m still learning to judge, although I can already easily identify awful ones by now.
I have seen many normal standard photos of hot freelance models in Facebook. They are considered as “Club Snap standard”. Club Snap is a forum that many people organise mass shooting at, which around six photographers would surround a model each time, such that it is difficult to improve with the restriction. It is more about networking and trying luck to get some nice photos.
It just takes some connections to get more freelance models dying to work with you. You can either suck up to the bosses of some modelling agencies or act friendly to some of the freelance models directly. You do not need to be extremely good in your skill, but you need to at least know how to pretend to be. As long as your photos turn out not awful, with the hot girls as your models, all photos will appear awesome, psychologically, to most others. It will not take a long time before friends of the models start approaching you to work together.
You need to be popular before good models will flock to you; otherwise, even your friends will skip you. I have a number of friends, both online and offline ones, who have wanted to work with me enthusiastically. It just turns out that they are not available after up to a year of “business” talking. The feeling is definitely not worse than when I see any of them uploading new photos taken by other photographers who are obviously more exposed to freelance models. This is called reality. I do believe they have made good choices because those “popular” photographers can definitely give them more exposure compared to me. On the other hand, I prefer working with models who are not so realistic since every photoshoot should be an enjoyment and the model’s character matters a lot. Nobody can understand my happiness whenever I work with models who sincerity wish to help me build up my portfolio.
Of course, if you can even sweet talk to bimbos, you may become luckier. I have a open-and-simple-minded net friend who always initiates chat with me. I do not entertain her a lot because she never seems to get messages right and sometimes her comments on my Facebook status simply makes me speechless. She has happened to see one of my friends in real life and insists my friend will do sexy photoshoot just because of her ah-lian-ness. To be fair to all the ah lians in Singapore, not all of them are wild and wild does not mean they will show their body parts. Back to the point – she thinks a photographer is always sweet to her and she is going to do a sexy shoot with him in future. Good luck both of them for his patience and her self-assurance that she is completely safe. There are also some popular photographers who will comment “beautiful” on lousy self taken photos by models in Facebook. Frankly speaking, I may give a LIKE to show encouragement but I will never lie to the hot model that her photography skill is good.
I’m lucky because I do have quite a number of friends who are willing to work with me, but I’m also unlucky that I have encountered far more bad experiences than anyone. Before you see any release of my work with any kind friend, there are always numerous shit I have already gone through, including last minute cancellation of collaboration from other so-called models. There are also people approaching me but they go missing in action before they can make themselves available. I mean I have encountered lots of challenges that nobody knows to get my photography portfolio up.
No, I’m not yet a master of the arts. At least I don’t boast, but this does hurt me badly. Remember it is mostly about marketing, which includes how you present yourself. If you do not appear confident enough, your models may doubt your work even when professionals think those photos are good enough. You may also sound very humble but it will only make your model distrust your professionalism. Your models may be very nice people but some will hurt you unintentionally – there are too many ways to insult a photographer.
Packaging yourself is a must to progress faster because you need to attract good models to create better portfolios. Before I start to overcome myself to do more marketing and pretend to be very popular and skilful, I will just continue to work hard and improve on my photography skill. For now, I’m ready to face more disappointments because I rather be myself. I will rather under-promise and over-deliver than doing the opposite.
Things do get better no matter what.
Think Big, Think for Your Country
My lunch for yesterday was served with a free show. It was a tired day because I went to bed right before sunrise and my house could never be quiet during daylight for whatever reason. My younger brother, mum and elder sister-in-law had our lunch at the coffee shop between block 7 and 8. We were welcomed with loud noises.
Two women were quarreling very fiercely. It was a good Chinese listening comprehension test for us, as we tried to figure out what was going on while being challenged by the high pitch. They had obviously come over to Singapore from the same country.
I was not trying to be cheeky but at one stage of their aggressive debate when one woman called the other “china woman” and was rebutted that she was also from China, I almost burst into laughter. It was not about any race or nationality that was funny, but the fact that one probably thought her own country people’s were “low class” and tried to insult her kind. Anyway, through this, we understood that the first woman was probably a new citizen who used to be a China’s Chinese.
We were very confused over their roles since we rarely dined over that coffee shop during lunch time, but we assumed a local looking Chinese man standing inside the noodle stall was the owner. The man looked frustratedly lost and tried to calm down the first woman at times. Suddenly, the second woman stepped into the stall’s boundary and tried to take out some dollar notes from a box at the display area. She was stopped by the first woman who threatened to call the police, pointing to the top where she claimed there was a CCTV. The money was eventually safe after some physical contacts like grabbing of hands. That was a time when I thought a fierce fight was going to take place.
We were not able to figure out their relationship and whenever both of them were the stall’s staffs. It was until another man whose accent was obviously from mainland China as well came over to help the second woman, we got some hints. The first woman told them the vegetable cost money and a few cents was also money; and if her opponent wanted, the whole plate could be sold at $10. We might be wrong but the cat fight could be started due to the second woman asking for extra vegetable (the “cong”), and maybe, for large portion. Therefore, we got to figure out that the first lady was from the stall while the second woman was her customer. Since the local man inside the stall was most likely to be the owner and yet he could not stop the first woman, while she tried so hard to fight for the benefit of the stall, she was probably the ladyboss. Of course, I had taken into account that our talented Singapore government was not so lousy to give away free citizenship to just a stall helper (not an elite). However, I was puzzled because even though it was a trend for older Singapore men to “buy” foreign wives, there was definitely some “standard” in the ladies’ appearances. I was being frank and did not mean to insult the “ladyboss”.
The customers went back to their seats outside the coffee shop eventually. Then, the “ladyboss” went over to continue with the debate, insulting the clients that they were too poor to pay up. After some speeches delivered by both of them, there was a short tea break. The male customer who seemed to be trying to stop the mess earlier started taking photos of the stall using his phone. He was probably going to talk about the incident in his weibo or renren. The customers (probably just the woman) refused to leave. A few minutes later, we were stunned when the “ladyboss” went over to apologise to the customers. We thought she should be more firm if she had done nothing wrong right from the start but it was good that she brought herself down to try to end the drama. The customer was, however, not as graceful and continued to stare at the stall owners. After her partner walked off towards Pinnacle Duxton, she continued to hang around but eventually moved to the corner of the coffee shop where they probably could not have eye-contact.
I was not sure if the customer had left when two policemen finally arrived. The men-in-blue looked lost and went off without walking into the coffee shop. A few minutes later, they returned and the male stall owner approached them to probably give a short explanation. The entire peace was regained very soon after the two gentlemen left. Both of them were lucky since the cat fight had ended earlier, or otherwise, it was going to be a tough situation to handle.
I am quite narrative about the entire drama but the main purpose is not about who had started it nor who was at fault. Frankly speaking, many people from all over the world have quite bad impression on Chinese from the mainland and it is caused by the huge number of black sheep among them. I have quite a number of China-born Chinese friends who are very good people to communicate with, and I really feel sorry for them. Imagine two Singaporeans quarreling at overseas and even try to put one down by claiming she is from Singapore, she is simply slapping herself. It is definitely an embarrassment to their country.
It is a common sense that if you put one foreigner among nine locals, there may be some chances that the foreigner will pick up the local culture. However, if you place four foreigners with six locals, the four talents are more likely to hang out among themselves and there is so much greater probability that some of the locals will be influenced by the foreigners’ culture instead. The first scenario is called integration into the locals while the second one is creating of a new culture by mixing both. The worst thing is when probably two of the six “locals” have just become locals after staying for a few years.
I believe not all citizen from any country is bad (having bad culture), and there are many Singaporeans who are problematic as well. However, the number of black sheep from some countries may much higher.
Home Cleaning Project at Bukit Merah
https://www.facebook.com/sillydumb/media_set?set=a.10153059402945307.1073741863.653480306
While you were probably still asleep on a Sunday morning, our team was already out on a mission to clear up the house of a lonely lady staying in a one-room flat in Jalan Bukit Merah.
Huiting was arranging the cleaning a few weeks ago together with the earlier free soup project for the residents (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152994532110307.1073741858.653480306), but luckily we did not put the projects on the same day, otherwise we might need to work until late evening.
The flat’s condition was definitely unsuitable for human beings to live in. It was packed almost fully that at any point of time, only a few people could step in; anyway, it was just too dirty and dusty, with a foul smell, that not many people would want to do that. We could not even see her single size bed and she was very used to sleep on a chair instead.
Elderly would not want to throw away any useless stuff because the item might come into good use in future (if they could locate the item). Moreover, many things were parts of their lives and dumping any was kind of like throwing their memories away. If your mum was from a very poor family throughout her life, you could probably been living in a messy house like mine, but trust me, your living condition could never be as bad as that.
We used gloves and masks. Some gloves were torn and my hands were most of the time soaked in water since I had to dip the cloths into the pails of water often. The masks could not filter off the smell and Yonghao had to change a few because they were soaked in his sweat.
The corridor was packed with her items, stretching to around three doors away. I made many trips down to the garbage collection centre with heavvy loads. Each time the auntie said yes to throwing any item, we would cheer because that would lessen the mess.
During lunch time, we bumped into a big group of SMU students who were on their mission to interact with the elderly over the area to find out their problems and needs. They were very nice to send manpower over to assist us despite they were very busy as well.
The auntie was not someone who took things by granted. She apologised and thanked us very often. She even called a friend to buy can drinks for us. She also forced us to take a special edition Singapore coin each by threatening to chase us away.
We went to Tanglin Halt with two big red plastic bags of her clothes to wash while we had our dinner over there. Then, we brought them to return to the auntie before we set off to Yonghao’s house since his dad had to use the lorry. After that, we went to Serangoon Garden for dessert to end the day.
The photos were taken without using speedlite and thus there might be grain and blurriness caused by high ISO and slow shutter speed. My hands were in a big mess throughout. It was extremely challenging to be the photographer when you needed to participate in the mission as well.
Credits:
Su Huiting
Lee Yong Hao
Ahpa Sae Yeoh
Precious Jadey
Guo Yong Sheng
Nancy Quek
Jiayu
SMU students from SHINE programme
Camera: Canon 650D
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Spread the Love – June 2013
Thanks to Ahpa Saeyeoh for introducing me to her friends Dickson and William. Dickson has studied Chinese medication for more than three years while William is currently understudying him. Both of them have improved on my back’s condition.
My back problem had lasted for nearly 15 years. It was worsened during my NS days due to the excessive loads I had to carry regularly. I had gone for X-ray and MRI screening but the results were not as “bad” as what doctors expected for me to downgrade permanently. Despite getting temporary “excuse heavy load” medical certificate from the medical officers (MOs), I had to continue to carry heavy stuffs. Well, I was simply unlucky because I had a bastard superior called Captain James during that time who would threaten (indirectly) all the injured co-slaves to work. His moonlighting business – some aquarium shops – should be failed by now after being cursed by so many nice people.
I was in fact one of the fittest guys in my camp other than having the injuries, which nobody could see nor understand. I had to go for regular physiotherapy sessions and campmates would jokily call me “chao geng”, thinking it was just an excuse to skip “work”. Friends who know me well should know that I was a very determined and responsible person who would do everything well and not push work around. An example would be during the BMT’s SIT test, I actually fireman-carried a platoon-mate much bigger size than me over a distance all by myself. Therefore, during my NS days, I was being hurt both physically and mentally.
Anyway, the aching on my back was more terrible than anyone could imagine. For a few times, there were sharp pains when I was jogging – obviously the spine was connected to lower body. The aching happened very often that I had lie down every now and then. More than half of my days, the pains accompanied me faithfully. I simply had to sit down for five minutes without my back supported to trigger the aching for years.
After some examination, Dickson told me I had slipped disc, which was not easily to be detected by both X-ray and MRI. He used a big stick with around five or six split ends to whack my back hard for probably longer than 20 minutes that my face turned red. He was experienced enough to tell that the pain was bearable compared to the 15 years of my torment. However, my back was numbed from the whacking that I was unable to tell him the exact condition so that he could do more.
The sore on my back improved immediately, which stunned me totally. All these years, I always thought the western doctors were right that I could only train my muscle hard to support the injured spine. Most of the time, I thought my back muscle was injured as well. If only I had more faith that my back problem could be cured or improved, so that I could seek better Chinese physician for help earlier, my life would be so much better. The pain had slowed me down badly in my work.
Another Bad Photoshoot Experience
I have just deleted a set of photos. I’m feeling relieved actually because they require lots of time to edit and the end result may not be up to my expectation; most of all, the model is not as nice as I think in term of character. Tricia almost wanted to “kill” me for my taste of “model” in term of appearance, but I was more of looking for the experience with “model” of good character.
The model is my net friend, a Thai expat, whom I have not met before the shoot. Anyway, I used to think she is a fun-loving person and definitely easygoing, but it turned out that I was wrong all the while. Other than her usual slow or no-reply response, I really thought she was just too busy. After a few years of knowing each other with just very rarely short chats, I thought she could help me to practise with my new gears. Most of all, since I was expecting her to be very nice, it would be an enjoyable experience.
She was supposed to send me photos of her outfits the night before but she failed to. I had actually looked through all her photos in Facebook but she rejected my suggestion of outfits because they were old. Our plan was to do fashion shoot at Boat Quay area since she was staying very near Quake Quay. I woke up early right after sunrise to wait for her late confirmation of the shoot, which I thought I should just go back to sleep. Then I went to the bus-stop in front of The Central to meet her without seeing her outfit.
I had been updating her of my location on the way but I did not see her at the bus-stop even though she was staying very near. After some time, she suggested shooting at the beach instead and I agreed since I thought she was afraid of the crowds at city area. At the same time, she amazed me by saying that she had just left her house. Next, she told me to wait downstairs her house for her to pack her stuffs. It was an hour after arriving at the bus-stop and finally to the gate of her place, I got to see her. I tried to turn a blind eye to her lateness since she was my net friend after all and that she seemed to be really friendly.
The first thing I noticed was that she was not wearing any makeup. Her hair was also very dried. The weird thing was that I could smell alcohol in her.
We took a cab to Sentosa in my jeans and shoes, which made me look like crap. On the way, she admitted that she had gone drinking with her friend till late hour. Our initial location was at the far end of Tanjong Beach but there were presence of a few outsiders around. Then, she wanted to find a place with fewer people. We ended up walking to Palawan beach and crossed over the famous bridge and to the two towers. I was able to take a few warm-up shots before more people arrived. She wanted to go back to Tanjong beach after that and we decided to shoot along the way where there were many trees. I had quite some fun instructing her to turn and hide the meaty parts of her body and in fact, I was quite impressed with myself. Since the path was quite narrow with cyclists travelling to and fro frequently, I was not able to take out my speedlite and umbrella. We had to end the photoshoot when she began to be drained. We took a cab out. After I got home, I used Whatsapp to text her but she did not reply.
A few days later, she started asking me for her photos when I was busy. She wanted the raw photos without editing. Nearly three weeks after the shoot, she finally messaged me again in Facebook when I was watching TV. When I went back to my laptop, which was less than half an hour, I was shocked to see very nasty words to know her true character. So, I decided to delete all the photos and I was stunned by her reply, suspecting I would use her photos. I did not want to tell her the facts that her outlook at that point of time was too terrible for anyone to see, in order not to sound nasty.
I have a webpage written specially for TFCD photo shoot at http://sillydumb.com/photography/tfcd-photoshoot-singapore/ and people who have seen my work before are likely to have seen it before agreeing to have TFCD photo shoot with me. For this case, I’m partly at fault for not forcing her to look through the rules stated.
Which established photographer will give away photo for portrait without editing if the model does not put on proper makeup, especially when the model has very bad complexion? If you have a proper brain, you will probably know that it will only spoil the photographer’s reputation.
As for the timeframe, I will never over-promise anyone. I have in fact rejected quite a number of photo shoot requests because I understand I’m not able to produce the final work fast enough due to my current workload. The exceptional cases that I have taken up the shots are because I know the models’ schedules are tight. I have my own small business to run and it is taking far too much time for my hobby. Whereas, I have just upgraded to a different camera and started using speedlite, and still trying to figure out the settings. Lastly, there have been quite a number of events shots for me to process and I will definitely priortise them over FREE portraiture photo shoot.
Below is the transcript of our chats in Facebook.
A couple of days after the shoot…
A:
Hey photographer
Can I have my photos ?
Which way is easy to load ?
Me:
haha. you need to wait. i got quite some photos to go through
A:
Dont need to go through so much lah
Anyway not like I going be top model ha
Look so ugly
Less than three weeks after the shoot…
A:
Hey I want my photo without ur edit
Please send me
Thanks
Please I don’t like to ask many time
Just tell me how u gonna send
Why no reply?
Let’s me know by today thanks.. Be a man don’t hide under skit
Me:
i will send you after editing
if you insist, i will just delete all photos
let’s treat it that we didn’t shoot before
this is the rule of tfcd photoshoot
no photographer will send non edited photos if model has no makeup
A:
U can delete make sure u do don’t let me see my photo out there
Me:
don’t worry. you don’t think too well of yourself.
A:
I never think but u don’t wanna let me have it or just play around.. I not smell kid
Just be honest that all.. I never any photographer take a month to edit photo
I just want my photo that all why so hard? And I thought u r a friend after photo shoot I never tell me anything
Be understand.
If u really delate it I want evident make sure u do
Me:
oh you are the big model who has lots of photographers doing professional photoshoot for you. sorry i didn’t know you are so great. i must be blind that i can’t see any professional photos that you have uploaded. but well, i’m not as professional as your professional photographers and i have my own work to do and photos that i have to give to other models and people from bigger events. and i’m not going to give you any evident. you can go ahead and sue me if you ever see your photos.
A:
If u r not then why u want to keep my photo? This is so funny.
Me:
what for i want to keep your photo now???
dream on
A:
Honestly I never thought u r this kind of guy
Me:
honestly i never thought you are this kind of girl
A:
Good if u r don’t keep
Me:
you think you are paying me big bucks to do photoshoot and expect me to give you fast???
A:
Just do me favor delete it all thanks
Me:
that’s for sure.
A:
Good.
Me:
just remember to sue me if you ever see them.
A:
Sure will do
I would have explained nicely to her but she started turning nasty before I read her messages. She was very naive to think that I would keep her photos as my portfolio or whatever, and she was brainless to ask me to produce evidence that I had deleted her not-so-impressive photos.
I have been judging people too quickly, thinking most people are nice people. it is not easy to judge people clearly before you start working with them.
However, people should start to learn that if they have been replying to other people’s messages late or sometimes, do not even reply at all, don’t expect others reply to them immediately.
Spread the Love – May 2013
Hero of the month of May 2013 goes to Benson Lin. Benson is an advanced user in IT gadgets.
Benson is my ex polytechnic classmate and ex SAF platoon-mate. We were closer during polytechnic days together with Cher Fong, Yaozhong and Wenchang. Together, we had worked on a few projects during the course. However, we had not been keeping in close contact. Out of a sudden, his passion for photography seems to have surpassed mine and he has moved towards professional level.
Ever since I have gotten my Sony NEX F3, he has been sharing tips and knowledge with me. It seems to me that he has not been holding back on anything. I’m very amazed by his knowledge in photography.
During the month of May 2013, we met up with a few others and he gave me a short lecture on photography. I had learned a lot through Youtube videos but having an expert explaining stuffs to me face to face made a difference. Then, he spent two of his lunchtimes to accompany me to get my new DSLR camera and gears. He had to packet his food back to his office for both days. Without him, I probably could have bought some wrong equipments or at higher prices.
There are true heroes in this world who are willing to sacrifice their time and share their full knowledge without worrying that others would overtake them. Do you have one such friend too?
Things Can be so Much Better
It could always be worse!
Another common response to complaining is to delegitimise misery by portraying it as a competition. “You’re privileged, you have an education,” they tell the white-collar unemployed. “You’re privileged, you live in America,” they tell the poor. “You’re privileged, you got out,” they tell the exile. “You’re privileged, you have food and shelter,” they tell the subject of the dictator.
It could always be worse, they say. They don’t like to say that it could always be better, because that would require redress.
– http://m.aljazeera.com/story/2013615143512361164
You can always compare yourself with the better or worse – generally, none is wrong. When things are bad, comparing with the better will push you to strife on while comparing with the worse will make you appreciate more. Just make sure you don’t practice self-pity.
However, those who are on the “high ground” are more likely (not all of course) to tell those under them to compare with the worse. Hence, you can commonly hear people compare Singapore to less developed countries like Indonesia. Subconsciously, these people are likely afraid of “improvements” because improvements will create changes and improvements for someone may be the opposite for another person.
There’s a difference between thinking positively and believing blindly on every piece of “good” news.
People need to start acknowledging that by complaining, flaws can be shown. Of course, it takes some intelligence and experience to “complain” about the right thing. Nevertheless, complaining is crucial to improvement.
“Complaining” is, often, used as a term to degrade the speaker.
If people keep thinking “if you don’t have a solution, don’t say anything”, life will never progress. Then there won’t even be something called “democracy”, while everyone is likely to be slogging hard for some emperors/dictators now. Supporters of every government use this excuse whenever the government screws things up.
Most human beings also prefer hearing good things. Count yourself lucky that many people have sacrificed themselves physically and mentally to voice out things that have gone wrong.
No one is perfect in this world. Everyone should stop living in denial and, instead, keep improving.