Story of my life – from childhood hobbies to business!

Short story

I am born in 1989 and spend childhood with parents and mom grandparents. My dad was design engineer, mom in finance, grandpa also design engineer, grandma in pharmacy. Dad grandparents and other relatives did not involved in my life. I do not have brothers and sisters and my parents also do not have.

From early age I developed high skills of communication, self-teaching, creative and artistic talents, In my kindergarten years I already knew multiply and division. Judge by these drawings on paper and notebooks written at 5-8 years old. At 12 years old a psychologist gave me IQ 130-140. Years later I realized that this may be Savant syndrome and such kids usually reach top universities, but my parents did not know how to treat me properly.

I learned that they key of success is honesty and transparent, never lie and always tell the truth no matter how sad it is. My parents were lying me all time, but also speaking negatively about me to others, never telling about my abilities or projects I did on computer, only telling that I don’t do X and Y. Consequently they became my biggest ENEMIES.

This is also the reason I use name Teoalida, one of the dozens names invented by me at 6 years old, used to define myself since 12 to NOT have any reference to my family and the negative image they made on my real name, and later adopt Teoalida name legally.

According my local friends as well as visitors of this website, my family exaggerated with “protection”, restricting my life and threatening me to create fear to do new thigs, affecting my development.

We had a computer since I was 6 years old and when I turned 16 they added internet connection, telling me to NOT publish anything on internet. My computer and internet was the only place where I could do what I want without fear of punishment.

I created this website secretly in 2009 to show off my abilities, make new friends and put my business ideas into practice, hoping that by the time my parents find it, I will make enough money and they realize that wasn’t so bad to do what I did.

My life evolved rapidly thanks to project requests and ideas from people visiting my website LIKE YOU, website turned me into international celebrity and (after 10 years) been earning 10x more than my parents salary.

Imagine that if the idiots would have supported my business ideas rather than restricting my life, I could have been a millionaire before turning 18 and on a different path than what I am doing today.

How my hobbies began in childhood

My family was very private, interacting with only a small group of people. Neighbors barely know our lives, leaving me wondering who is living behind our apartment walls. My family let me interact only with people known by themselves, they sent me to school but discouraged me from making new friends in school. Outside home and school, they supervised me all time supposedly to protect from “bad people”, by this way, my family had total control who I interact with.

I was happy in kindergarten, playing with other kids, but also bored for not learning much, I wanted to go to school to learn real stuff. Once I started school, the story turned horror: no more toys but only boring learning, studying school textbooks at home I could learn in 1 month what school teach in 1 year. Violence from schoolmates made my parents to instruct me to NOT interact with anyone except teacher. I lost whole joy and no longer understood the role of going to school. Another problem were my classmates coming sick at school, making whole class sick even if teacher advised us to stay home until we are healthy. I was sick so often that 20% of school days I stayed home. Still, I was among best students when I finished 1st grade, I also attended half of 2nd grade, dad was beating me if I was not doing the boring homework, I became afraid to go to school and my parents also afraid to send me to school, being unable to supervise me in class.

Is debatable whenever leaving school was good or bad decision, but staying home helped me to self-taught things faster than school, researching architecture and automobile industry, which turned me into an internet entrepreneur earning more money than my parents. But this took few years because I did not had anyone to help me and the restrictions imposed by parents just made my life harder. My education was limited to what my parents were giving me: school textbooks for every year, books, magazines, newspapers, television.

They also bought me A LOT of toys that were useless without friends to play with. The best memories from childhood were when I was playing with other children, but this happened (in best case) one day per week when my parents arranged meeting with other families with children. The rest of days, my social life was limited to my parents and grandparents, annoying them talking almost all time and asking them to play with me, when they were busy with adult stuff. What else I shall do, rather than staying at computer and develop various hobbies?

I lost trust in my parents, they lied me all time, they promised me a lot of things, including helping me to publish books I was writing on computer, connecting to internet, etc, but doing nothing to achieve them and just made me waiting. I always wanted to learn new things, other than school lessons.

My dad bought a computer in early 1995 to work at home in AutoCAD, but I was not using it because I was living 5 days per week at grandparents home. In late 1996 I asked my dad if my drawings made with pencil on paper can be done on computer, he said yes and we were “working together” by telling to my dad what to write in Word or draw in AutoCAD. But shortly after this, dad allowed me to use computer myself.

While in most families, parents buy computers for their kids, who use them only for gaming, chatting and watching porn, iin my family my dad was main user, while I developed creative hobbies with the limited information and software I had access to (or maybe the limited access encouraged me to make things myself which other people may try to find read-made on internet). I had a special interest for collecting data, writing book-like stuff in Word and tables in Excel, also drawings in Paint and AutoCAD, everything done voluntarily, personal interest to fill up my time, with NO intention to earn money. My parents did not realized that I can make money as freelancer, they discouraged me from staying too much at computer, I did not knew that there could be customers willing to pay my works (however, my parents would not let any money in my pocket).

• In 1996 I was drawing in Paint and decided that when I will grow up, to get a job as “Paint designer” (that’s funny!).
• In 1998 I surprised my dad showing an AutoCAD drawing that he did not understood where it came from, it was made by me, learning AutoCAD by watching my dad working. Grandpa gave me engineering blueprints from his workplace, further increasing my interest, I hoped that some day I will have a job in Computer Aided Design.
• Since 1998 I made a geography encyclopedia in Word and Excel, tables with country data, city population, list of natural features, etc. Based on the geographic atlases had at home. Once I connected to internet in 2005 and discovered Wikipedia offering same kind of data, and up-to-date, I abandoned most of my geography works.
• Since 1999 I got an interest for cars. Collecting technical specs from car magazines into Word and Excel and do data analysis. I also designed my own 3D car models in AutoCAD. I continued collecting data even after connecting to internet because no comparable stuff exist on internet, and in 2012 I had a surprise discovery that I can do business, there are companies paying big money for such data, but only after extensive transformation from the original hobby into a format usable for commercial purposes.
• Since 2001 I design buildings in AutoCAD (not drawing floor plan of my own home or existing homes, but making original building concepts, although the drawing itself was quite simple, only wall axis and doors, 3D models also simple). I lost the interest for architecture in 2003 due to lack of educational material (my parents were not buying architectural magazines as they were buying car magazines), but returned in 2008 to research housing around the world via internet and designed Teoalida’s Virtual City with dozens houses and apartments blocks, floor plans and 3D models, it impressed many people that hire me for architectural design services since 2012.
• Since 2003 I got a passion for urban explorer and real estate. Being unhappy of the maps available online, I made myself better maps for my town in 2005, and this evolved in 2008 in researching Housing around the World (especially Singapore) to learn architecture and design my Virtual City. I published research articles on website plus an Excel database with Singapore buildings which also turned into business in 2014 by selling it to real estate companies.
• I love (listening to) music and since 2005 I compiled a music database in Excel, rating songs and making top of best artists using complex mathematical formulas, showing my musical preferences in the style of a data scientist. Rarely updating after 2012 considering an useless project.
• Since 1998 until 2002 I was watching football matches and making in Word and Excel database and analysis about matches. In 2002 my parents throw away my collection of football magazines, putting an END to this hobby. Even if this did not happened, I would have abandoned it anyway in 2005 due to content existing on internet.
• Since 1995 I kept a kind of diary on paper, notebooks, starting from 2000 also writing on computer various events from my real life, but different from what today blogs looks like. A dream diary I also started in 2002.
• In parallel with writing events from my real life, I was also writing fictional stories since 1996. Once starting using computer I wrote in 1997-1999 a series of humorous adventures in the form of conversations, inspired from stupid things done by my schoolmates but using own-named characters, another series written in 2000 featuring an unnamed man and a computer, this time written as third-person story, and another series of humorous adventures written in 2001-2003 as conversation between 2 idiots.

Why I was doing all the above things? Some people may say that I had too much free time, blaming me for wasting time doing useless hobby projects instead of spending time to work for money. This was TRUE, unfortunately.

When friends were visiting us, I was presenting them my works (is this a good or bad behavior?), they praised me so I continued to do same things (there are rumors that the friends were TOLD by my family to praise me whatever stupid things I do, to make me happy) instead of constructive critics to do something more useful for community or productive as money. However few friends said that I am talented, my works should be published, sell a book, etc. My parents encouraged me to continue promising me that will publish them, but they did nothing. Actually they were against becoming a public figure (probably they wanted to keep me busy alone to stop me disturbing them, instead of letting me to have a social life).

My family installed internet connection in 2005, after we connected to neighborhood LAN, a total surprise for me. I was 16 years old and for first time I could chat freely with “strangers” unsupervised by parents and make own friends, play multiplayer games in LAN, etc. They saw me like an alien and I realized how BAD are my parents, how I was brainwashed, that my work must be paid, and that every child should go to school.

In contrast with the family’s friends which were (ordered to?) praising my works, my new online friends criticized me for doing useless works, plus a lot of accusations towards my parents, assimilating them with North Korean dictators, accusing my parents for being too conservative, keeping me behind technology, limiting access to information, discouraging me to use internet properly and make a living, etc.

People comment why I got internet connection so late? My parents wanted to limit / control my education and prevent me to communicate freely, or because my family see things negatively, wanted to protect me from BAD things such as porn websites, but actually they protected from a lot more GOOD things. They excused that internet is expensive, but we were spending more money on books and magazines “to educate me” than the cost of internet connection, not counting incomparable amount of educational material on the internet. Today even if I am legal age and I can browse internet freely, I never look for porn… simply because I hate porn!

Moving away from parents and starting a second life

I was in a vicious circle, I wanted to get a job but my parents were not allowing me, and I could not flee away from parents because I had no job to support myself.

In 2005 dad scandals made my mom to flee away, I didn’t knew anything about her for next 10 years. I also do not want to return to my parents anymore. In March 2007 I moved in another apartment to live alone, where grandparents were visiting me regularly to bring food and pay utilities.

My parents divorce saved my life, but only partially, because grandparents continued to restrict my life in similar way my parents did.

Despite of having internet connection since 2005 so I could potentially contact anyone in the world, first 2 years I interacted only with people from Local Area Network, in a chatroom where I earned reputation of “computer guru”. I shared computer with my dad and afraid that will upset him if I interact with foreigners. After moving, in 2007-2008 I started looking for friends all over the country and playing games on international servers. Most of early overseas friends were met in gaming. I became fluent in english thanks to gaming.

Since 2007 I posted in forums looking for jobs, using generic names like “Somebody” or “Future” to prevent my parents or anyone to identify me. I got many offers, full-time, part-time, work at home, etc, but most required signing a legal contract, and my family forbid me from sharing personal info over internet and also I was afraid that they may figure out that I have own money and steal them. All what I could do were the mini-jobs for other people without legal contract.

In 2009 grandparents offered me to open a bank account in their name to get paid for my online works so they can withdraw money and buy stuff for me. These idiots want to manage my money! I rejected offer, because I already had a PayPal account since 2007, and for this reason I keep my business secret from family.

Making a website to publish my work

Sometimes I took dad’s laptop when I visited friends to show my works, or I was sending samples of my works privately via emails or instant messaging, to friends and to people offering me jobs.

My online friends encouraged me to publish my works on internet, so they could be viewed by anyone with a link, also to access my works from friends’ computers when I visit them. Parents threatened me that will cut my internet connection if I publish anything on internet.

After moving from parents, in April 2009 I created a website teoalida.webs.com that was to represent my image, making “Teoalida” name public for whole world. I was hoping that by the time they find my website, I will earn enough money and they will realize that publishing my works on internet was not a bad choice.

I had friends with blogs hosted on Blogspot and WordPress, posting their diary and stupid stuff, personally I wanted something more professional, a WEBSITE with static pages rather than a BLOG with posts sorted by date, so I choose Webs.com, but this turned a bad choice, it lacks SEO features and limited the potential growth of my website.

Website originally had 5 pages:

• Home page, with name, age, contact email, and a list of the following pages:
• Teoalida’s Housing (floor plans and 3D models of apartment blocks).
• Teoalida’s Palace (3D model in AutoCAD).
• Teoalida’s Cars (again 3D models in AutoCAD).
• Teoalida in The Sims 2 (house models built in a game).
• By August 2009 my website was completed, with 10 pages.

Because too few people are interested in my works and floor plans of imaginary buildings (perhaps architecture students and companies hiring AutoCAD designers), in late 2009 I added more pages, this time about real world: Countries & Cities (now Housing Around the World) and Singapore HDB floor plans which generated over 50% of traffic and made my name mentioned in Singapore press.

See how my website was looking in 2010…

…and in 2012

The purpose of website was originally to show off my hobby works to friends and link it in in freelance websites, where I bid about 10 projects without winning any, so I aborted. Website became neglected in 2010, traffic felt to half, probably it was also penalized by Google for poor SEO.

In 2011 I registered a domain name www.teoalida.com but I could not attach to my website without paying Webs.com premium account. I re-started adding content on website, I sent “reconsideration request” to Google and traffic bounced back to 100 visitors/day in January 2012. The 20-pages limit and 500 MB monthly bandwidth offered by Webs.com was no longer enough. Webs offered 10 free credits/day and they allowed me to buy “unlimited pages” and additional 1GB bandwidth. In September 2012 website had 50 pages and traffic exceeded 200 visitors/day and I should have upgraded bandwidth again, but was this the right solution? NO, fuck Webs.com!

In August 2012 I started a new website www.teoalida.com using WordPress platform and paid hosting.

On the Webs website, the main landing pages were Singapore HDB Floor Plans (35% of total traffic) and Singapore BTO List (25%), all other pages were max 10%. The home page was the About Me page (because website was originally intended as personal portfolio) but it was landing page for just 3% of traffic (as 2012), mostly my friends or people who bookmarked the URL. This turned into a PROBLEM: many people reading articles about Singapore (60% of total visitors) came here for real estate information, not interested in the person behind website, if they remember the URL, they simply type teoalida.webs.com, they will see the About Me page with my portfolio, may go away thinking that typed wrong URL.

Each page began with an introduction about myself, the first page was the “About Me” itself… this became a TROUBLE as the website grew beyond its original purpose. Many visitors were not interested to see personal biographies and stories, etc, this leaded a high bounce rate.

The WordPress website, although looks like a blog, is not really a blog updated regularly with new articles, instead I am updating existing articles with more text and images, and once an article become too long I split into separate posts. I hide date of posting because it had no relevance, actually I manipulated post dates to show on homepage the most popular articles about Singapore real estate, while About me was a subpage.

The strategy was to wait a year to get homepage ranked as high is possible in Google then put my architectural designs on home page, to do business. But architecture never been a successful business so the articles about Singapore remained on home page.

My website in May 2014

Earning first money

My family was providing me basic needs so in theory I did not needed to work and have own money. However, some things my parents refused to buy, this is why I was dreaming to earn my own money and to stop they complaining that I stay too much at computer and they “pay high power bill”

My family did not allowed me to posses money, although they wanted me to work, but in their name. They did not rewarded me with anything, thus I lost interest to do their job and went back to my hobbies such as drawing in AutoCAD and compiling car databases, both distributed freely via friends (probably this made my parents to NOT trust me that I can perform at work thus banned me from having a job).

Probably the most useful work was the city maps made in AutoCAD in 2005-2007, which today I regret distributing freely. Were used also by companies, for commercial purposes, who shall pay the rights of use. Since 2006 few people offered me money for rights to use the maps, but I did not know how to get money, if I were to meet client I should have told to parents who would take the money, so I told clients “feel free to use”.

First money earned was in 2007, when PayPal allowed unverified accounts to send money (previously you could only receive money, I had no reason to receive money if I cannot spend it). I started posting in forums, looking for work. Although my dominant activity was making drawings in AutoCAD, it was a non-profit hobby, and the little money earned were from webdesign-related services. I was not designing websites, instead webdesigners were paying me to add content, create backlinks, submit it to directories, translate articles, etc (boring jobs). I also tried freelance websites where I linked my portfolio website and bid about 10 projects without winning any so I gave up. Paid-To-Click (BUX) sites brought some money too. Having no credit card, I could not withdraw PayPal but spend them online, and in 2008 I went shopping online for first time.

When I made my own website in 2009 to publish my portfolio online, I wrote on home page (About me) “most of works are made for passion, but I am ready to work for you” and contact email below. But the potential customers were coming from Google in subpages and very few clicked the About me page to see my contact info. Only in 2012 I added on every page BIG RED messages with what services I offer, plus contact email in website banner. Only now customers started contacting me. But the business was still not successful, for example many people looking for house plans do not realize that I am CAD designer and I can work for them, they confuse my personal website with the websites who are collecting floor plans found in Google Images, they rely only on what they see on website, if they cannot find a suitable house plan at me, they go away instead of contacting me to design a house for them (and pay me for the architectural design service).

In 2010 and 2011 I had almost no income, spending my time on AutoCAD design hobby and playing games. I realized that making money online is difficult, my friends encouraged me to call authorities to take action against my grandparents, so I can get leave home and get legal job. But authorities considered that if my family does feed me, things are OK, ignoring the severe violations of my rights to education and independence from family.

First major work done for a customer (opposite of works done from personal interest) was in 2011, an insurance company requested to expand my Hong Kong Public Housing Database made voluntarily, by adding private housing estates. I made the mistake to work voluntarily without agreeing about price. Only after I spent about 100 hours I decided to sell the database for $200 but the customer didn’t agreed to pay, so I kept the database for myself and one year later I published it on website for sale. PS: I do not complain, I didn’t had other paid projects anyway so the time wasn’t wasted, working in Excel is a pleasure and I made also the Singapore Housing Database since 2009 voluntarily, without having any customer requesting to do this job.

In January 2012 I discovered the website chat software (a MUST-HAVE for websites that sell products or offer services), which popup and greeting every visitor, inviting them to write me. At 100 daily visitors, 2 people/day were writing me, helping me understand what kind of people visit my website and market demands, and in May 2012 I did first sale of a car database.

Many people praised me for the floor plans and 3D models of buildings designed by me, including an architect who in June 2012 offered to promote me in his future directory of architects despite that I was presenting myself as graphic designer and NOT architect. He pushed me into architecture misleading me that I can make big money (read full story), if he did not came, other architects would push me anyway. I changed titles from “AutoCAD graphic design services” to “architectural design services”. After working for few people for free, I started charging money for services that takes more than 1 hour, but I rarely got paid, some people insulting me for refusing to work for free. In 2012 I earned for first time a 4-digit sum, mostly from AutoCAD drawings made for Michael Lee.

The chat software helped me to discover that the car database page is being visited by companies looking to pay big $$ for a complete, accurate and frequently update database. I spent a large amount of time transforming my hobby-made car databases into a product usable for companies, and in 2013 sales of databases exceeded earnings from AutoCAD services. Never imagined before!

Double life

Grandparents continued to restrict my life like my parents did. They ordered me for example do not open door to anyone, do not leave home without announcing them, if I wanted to go somewhere one of them came to take me from home and supervised all my interactions with other people. They did not allowed me to use phone or to have own money, forcing me to ask them to buy anything I want, effectively having control what products I own.

Living alone 90% of time allowed me to have a secret second life, violating grandparents rules, in 2008 I bought few things from eBay via PayPal. When I showed them to grandparents, leading to a huge scandal about who gave them to me, who I met, etc, even if I explained that postman, they got angry because I can open door also to “criminals”. I was so scared that couldn’t even leave my apartment, in 2011 I left home alone for first, time, with fear that if I am seen, someone can see me and betray to grandparents.

I find difficult to make friends because of false rumors spread through neighborhood, some of them originating from my grandma mouth, some online friends though that I am permanently attended by rude grandparents and avoided any interaction with me. A friend who did not heard such rumors, visited my home in 2010 and told to his friends that I am a sociable person living alone, in few months I had dozens friends, having a new social life that my family did not knew about.

My friends encouraged me to call authorities to take action against my grandparents. We did… Authorities questioned my family, considered everything is OK as long they give me food and basic needs, ignoring the severe violations of my rights: education and having a job. Nobody talked with me. We made more reports including videos of me and links to this website as proof that I am healthy man able to work, and asked for an explanation why I am banned from leaving home alone or having a legal job. I never got any reply, my friends got reply that we cannot disclose personal information.

In February 2015 I found that my family was doing some things… I don’t want to publish details here to not hurt my image more than it was already hurt by my parents. This caused sleep disorder and I made new reports to authorities. In late 2015 I met a representative of authorities for first time, who informed me that from legal point of view, I was NOT banned to leave home alone or have a legal job. My family was LYING that I never attended school, cannot leave home alone and cannot work because of a fake disability.

It remains a mystery why I had to waste 6 years for authorities to acknowledge that my family was lying and actually I don’t have any health problems (except the psychological trauma caused by family and authorities ignorance), and inform me that legally I am NOT banned to leave home alone or get a job?

Another scandal broke up in 2016 when my family figured out that I have a large sum of money, had to disclose that since 8 years ago I had secret accounts and got paid for the works I did on computer. Since mom and dad never allowed me to have own money, they attempted to get access to my bank accounts by faking paperwork. They failed and now risk going to jail. Seems that living away from my parents do not protect me from being abused.

After all this bullshit, parents and grandparents finally told me that I CAN go out of home alone and have a legal job, under some conditions. Too late! I am no longer looking for a full-time job because I am making more money by selling my works via this website than by having a regular job. Note: I was leaving home alone occasionally for 5 years while family know nothing.

Whenever authorities will take more actions against my family, so I can enjoy my life without conditions and restrictions, we will see…

I got driving license in 2018.

Business breakthrough
Leaving architecture for IT industry

Moving to paid hosting and WordPress platform, expanding website content and doing SEO increased traffic from 100 daily visitors in early 2012 to 500 daily visitors in mid-2013. In October 2013, due to incorrectly adding ALT tags to all images on website (keyword stuffing), Google dropped my website from search results, traffic felt down to 150 daily visitors (read more: dealing with Google Penalty). Until traffic was restored I read a lot of SEO articles, becoming myself a SEO expert and raising to 800 daily visitors in 2014, biggest rise being in car database section.

Things became clear: making databases is more profitable than architecture, a database require major effort as initial investment but once finished, effort to update regularly is small, and thanks to SEO and volume of sales, the effort is paid off over time.

Two projects started in late 2014: expanding European car database from 20 to 40+ columns to sell at double price, and reviving the Singapore HDB Database (made voluntarily in 2009-2010 and left unfinished), each one taking few hundred hours of manual data entry, when finished in late 2015 they doubled my income, reaching my target of $1000 per month to be financially independent from my family.

In August 2015 I learned web scraping, allowing me to quickly create new databases using scripts that automatically extract data from websites. I created additional car databases for America, Middle East, India, Australia, motorcycles database, real estate databases, etc, and offering web scraping services, creating custom databases in any required field. My income hit $2000 per month in 2016 and $4000/month in 2017.

As architectural designer, I was overwhelmed by bad customers, 90% of them were located in developing countries of Asia and Africa. Simply answering chats and emails, discuss project requirements to quote a price, is a waste of time if 90% never pay, only 10% have paid me and only after seeing (part of) work done. After payment, some customers were not satisfied or changed mind so I had to do changes (wasting my time from doing other jobs) then I cannot sell same design to multiple people (like how I sell databases) because in architecture each customer have different requirements, making whole profession of architect a waste of time (read more: retire from architecture).

Other architects offered to work for me if I am too busy, they been in business for 10-20+ years and stil struggle to earn $2000 per month, sum reached after 4 years of database business. I am glad that I did NOT went to architecture university, I would have been a poor architect.

In 2016 I doubled design fees but would have been stupid to charge higher than professional architects given by my lack of university, and raising prices does not solve the main problem: non-paying customers. Their high experience and low prices made me ashamed to continue my architecture career, so since 2017 I outsourced all architectural projects to them.

As data provider, most customers are companies from Europe and America, with ethics and respect for my work. Here I also had some customers requesting scraping data from a website and create a database, then ran away without paying, but I put database for sale on website and other customers purchased it.

In 2018 I realized that I made too many databases and I decided to stop updating databases with less than 5 sales per year, also stop offering web scraping services unless multiple people demand particular data.

I reached the point at which I am no longer required to make new projects, I am earning few thousand dollars per month from sales of projects already made, depending by volume of sales rather than amount of work. Some people consider this a passive income, they are wrong. I still need to be active and update databases regularly, but is highly rewarding, certain databases generate from sales over $100 / hours spend updating them, plus I need to be online and answer quickly pre-purchase questions asked by customers (about 30% do purchase after talking with me). Usually takes just few minutes to answer questions, without requiring any extra work from my side to convince them to pay like the sketches I had to do in architecture. If the data suit their needs they will talk with their boss and sooner or later they will pay. Some people just purchase and receive database automatically without prior communication with me.

I prefer spending my time doing SEO and marketing to increase sales of existing projects, rather than increasing number of projects. In remaining time I do voluntary projects, like Map of HDB blocks created in 2017 does help whole 5 million population of Singapore with free information, increasing audience on website, which may turn indirectly into more sales of databases.