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REAFFIRMATION: Coming to terms with autism - interview with Rees Finlay - YouTube
Channel: Yo Samdy Sam
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Hi everyone I am Sam and I make videos
about neurodiversity and exploring the
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autistic experience here on YouTube
every week. Today I'm gonna be doing
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something a little bit different from my
normal videos and I'll be talking to
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Rees Finlay who is the author of the
book "Reaffirmation: Coming to terms
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with an autism diagnosis". He is
self-publishing this through a
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Kickstarter campaign which has been
going for two weeks and already smashed
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through his initial funding goal. Now Rees
was kind enough to send me over a
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preview so that I could have a look, so
I've been looking at this one it's kind
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of a comic book slash novella hybrid. The
book is an exploration of his life as he
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sort of hits rock bottom and then
through climbing back up finds his way
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to his autism diagnosis, and it's really
interesting to me because first of all
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I'm not really a comic book person, I'm
not familiar with graphic novels or
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anything like that but I did find,
clearly he's a very talented artist and
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I did find myself really connecting to
the drawing style and that portion of
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the book. It's also quite interesting
because he and I have had quite
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different paths, we're different people,
you know different experiences have
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happened to us, however reading through
this it's sort of undeniably relatable
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to me. I found myself chuckling along and
really relating to him even though I
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haven't had the exact same experiences,
the internal feelings and emotions and
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the sort of essence of autistic life is
so similar so I really enjoyed that.
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That's why I really like these kind of
books about people's personal
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experiences because everyone's got
different lives but the core essence of
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being autistic is actually quite
remarkably similar and clearly this is a
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very raw emotional book, it's done with a
lot of humour, but at its essence it is
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sort of a man who has fallen apart and
putting himself back together. So I'm
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really excited to have Rees here today
to talk to us all about the book. Now I
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just wanted to say I'm really sorry
about some of the technical issues that
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we had during the recording, parts of it
have been re-recorded so I know that
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there's quite a few continuity issues
(feel free to point all of these out in
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the comments below)
Equally if you have any questions for
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Rees that I haven't asked or you're just
curious about please ask them in the
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comments below and I hope Rees will
reply to them. So let's get on with the
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interview...
So welcome Rees you were diagnosed with
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autism about a year ago, is that right?
- Yeah this is the one year anniversary to
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the moment
- Oh congratulations
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almost the actual day and
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then it's been a really interesting year to
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say the least
- Great, well can you just tell us a little
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bit about yourself and tell
everyone sort of your background and
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that sort of thing?
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Yeah absolutely so my
main career background I'd say is in art
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and illustration and that started about
five years ago when I started doing
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self-published comic books and from
there it grew and grew and I ended up
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doing trading cards for big movie
franchises like Star Wars, Stranger Things
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or Walking Dead which was a huge
opportunity for me, and then the autism
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diagnosis came along and it was... I'm not
gonna say there's no books out there for
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adults with autism
I just think compared there's a
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great range of them there for children and
families but I think we could do with a lot
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more aimed at adults and I think what I was
looking for when I was first diagnosed
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just wasn't around or readily available
to someone like me so I set out to make
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the book I would have wanted to read
when I was diagnosed and I'm using obviously
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everything I've learnt over the last few years
with the art and illustration
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I've kind of made
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a hybrid of comic book and a novel.
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- So how was your actual diagnosis process
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and what prompted you to begin this?
- So the road to diagnosis started almost
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exactly two years ago and I was in quite a
mental health crisis at the time and it
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was a perfect storm of stresses, you know
every conceivable angle in life you
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could imagine you know, work,
relationships, but yeah during that time when
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the mental health thing was being
explored, it became discussion with my
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mother and the GP
because apparently I was tested as a
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child and kind of slipped throught the system
and that began a one-year wait to
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actually see a specialist to get a diagnosis.
And one year is quite a long
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time to wait in limbo, obviously your
viewers are worldwide, I think the way the
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systems work in different countries is
completely different
- Yeah I think it's
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pretty common for one for a one-year
wait actually
- Yeah cuz I have some
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people tell me oh that's pretty good, or
you know, I think your wait was a bit
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shorter?
- Yeah my wait was four months
but I also do think I got lucky in some
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ways I don't think everybody in the
Netherlands would have a four month
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wait, I think I was just, I was just at
the right place at the right time you
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know?
- I see and you know from what I've
gone on to discover about how the process
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works and how many people do slip through
the net, I think anyone who does get the
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diagnosis can be considered lucky in a
way, but yeah in that time it was
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that was when I thought I would come to
terms with it, I researched the condition I
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realized okay I do have a lot of these
attributes I'm probably gonna be
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diagnosed as an autistic person, when it
comes to it, but still when I was
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in those sessions but I was told you are
autistic that's getting a little slip of
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paper, for some reason it just hit me
like a train
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you know both literal and metaphorical
in the comic! Yes suddenly and this is
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obviously from some sort of internalized
prejudice, I suddenly felt my opinions
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and thoughts was somehow worthless
because of this and it took a long time
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to realize that's not case and autistic
people are human too!
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- Who woulda thought! So what inspired you
to write "Reaffirmation" and why did you
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decide to do a hybrid comic book slash
novella?
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So I chose to do it just because
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out of necessity really it's a book I really
wanted and didn't see any other
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examples of it out there and ideally I want
it to be seen a little bit humorous, a
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little bit light-hearted, obviously it
does tackle some really serious subjects but
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also it kind of counterbalances that
with some humour and heart and hopefully
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you guys will find funny
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- Yeah well I
definitely found it funny and I'm not
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really even like a comic book sort of
person but I was sitting there chortling
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through it so you know
- Oh yeah my number one joke was the dinosaur one
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that you've got on the back of your
preview copy there
- Oh yeah this one?
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- That's the one
- Number one joke... I found some
of the jokes funnier actually I think
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it's a good joke, certainly but no I was
definitely chuckling
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at at other parts of it.
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So I found doing
my YouTube channel to really be quite a
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therapeutic process and I was wondering
if you found the same thing during your
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creative process of doing the
illustrations and writing the novella?
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- Yes and no it's been quite a heavy
journey in terms of research a lot of
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the books I've been reading like "Neurotribes" and the works of Temple Grandin
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it shows there's quite a heavy history
around the condition and being made
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aware of that as time went on as I
researched a book that began to take its
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toll in quite a heavy and depressing way
I think the catharsis and positive
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experience has been on the back
end, with sharing with the world and
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starting on these sort of conversations and
looking at it in a perspective it's kind of
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unique to me and hopefully that has a
positive influence as well in terms of
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the public perception of autism, that's a
huge thing in the book and just trying
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to find a happy middle ground, I think
there's a lot of combat online on the
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social medias and the communities and
groups, you have quite a few angled
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towards, you know, autism is exclusively a
disability or autism is not a disability
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and there's these polemics at play and
the truth lies somewhere in the
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middle so it is a disability but it can
be an advantage sometimes not all the
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time but yeah it's been really
eye-opening, I'd say. I mean before the
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project started I didn't know much about
autism, and I only really knew the world
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from my perspective so seeing this huge
wide world that's continuing to grow in
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front of my eyes in such a short space
of time was quite an impact.
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- So tell us
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about your Kickstarter, how can people
help and what are you gonna do now that
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you've reached your initial goal?
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- So the Kickstarter runs all the way through
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October it will end on the 1st of
November if I'm correct (you have to check
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that) but yes so we hit the target within
the opening weekend which was super
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exciting and that target is enough to
fund a modest release, I mean obviously
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everyone who's bought a copy through the
Kickstarter, they get their copy and
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you know we'll see in a few independent
stores, but i genuinely believe this has
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potential to go all the way with the
support of you guys so if you keep
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pledging we build up to what are called
"Stretch goals", so three thousand pounds
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everyone get some pin badges, and at 拢4000 I'm gonna
do a bunch more comic pages and add them in
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and then at 拢5000 the book
gets upgraded to hardback
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Then obviously as we generate more interest
and more success hopefully we can get
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publisher on board, a more traditional
route of seeing it in some major stores
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- Yeah - Gearing up for an even bigger release than
it already is
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- So is there anything
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else that you want people to know about
the Kickstarter or about the book?
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- Yeah I
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just want to, you know, tell everyone to
keep backing it and hopefully get the
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word out there some more, I mean if you
don't want to back it just share it on
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your Twitter, your Facebooks, your
Instagrams, and the
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pledges start at one pound so you can get
your name in the book for a pound and
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then at 10 pounds you can get your physical
copy of the book, looking all nice
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but yeah its been a real journey of both
sharing my story and what I've learned about
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autism and the autism community and so
I'd be really keen to hear some of your
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experiences and open up a dialog through what
I've written and you know hopefully hear
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some stories from you guys and your
viewers as well and if you want to do
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that down in the comments that'd be cool.
Thank you so much for having me it's
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been really good, Skype isn't very good
but we've we've persevered and hopefully
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this is a really great video for you
guys at home
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Thank you Samantha for having me on
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- So thank you so much to Rees for agreeing
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to this interview it was really great to
have you on and do something a little
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bit different with my channel. I'm really
looking forward to getting my copy of
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the book I've already pledged to the
Kickstarter I put my money where my
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mouth is and done that so I'm really
hoping that if we can get Rees to his
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goal of five thousand we'll be able to
get our books in hardback. Sorry again
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for the technical difficulties I hope it
wasn't too distracting and I'm really
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curious to know whether you like these
kind of videos, I really like supporting
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other autistic creatives whether that's
you know, artists
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authors or musicians so do let me know
if you are interested in this format I
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will try to improve the actual technical
stuff, and whether that's something that
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you'd like to see more of in the future.
So once again thank you so much for
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watching and thank you to Rees and I
will see you next time!
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