EGMO Diary Part 2

9th of April

For preparation, I did exactly the same thing as yesterday, because that seemed to help me tremendously. We did nothing for 45 minutes, and then stretched for the last 15 minutes. 

The test opened with a geometry — great! However a slight scan at the other two gave me the impression that they are elaborate, complicated Number Theory + Combinatorics questions. That scared me a little bit, but anyways I have to focus on geometry first.

Somewhere along the line my eyes are drawn to a particularly weird part of the picture. My alarm bells should be ringing, namely, Why are you using this hopeless method to your life more surreal,  but somehow it worked and I finished the first question in an hour. 

Now turning to Number Theory two… it is weird to say the least, the conditions you have to meet seems completely out of the blue. 

After looking at it a bit it’s beginning to look a bit clearer. One particularly important condition turned out to be the formula “n(n+1)/2”. And here I had two ways of interpreting it, either it is “n choose 2”, in which case I relate this to combinatorics, or it is “the sum of integers 1, 2, …n”, in which case I relate it to algebra. I chose to consider it algebraically first. For the first hour it seemed like I’m making progress, but as time drags on I began to lose track of my progress and the general picture. I soon noticed that I am also losing my attention. I struggled a bit more and then got up and went to the bathroom. Came back—still nothing. Chocolate break. By this time I finally realised I am not on the right track. I proved some bonds, some lemmas, related but not crucial… 

Looking back, I started off thinking “I’ll try the algebra method first and then the combinatorics road.” But then I seemed to have gotten stuck in the road that essentially led nowhere and completely forgot to try the combinatorics road. I might have gotten further with my problem should I have tried the other approach. 

10th of April

I am deeply grateful for the excursions today. My previous experience with excursions were all good, because we get to explore the city and learn new things, but frankly, they were never close to being relaxing. Getting up early, spending hours on the bus; And if we nod off in a half-conscious state, we would wake up even more exhausted with the worst taste in our mouths. Not to mention the anxiety over the exam results.

This year was different. We didn’t have to leave until 10, so plenty of time to sleep in; The place was less than half an hour bus ride away (or so I felt), and the place we visited was an outdoor museum. The original plan was to go on a bicycle tour together (how cool is that!) But because of the untimely rain it we toured on foot instead. We explored the traditional houses, and in the afternoon we tried Ukrainian dancing. It was amazing! The musicians accompanied us with Ukrainian instruments and singing, and we experienced life of the Ukrainian youths at the parties. The moves were not hard, and people moved around in a circle changing partners. While we were dancing, all the anxieties of finding out the test results were cast aside. 

In normal circumstances, the live scoreboard on the website would enable us to check our marks real-time. This time– for better or for worse– there’s no wifi outdoors and the 3G is simply too expensive. We would not be able to know until we get back.

However ultimately we’ll have to return and face the truth. I can feel my heart rate fluctuating as I calculated the predicted result in my head, pictured worse case scenario again and again and tried to get a hold of myself. I chanted as if this was a magic spell can make everything disappear: “I don’t care. Whatever, I don’t care.” My friend gave me a pointed look, and said: ”You DO care.”

Bus — breathe — hotel revolving doors — breathe — stairs. Once inside, we have the wifi to check the scoreboard, and one of my teammates took out her phone and started checking the results WHILE climbing the stairs, and I freaked out. We rushed to our room and started opened EGMO 2019 official website, where the live scoreboard was. Heart hammering, I was controlling my breathing and just at this critical nerve-wracking moment my phone decided to break down. I was burning a hole on my phone with my eye, shooting fire at the words “loading” and I felt like scratching something—anything.

Laura, my roommate, sitting on the bed next to mine, asked: “Have you seen it?”

I looked up. She was grinning, but trying her hardest not to show it. Her phone lay in her hand.

“No, and DON”T TELL ME.” I said, “My phone is not working. Have you seen yours? You look happy.”

She kept on grinning, and offered me her phone.

I scrolled down the tiny roll of names, found ours, and there it was.

And…breathe.

11th of April

What can I say about the last day? It was a lot of things, but for some reason feels incredibly leisurely compared to the others. We went on a boat trip, talked to friends (The most important, of course), went to the award ceremony and later, danced in the farewell disco. Yet after the exams, the weight finally lifted off the shoulders, it was my feeling that everything was like in slow motion, we moved so slow, so relaxed, I felt like breathing anew. On the boat trip, I stared out of the misty window at the beautiful Dnieper river forever with book in my bag, but I just decided not to read it. Indulge myself a little, just this once, now that I can.

The award ceremony — we made fun of each other in front of the camera, chatted to friends, fooled around with confetti, took loads of pictures. There was a lot of laughs, a lot of hugs, a lot of number exchanges. It would be too sad to simply lose connection with these amazing people, because after all, friendship is at the core of these events and friendship can motivate people to work harder. We asked the Ukrainian gold-medalists team later, what was their secret to success, and we all agree that their answer is the golden truth of all ages, mathematician’s etho, the key to unlock a spring of creativity and motivation.

They said: ”Get the same brand of nail polish among your team members.”

3,478 thoughts on “EGMO Diary Part 2”

  2. Heya this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding expertise so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

    Reply

  4. After I initially commented I clicked the -Notify me when new feedback are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you possibly can take away me from that service? Thanks!

    Reply

  39. Hi there, just became alert to your blog through Google,
    and found that it’s really informative.
    I am going to watch out for brussels. I’ll
    appreciate if you continue this in future.
    Numerous people will be benefited from your writing.

    Cheers!

    Reply

  45. I’m not that much of a online reader to be honest but your sites
    really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your website to come back later.

    Cheers

    Reply

  48. There are definitely numerous particulars like that to take into consideration. That could be a nice level to carry up. I provide the ideas above as basic inspiration but clearly there are questions like the one you deliver up the place the most important factor will be working in sincere good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged around things like that, however I’m certain that your job is clearly recognized as a fair game. Each boys and girls feel the impact of only a moment’s pleasure, for the rest of their lives.

    Reply

  49. I am no longer certain the place you’re getting your info, however good topic. I needs to spend a while studying more or working out more. Thanks for great info I used to be on the lookout for this info for my mission.

    Reply

  67. I have been browsing online more than 3 hours nowadays, yet I never discovered any fascinating article like yours. It’s beautiful worth enough for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made excellent content as you did, the web will likely be a lot more helpful than ever before. “Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.” by Walt Whitman.

    Reply

  68. What i do not realize is if truth be told how you’re no longer actually a lot more well-appreciated than you might be now. You’re so intelligent. You realize therefore significantly on the subject of this matter, produced me individually consider it from numerous numerous angles. Its like women and men aren’t interested until it is one thing to accomplish with Girl gaga! Your individual stuffs nice. Always take care of it up!

    Reply
  92. Pingback: xhamster bdsm group sex games

  147. I haven’t checked in here for a while as I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are good quality so I guess I will add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂

    Reply

  371. My brother recommended I would possibly like this blog. He was entirely right. This post truly made my day. You cann’t imagine simply how much time I had spent for this information! Thank you!|

    Reply

  486. I absolutely love your site.. Very nice colors & theme.
    Did you develop this amazing site yourself? Please reply back
    as I’m attempting to create my own website and would love to know where you got this from or what the theme is
    named. Thank you!

    Reply
  593. Pingback: viagra sex

  605. Hello! This is kind of off topic but I need some advice from an established blog.
    Is it difficult to set up your own blog? I’m not
    very techincal but I can figure things out pretty quick.

    I’m thinking about creating my own but I’m not sure where to start.
    Do you have any points or suggestions? Appreciate it

    Reply