Thinking too much

Quite a bit has happened the past few days, been mulling over some of it.

IMO team for Solvenia'06 has been selected. We have Weiquan, Bryan (they are cousins!), Zhengkang, Junwei, Jiawei, Zhaoyan. Slightly newbie team, but we still have high hopes for them. They should do well, with possibly a chance at gold too. Part of me wants them to outdo last year's team, the other part lol... This yrs tst qns were quite simple, but then again they mostly are. Hindsight is such a powerful tool. I have always wandered, if i could live my life again, would i want to start my olympiad training in secondary school?

Since I start earlier, i would gain more experience and exposure, both of which are important to doing well. I was relatively inexperienced, extremely nervous, and under self pressure, so din do as well as i wanted to. Given that 1.5 yrs in army, i could see a great improvement in my problem solving skills, and better understanding of combinatorics and number theory. Of course, time is 1 factor, and maturity is another. Had i joined the senior team, i would most prob be like the monkeys there fooling around and not appreciating the valuable lesson available (trust me, the senior training team is worse than the monkey cage in the zoo)

But, starting earlier would also mean giving up my saturdays, which were spent on BB in RI. Valuable lessons and friendships were forged there, a great experience that im not sure im willing to give up. So i struck a somewhat happy medium, having fun at buzzer rounds (oh man, those days were great! Still miss them) once in a while, but still devoting time to BB. It seems that this was a good path to tread, perhaps just that i could have devoted more time in sec sch towards math?

Well, not that this is very important, cos after the IMO, results aian't that important. Its the journey that matters, valuable lesson's that you learn, tricks and techniques, maturity of thought and development. Took me sometime to accept my score, it is not important (of course, of that period after the IMO, i was sad.) In fact, Putnam score also doesn't really matter, could have done much batter, but then again, was lucky enough that i did so well, once again, a happy medium.


Second, Daryl's dad died from a heart attack last week. Piece of shocking news from my army mate. I was stunned for a while when i read the e-mail, lost in thought and pondering. Death aiant something that i want to consider much, in fact, preferbably not at all. died at 56, leaving behind wife n 3 kids, all still schooling. Life is going to be tough, i have no idea what to say. On that note, parents, i love you. Oh, and yea, happy mothers day, belated as always.

Sue, pls stop obsessing with your parents death. Its not healthy. It aian't something that you can right now say how you're going to deal with it. In fact, im not even sure if we can deal with it properly. Just be glad that they are alive right this moment. And drop them a little note.


Third, i think i've been playing too much this past week. I blame Fate for that actually. Have been avoiding most of my work, doing the bare minimium to survive, which given my courses, isn't good. On that note, i will deleted the shortcut on my desktop, hopefully that wil help (wonderful, in deleting the shortcut, i accidentally activated the game. What is Fate trying to tell me?) Think i should also give up MJ till finals week wednesday, sori kakis. (argh,but hard to find pple to play i summer, sob sob) Movie and poker nights shall still be on though, poker cos i still dun understand the game, but am too honest! (sob sob). So, i shall stop playing for 3 weeks, be a guai student for that period, then go out and have fun after that. Sounds like a good plan right? haha, its not going to work. And talking abt plans that don't work, Alex spent 2 hrs creating a timetable of the next few weeks, listing which homework, midterms, finals are due when, then planning out when to do what... Something that won't work for me, cos given too general a guideline, i would push things off till the last minute. Need something that says
09:00:00-10:29:30 Anal homework
10:30:00-11:30:00 Anal class
11:30:00-12:30:00 Go for run
12:30:00-14:00:00 Lunch + nap ...

You get the idea. Of course, things broke down immediately when my ipod din have enough battrey at 09:10:15. And running without music is so completely boring that i wont last 2 minutes. So, massive plan change. Ended up running for 1 mile at 8 mile/hr, 1 mile at 7.5 mile/hr, 0.5 mile at 8.5 mile/hr. Ugh, im fat and fudgy. Potbelly's getting a potbelly... Theplan since jan to run on mon wed fri after class has become the plan to run 3 times a quarter. Which clearly is not good. On a brighter note, im still on the right (or rather, left) side of 200. but should bring it down.


Fourth, once again, the best way to get me to do something, is just to force myself to do it. And hence the pE class in aut, which hopefully would start me on a regular mon/wed/fri routine. But then again, its for 6 weeks, cos i know that the workload would be bad after the 6th week, and continuing personally is conditional on weather, workload, mood, etc (basically anything and everything) Well, TK and Kenneth are also taking PE, so hopefully they would drag me to the gym ... Yea, im 1 lazy bastard. Kenneth is booking my airplane ticket to and fro, such a nice guy rite. But then again, im considering squezing in a holiday. So, my excuse for no holiday is that kenneth already booked the ticket. Its a race between who is slower, and i think i'd win. Well, its not exactly that im lazy, i'm willing to fight for what i believe in, and for the rest, i have low standards. Not exactly a very healthy attitude, but its my philosophy.


Fifth, the possibility of the future (aka work or grad school) is once again coming to the forefront of consideration. I have decided that my work shall not be measured in terms of theorems or lemma's named after me. Besides, most of it is done posthumously, and i dun even know what happens after death, so best not to care. Success shall instead be defined ... erm, mostly a circular logic, so heck it. And so, in my fantasy world, theres no need to come out and work (academia is also considered work), and i have carte blanche to pursue my passions. I know this is a fantasy of most people too... Its time to find a sugar mummy or sugar daddy... But of course, reality tells me that i can only spend 8 years as a PhD student (haha, see how far i want my fantasy to last?) and so i shall have to brave the whole new world out there. (and i have a feeling that i blogged this already), but just to mention a quote my fren said

'You have to have both feet planted on the ground. But which planet?'

To which jinming says 'I think uranus is currently unoccupied.' Talk somemore and id get you what you've been longing for since JC (Or perhaps even earlier)


Yea, now that i've got my thoughts out, its time to clear space for work... Have an anal class from 6-9 today, and haven't done the reading (YES! theres reading to do, omg!) Shall just have to go there and pretend i know whats happening, which is a common enough phenomenon.