ME WANTS

FOOOOOOD!!!!

ramen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wa0umYJVGg

bento box: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_hbPLsZvvo&feature=channel

*drools*

i kinda wish now that i were in culinary instead of engineering…

2009-2010 Math Team

A new year has arrived, which means new members and new management for the math team! Wheeeeee :) This year, my colleague Mark Velednitsky and I are the captains (as a true Naruto fan, I'd rather be known as Hokage). (Would we be co-captains because there are two of us?) Originally, I thought Mark would be the captain and I would only be co-captain. However, while Mr. Holbrook was acquainting a parent with the math team, he mentioned that "this girl" was the captain of the math team (I had just walked in to print something from the computer). I was more or less ecstatic that I got an unexpected promotion ^_^ Now I get to be called Hokage-sama :D

Anyway. Yesterday (5 Sept 2009) was our first math team practice. I got there at 11:30, later than usual, because I wanted Boston Market. (after eating that for four-ish weeks straight, you would think I would get tired of spinach, corn, and potatoes, right?) I walk in, see who's here and who's not, and talk to Mr. Holbrook. Unsurprisingly, I was the first Mu A-er to get there. As usual, I check Holbrook's email and competition registration sites. Then I sat down in a chair-desk in the hallway and ate my lunch until the Mu A-ers arrived.

Sam arrived a little after twelve. Then Mark, Mike, and Alex trickled in and we worked on the BCA Math Competition stuff. Since this is supposed to be an utmost confidential project, but several people decided to be annoying and barge in -_-" Because I'm lenient, I let them stay if they did not make any noise or attempt to foil my competition. We actually got a lot done: Mike and Sam organized the solutions database; I kept writing problems; Alex wrote more solutions.

First Week of School

Initially, when the 2009-2010 school calendar came out, I was disappointed that BCA was starting before Labor Day. However, it actually is a good thing because it was about time that summer ended (a.k.a. I was getting bored of staying at home every day). September rolled around, I finished my summer reading, and bam! September 2 was here. I rolled out of bed at 06:45, ate breakfast, and boarded the bus at 07:10. Then I got to school, talked with friends, and went to Holbrook's room, where I made locker assignments and distributed schedules. After homeroom, we went to classes, and boarded the busses for departure.

Some initial thoughts on classes:

AP Stats: borrrrring, so I tried to enliven the class the first day.

Teacher: So why did you choose AP Stats?

Me: Because I needed a math class…

(If you don't know, I dropped Topics in Advanced Math because I wanted to take AP Micro)

AP Micro: interesting class, not many friends in it though =[

Data Structures: Nevard is actually teaching! (a change from not teaching lol) He taught us some C++ on the first day and vector (datum structure) the day after. To my surprise, some people brought up Google Code Jam. I pretended not to know anything, but then I stupidly clarified something about the competition, so I don't know if they know that I know about it. Wow that was an awkward sentence >_>

World Lit II: Weems is interesting. He definitely has a good sense of humor and is a good explainer. However, I'm not so sure if I can easily get an A for first trimester.

French V: It's turning out like French IV. In other words, Dr. Mayers has already assigned us a multimedia project. Since anything multimedia requires computers, his class is essentially computer time :D hooray fanfiction time!!

PE: What can I say? It's just a time to watch other people fail…

Engineering: I actually want this class to be meaningful. By that I mean I want to build something that I'll like and use. My goal is to build a remote-controlled robot :D

Physics C: OMG THIS CLASS IS FREAKINGLY AWESOME. The teacher is a physics god. He's funny and knows a lot. However he yells at people for being late. He scolded me for walking through the door 15 seconds after class started D: He has a fairer method of choosing volunteers than other teachers: to select people, he rolls a 30-sided die. I, with my excellent luck, was the first victim in my class. -.-;; The good thing was that I got to choose the next victim mwahahahaha >:D

Computer Science Team: LOL my elective XDD So far we've done some practice with compsci topics, such as recursion and dynamic programming. I've discussed competition possibilities with Mr. Tyndall and Dr. Nevard. Hopefully we can go to more competitions this year (and win more plaques)!!

School starts in 3 days!

I'm actually looking forward to going to school, but I need to finish my summer reading and french homework first. D:

We're in da newz! Again!

Read le article: http://www.northjersey.com/news/Schools_cash_in_on_costly_trips.html

Think it's suprising? You're not alone.

Read the comments: http://www.northjersey.com/news/Schools_cash_in_on_costly_trips.html?c=y&viewAllComments=true

Yep. Apparently many folks went with the ride until the corruption was noted by some authority. Now they're all bitching about it. Why? They're just wasting their time! Why should anyone (especially the people in question: aloia, our superintendent) listen to or even read these comments?

Because I have too much free time on my hands, I decided to peruse them. They were pretty lawlz to read. And some of them were pretty fail, too. So I felt like doing what this guy did and responded to some comments.

I'd like to see how the trips break down by school. The Bergen Academy spends huge amounts of money only to draw kids in from other counties and pull kids from local schools. They have a 600,000 microscope (two I think). That would be salaries for 10 teachers anywhere else. "Back in the Day" those facilities were used to train kids who were not college bound for good careers - plumbers, electricians, mechanics. Now those programs are watered down so we can finance private school for indian and asian kids who move into our towns from other counties. Just venting. Know I sound a little nuts.

Note the third to last statement. "...asian kids who move into our towns from other counties." LOL. It's too bad that we just want a better education than what is offered at our town high schools. Yes, that poster accused me of going to the academies, but what else could I have done to have gotten a better education and a better learning environment?

Well let's evaluate my options.

1. Go to Morris County Academies: you call this place an actual school? the class size is less than twenty people by the end of one's senior year. why the hell should i want to go here i want a decent social life in addition to better education? i'm not ditching my friends just to meet 15 other good kids!
2. Go to Philips Exeter: how could i have gone here if i never heard of it?!
3. Go to China: uhh, hell no :P
4. Homeschool: i can has social life?

OBLIGATORY POST

I GOTS AN INTERNSHIP FUR SENIOR EXPERIENCE!!!!! that's one less thing to worry about :D

Bridge, Part 2 (the end)

Prologue
The month before school ended, Dr. Abramson brought a $500 subsidy for playing bridge at Washington DC to our attention. Patricia and I decided to be partners (since we both said we could attend); Pavel would be at HCSSiM, Sam at Stanford math camp, and Ian at PROMYS. However, Patricia ditched a month later. I asked Matt if he wanted to be my partner, but he was going with Kevin. I had exhausted my options at BCA.

I wasn't ready to give up; in fact, I was adamant about going because I had received the subsidy. Knowing that TJHSST (or just TJ) kids would probably be good at bridge and be able to come, I asked jennypwns if she had any suggestions. She first advised that I play with Stephen Drodge, an experienced senior. However, he was going to the regular NABC events that conflicted with the youth events, so he was out. Meanwhile, jennypwns devised a plan and wanted me and TJ wiz kid to meet, so she suggested that I play with him. I sent him an email and he agreed! I finally secured a bridge partner and could worry about one less thing -sigh-

One
I walk from my hotel to the Marriot hotel, the location of the competition, in five minutes. I go up to the youth NABC and look around to find my partner or Matt or Kevin. I saw this wasian-looking kid wearing a mathcamp shirt. Then I was greeted by my bridge section president. Apparently the wasian kid overheard the conversation, and came over to greet me. Shortly after, Matt, Kevin, and Dr. Abramson come. Matt was in awe at the sight of Brian Hamrick (unfortunately, I didn't quite catch his expression). We went in the playing room, signed up for the events, and played about fifty hands before we went to dinner. We did surprisingly well; Brian and I placed in the morning pairs event (1st in C north-south direction, 4th in C overall, 6th in B, and 8th in A)and the four of us placed (got third!) in the afternoon teams event. Then the four of us, along with Dr. Abramson and my parents, went to a Japanese restaurant near my hotel for dinner. Following dinner, Dr. Abramson took us to this delicious Gelato place. (Surprisingly, my iPhone happened to have detected an open network, so I was able to read an email sent by jennypwns).

Two
We met again at the hotel at about 10 and registered for the Baron Barclay youth pairs event. I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep, so I was yawning before the event started (generally not a good sign). The morning was the qualifying event: in order to be eligible for the afternoon event, you had to do better than half of the pairs. We played for about three and a half hours, which aggravated my drowsiness. During lunch, the roster of qualifying pairs came out. I was relieved to find out that we were ranked in the middle of the qualifying pairs. However, our luck ended here. We screwed up massively in the afternoon, finishing below Matt and Kevin. Fortunately, I had something to look forward to: I was going to Jenny's house after the tournament. We went to IHOP for dinner and swung on the swings of her community's playground. Then my parents took me home around 9:45pm so I could get a better night's sleep and [hopefully] do better the next day.

Three
Today was the last day of our bridge adventures. We had the official team contest today (Thursday was just a warm-up). We were playing with Matt and Kevin again; however they didn't get to the hotel in time due to a lack of metroes on weekends. In the meantime, the pro TJ bridge players (Stephen Drodge and co) show up. Anyway, we played bridge for another three hours, had lunch, and resumed for another four hours. Brian and I did markedly better than yesterday. -phew- However, we still made some small mistakes, which was acceptable in my opinion. Our efforts paid off; we finished 3rd in C, 6th in B, and 8th in A. I was impressed by our achievements because (a) we're n00bs when compared to the other competitors and (b) we didn't practice much prior to the event.

Epilogue
All in all, I think this trip was one of the most memorable trips not only because I got to play lots of bridge, but also because I got to meet someone new :) Even though I didn't bring back any trophies, I brought back valuable experience and lessons that I'll use in future bridge tournaments.

Math camp: it's over!

Today was the last day, and as usual, we had our weekly contest. We covered combinatorics/probability this week, so I had to write an individual round just on combinatorics (I can't believe I actually did that). Apparently, I lost my ability to write tests that are not so easy but not so hard. It wasn't the greatest test; the questions which I thought were easy turned out to be hard, and the questions which I thought were challenging turned out to be impossible. sucks D: The team round also turned out to be hard. I decided to make the last question a variable-score problem again, just to screw around with them:

How many digits does 101! have? Scoring: If your answer is x and the correct answer is C , then you will receive ceil(25*x/C) points. If x > C, then you will receive 0 points.

So one team decided to cheat the system by writing C as their answer, even though they knew that I expected a numerical answer. I punished them by giving them 0 points. :P They got GGed.

After the contests, the kids had donuts and played mafia while I picked out T-shirts for the team and individual winners. I retrieved five 2008 BCA Math Competition T-shirts for the team winners and the sole limited edition 2003 AAST ARML shirt for the individual winner. Since the individual winner left before lunch, I was able to keep the T-shirt. However, I forgot that a person was added to the winning team for the relay round, so I had to give her the limited edition shirt. Oh well. I already have enough AAST shirts anyway XD

All the camp materials are here.

Bridge, Part 1

I've been writing this thing for quite a while (I started on Sunday, August 2) and it's taking so long to complete! Instead of keeping you in the dark, I'll post a synopsis for now:

For the past three days, I spent about eight (yeah, that's right, EIGHT!) hours a day playing bridge at Washington DC. I played pairs (on thu and fri) and teams (on thu and sat). I suppose you can say that we did unexpectedly well when I was alert, lol. (I didn't get a good night's sleep for Friday's games, so I indeedly screwed up massively). Anyway, besides playing bridge for most of the time, I got to see my good friend from AwesomeMath (blogger user jennypwns) :D Despite our fails, this was probably one of the best three days of our summers.

BTW I am officially jobless :)

Math camp: it's half over!

So, as you all know, I got a summer job at BCA to teach kiddies (erm, prefroshies?) for Holbrook-sensei* for six weeks! It's basically teaching chapters from the Art of Problem Solving volume 1 book. The job is relaxing relative to other jobs: first of all, math camp runs four days a week. Yeah that's right, four days a week! And every week is more or less a new week; the parents get to pick which week(s) their kids attend. So anyway, every week is structured the same way, with half the week devoted to learning and the other half dedicated for contests. The week's schedule looks like this:

Monday: Learn, do end-of-chapter problems
Tuesday: AMC10, learn some more if the kids feel like it
Wednesday: More learning and end-of-chapter problems.
Thursday: Contest!

So basically, for the past three weeks, Jeff L. and I were teaching the less math-inclined kids, which translates to aversion to learning, doing well on AMCs, and winning my competition. Well, the second week wasn't as bad as the other two. Nevertheless, my room paled in comparison to the other room. The contest is similar to ARML, in that it has three rounds: individual, team, and relay. The individual round, worth 40 points, is 10 questions in one hour, all open-ended. The team round differs from the individual round in that it lasts for only 45 minutes and is worth 120 points. The two relay rounds (3 people per squad), each worth 10 points, last for ten minutes each. Eight teams of six vie every week for old AAST shirts (and glory!) The difficulty of questions range from Mathcounts-level to hard AMC12-level problems. Results and contests are posted here.

In other news, after eating a week of Boston Market, I found out that their prices are grossly overpriced. Back to home-made salami sandwiches. x_x

Wait, I ran out of salami. Back to getting ripped off by Boston Market.

Darn, I can't win. :(

* I'm probably getting high on Naruto. Sorry for the inconvenience.