imo 2024 (bath, uk)

YOOOOO i cant believe imo 2024 is actually over sob sob 🤧🤧 anyway i felt like documenting what happened so i can look back on this experience in the future (our team also had a blog that died oop), so here it isss ✨ the first part of this awfully long write-up is basically my imo experience minus the contest, and the second part is just abt the actual contest itself.

warning: this whole thing is super yappy and horribly written up (e.g. super unorganised, not in chronological order, and i went into so many unnecessary details if i felt like it lol), and i mostly intended it for myself only so a lot of things are mentioned without context/much explanation 💀 so if u’re reading this cuz u’re curious abt what this imo was like, then watching vlogs like the ones by the indonesian deputy leader is a better option lol. or u could read the posts from msias math oly fb. that being said, feel free to read it tho but i frankly suggest that u get urself a life instead 😌👍🏻

13/7, SAT: an eventful travel

took a flight to abu dhabi (transit) and we spent a good 14+ hours there. (more abt flight experience later.) we chilled in our hotel for a bit then wandered around the airport to find fud but EVERYTHING WAS SO FRECKEN EXPENSIVEEEE. fr everything was like at least 5 times msian price. a can of pringles was like rm30+ and even the most basic egg mayo sandwhich was rm40+ bruh 💀💀 but yea in the end, daryl, minivan and i had some texas chickenn (but the chicken was rlly skinny and pathetic LMAO). so we sat at one table and talked abt the random-est things and also outta nowhere, minivan suddenly pulled out his phone to show me a pic and asked me "IS HE FAT???" 😭😭 (chill it was a fictional character and i assure u no fat-shaming was involved 🙏🏻) and meanwhile, the old folks (04s + megavan) sat at another table to math, as expected :P oh yea also right, daryl posted a pic of the team flying to UK and then our mutual friend (who i hvnt talked to in a long time 🥲) replied like "OMG IK HER" AND THEN THE TWO OF US RECONNECTED SO IT WAS SO NICEEEEEE 💞✨ and coincidentally she was in UK too for summer school (lol L jk). and then later at night, i tagged along wt daryl and kw to eat again and we had a rlly nice chat actually, but then on our way back we got kinda lost HAHAHAHAH (i hv 0 spatial awareness and tbh i think all 3 of us did HELP), but we eventually figured out our way back orzorz 😌 OH YEA AND SOMEHOW MINIVAN AND TMH BOTH LEFT THEIR KEYCARDS IN THEIR ROOM SO THEY WERE LOCKED OUT HAHAJSDHASJ WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS 😭😭 but anyway, as we were abt to board our flight, we bumped into the indonesian team (who we always hv relations wt every year) LESGOOO!! so we got to chat with them for a bit then we all boarded the flight and headed off to UK yippeeeee ✈️

14/7, SUN: arrival + culture shock + losing at every game at the hub

wooo so we arrived in heathrow and believe it or not, within like the first hour of arriving we already got lost GAHAHJSDHASJ 🤡 basically we were supposed to go somewhere to take the train (to get out from the airport), and then we were all following megavan rightt (who was supposedly following the guide) BUT UHHH idek what happened, cuz apparently the guide didnt walk in that direction even tho megavan claimed she did?? HAHAHAH yea and it was rlly funny cuz megavan was begging like "please nvr make me ur deputy leader" LMAOAOAO 🤡🤡 so afterwards we had to take the bus from the airport to travel to uni of bath AND GUESS WHICH OTHER TEAMS WERE ON THE BUS WITH US - INDONESIA. SINGAPORE. AND CHINA. broo istg i felt so dumb in that bus 💀 but then we finally arriveddd and collected our tags and bags and keys and stuff. AND I WAS SO SURPRISED TO KNOW THAT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US GETS A SINGLE ROOM. LIKE - EVERY SINGLE PARTICIPANT. INSANEEEE. 🤯🤯 so we all settled into our rooms and it was amazing bruhhh. we all got individual bathrooms and there was also a pantry in our flat so we mostly hung out there. but that wasn't even the best part, BCS OUR ROOMS HAD THOSE FRICKEN AWESOME COLOURFUL LEDS AAAADHSJDHAJ 😭 IT WAS SO COOL AND I WAS TOTALLY GEEKING OUT OVER THEM DHASJDHASJDHASJ (and then i immediately texted my parents and told them i want colourful lights in my room 😇👍🏻) oh yea also i learnt that green apples look red in blue light, colour theory ftw lol 🤯👍🏻

yea anyway, then i was looking around my room right... and i realised... "no fan... no a/c... just a window... IS THERE NO VENTILATION SYSTEM IN HERE??? 😨😨" then i texted daryl and im glad that he was just as confused as i am BUT YEP. THERE WAS NO FORM OF VENTILATION BESIDES OUR WINDOWWW. (we also later learnt that transport like buses didnt have a/cs either.) but surprisingly, it was actually completely fine. like i rarely even opened my window but it didnt feel stuffy in the room at all. and the temp was just right - literally felt like i was sleeping in a/c 😍😍🫶🏻 (also forgot to mention, it's summer but it's still super cold (can drop to 10 degrees celsius) and the sun sets rlly late so it's always bright outside, like even 10pm is still bright. experienced this bef in oslo lol :P) anyhow after that we had lunch i think and UK food was disappointing as i expected (and as we were warned) lmao.

but anw it was all good bcs then we went to the hub!! (my fav place at every imo.) there were a bunch of snacks there, baristas making smoothies + coffee + tea, a fridge full of drinks and also gourmet popcorn!! (yes, it's all free and we can take as much as we want.) and ofc, there were a bunch of AWESOMEEE games there as usual. i played some ps5 games with daryl but absolutely died at every single one HAHAHAH 🥲🥲 and then minivan and daryl nerded out wt some chess eeee (i didnt understand anything and lost to daryl while he was simultaneously playing against both me and minivan. 💀💀) but then daryl and i went to the outdoor area of the hub and we met 2 cool guys from uganda!! daryl played table tennis wt him at first, then aft that the 2 guys taught me how to play too (cuz im noob and idk how to play at all 😔)

AND THEN WE (whole team besides wjr) WENT TO PLAY BADMINTON FOR A BIT, WHICH WAS SO MSIAN OF US HAHAHAH. (also megavan was destroying everyone GAAHSHDJSHAJ.) and then that nightttt, daryl, minivan and i went to check out quiz night (at the hub) but we joined kinda late so we practically just watched. BRO AND IT WAS HILARIOUS BCS AT SOME POINT, THE HOST OF THE QUIZ (fully grown woman) SUDDENLY BURST INTO BRAIN ROT LINGO LIKE "sKiBiDi" AND "siGmA" GAHAHAHHAAH 😭😭😭 LIKE IT'S FUNNY ENOUGH WHEN GROWN ADULTS SAY IT BUT NGL HER BRITISH ACCENT MADE IT 10X FUNNIER BAHAHAHDHASJ 😭🤡 but yea like i said, we didnt "officially" join, just watched - but funnily enough, the guy sitting in front of us turned out to be one of megavan's old friends (from when he was in cambridge) so he called up megavan to inform him that he kidnapped found us then megavan came and it was nice to see them reunite lolllll. yea then we went back to our rooms and went to sleep cuz we were EXHAUSTED.

15/7, MON: origami > math oly + imo controversy + CONNECTIONS

had a very nice ✨ bri'ish breakfast ✨ and then we went to the hubbb to hang out for a bit. and there were lots of rubik's cubes laying around there so we were all playing with them and we even taught wjr how to solve one slayyyy (yea i realised we're all mega-nerds after finding out we all (except wjr) did speedcubing at some point 💀). and there was also a big "brainwave board" there so minivan dumped his infamous JOM 2024 P5 there LOOOOL. (keep reading - later on, he proceeds to ruin our relations wt other countries by torturing them wt that JOM 2024 P5 dhasjdhsaj jkjk.) AND THENNNN we attended this awesome origami workshoppp where we learnt how to make platonic and archimedes solids with origami. stuff like this:

and siddharth from india joined our table and apparently he has experience with this stuff so he showed me an INCREDIBLEEE pic of a rlly impressive origami truncated icosahedron (out of origami roses!!) which he made some time ago. we only had time to make a tetrahedron during our session, but istg i was sooo amused - i half-jokingly said that i'd quit math oly for origami after getting back HAHAHHA

wee woop anyway, after the origami workshop, we headed to this talk by some guy with synesthesia, and it was pretty cool actually (plus, we got a free book that was written by him!!) like, one of the things he talked abt was how he used his synesthesia to memorise 20K digits of pi. YEAH. 20K. CRAAAZZYYYYY. and then idk i think we just hung out some more at the hub, had lunch, and then took the bus (to a place called "the forum" in bath) to the opening ceremony!! oh, and i met haris from kosovo (discord friend for a while now) right bef the opening ceremony!! regarding the ceremony itself, not much to say tbh, it was pretty standard for an IMO opening ceremony so yea :P BUT BUT BUT, after we got out of the hall, there were a bunch of protestors standing outside 😨😨😱

context: IMO banned russia from entering 2 (?) years ago after THAT situation, but IMO didn't ban israel from entering after THIS situation... soooo uhh... yea ykyk…

but okay then we got back and went for dinner and guess who joined us?? PO-SHEN LOHHH LESGOOO. yea actually he joined us after we all finished our meals but ofc we stayed to chat wt him anyway. he kept telling us abt 👏🏻 CONNECTIONS 👏🏻 and 👏🏻 NETWORKING 👏🏻 cuz hes a graph theorist slayyy. and he promoted the imo reunion thing too. and he talked abt a lot of other stuff and i felt kinda like a creep cuz i knew all that stuff already (but obv i didnt say la) like stuff abt his children and LIVE etc. (i swear im not a stalker, he + his daughter r just famous and so ik lots abt them. 🤓☝🏻) then aft dinner we slept earlyyyy bcs the next day is contest day!!

16/7, TUES: imo day 1

okay not gonna talk abt the actual contest here but after the contest, i think we just had lunch, hung out at the hub and i literally dk what else we did lol. also, that afternoon i had to take some PNB test as part of stage 4 eee. pretty sure the other guys were playing card games and hanging out during that time. then slept early again ofc since the next day is contest day again.

17/7, WED: imo day 2 + living life on the edge + megavan destroying racquets

again, not getting into contest details, but after we finished we were finally FREEEEEE so we had lunch and then we headed back to our rooms but i realised “OH SHOOT I DONT HV MY KEY WITH ME.” cuz like, before going into the contest, they temporarily confiscated it from me and i was supposed to collect it when leaving the hall, BUT I JUST FINISHED IMO SO DUH I FORGOT 😅😅 smh this leia is so irresponsible so i went on a hunt for my keys wt daryl + minivan BUT IT WASNT IN THE HALL?? but then we checked in the hub and it was there yay. yep then went back to rooms for a bit, then hung out at the hub, then wjr suggested we take a walk so yayyy. so we actually just walked around in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road (while playing 20 questions to keep us entertained), and literally we nearly got killed bcs we kept having to cross the road and cars are damn fast leh 😭😭 but thankfully, we made it out alive!! 🤩🤩 we went absolutely NOWHERE btw, we literally intentionally risked our goddamn lives, only to walk back as if nothing happened HJDASHDJAS 😭💀

oh yeaa and halfway thru, drew from the sgp team (discord acquaintance of mine) joined us cuz he was walking too and we noticed him at the back of us so we invited him to join us. cool guy but he sadly had to leave after a bit bcs his scores were being decided and he had to be there lol. woop woop and then on our walk back, we started grilling daryl with questions abt msia HAHAHAH 🤡 we did this a lot and also like literally half our convos involved roasting daryl abt one of 4 things: (1) too white-washed/banana, (2) too rich, (3) his love life (only minivan roasts him for this tho) and (4) his short-term memory HDAJSHDAJS daryl is very bully-able material, i must admit 🤔 anw then we went to the hub again and had a chat with the indonesian team (mainly ben and raymond, cuz daryl was friends wt raymond and i was friends wt ben). AND THENNN, badminton matches were going on btw, so after that we went to the badminton court again bcs megavan was playing in the finals against the australian team!! 🤩 (they were playing doubles.) anyway, our team (except wjr cuz he was doing some MIT thing smh) all went to watch and give supportttt and it was a CRAZYYYY match. super close but the australian team ended up winning. also megavan performed insanely well considering the cheap racquets he was getting. (he had to keep swapping racquets bcs he smashes so hard that the string SNAPS HELPPDSHAJDHSAJDSA.) yea megavan's a legend and im pretty sure he enjoyed destroying all the other kids (besides the australian team la) HAHAHA 💪🏻💪🏻 okie then that nighttt, we went to the adult’s pantry, bcs dr syafiq was there to grade our work AAAAADHSJADHSAJ so scary fr. and then i dont rmbr, but we mightve played card games after that lol.

18/7, THURS: juggling + cool stones + grant sanderson is real omg

went to the hub and played shuffleboard with the israeli team!! super fun (and hard, actually) and we were totally abusing the shuffleboard sand HAHAHHAHA. i think we played some other games too like jenga and connect 4, but i cant rmbr anymore tbh bcs we played so many games at the hub and i cant rmbr which games we played each day rip. and then we went to one of my favourite talks/sessions - JUGGLINGGGG. 🤓🤓 yo i cant even describe how awesome it was omg. his name is colin wright and hes such a PROO at juggling. the talk was basically him showing how juggling relates to math, and i was obv impressed by that but i think i was more impressed by his juggling skills HAHAHHA. one of the things he showed us was like "juggling notation" and stuff of that sort (in other words, sheet music for juggling), and u could give him a sequence of numbers and he could "juggle it out" IT'S ABSOLUTELY WILDDDD HOW GOOD HE IS AT IT LOL DHSAJDHASJ and the whole talk was rlly cool and he was suuuper entertaining and funny. 🌈✨ but unfortunately, many teams went on excursions that day so only a few of us got to witness his talk, but it was cool bcs our interactions felt more personal that way lol. AND THEN, HE SHOWED US HOW TO USE "JUGGLING MATH" TO SOLVE SOME IMO PROBLEM (i forgot which oops). uhm im too dum to understand it BUT AT LEAST I'M SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND HOW COOOOOL IT IS 🤯🤯 so that was the stuff we did in the morning, then in the afternoon, WE WENT TO FRICKEN STONEHENGE LESGOOOO. (okay fine it was a lil bit boring but still cool.) err yea no comment but we saw cool stones!!

also while we were getting on the bus to get to stonehenge, jerome + PH team were there and they asked us some riddle which was like "how many times did the sheep jump over the fence" with sus hand movements, and i cracked it pretty quickly LESGO. they said i was probably the fastest person to figure it out so my self-esteem that day went like 📈📈😌 (i'll rmbr that moment for the rest of my life fr.) and one of the guys said that he asked for the answer to be 18 and he still cdnt crack it, WHICH IS RLLY FUNNY TO THINK ABOUT HAHAHAHA (spoiler: the answer to the riddle is the number of times the person says "listen" before asking the question). aight then after stonehenge, we got back, had dinner, and then our team had the opportunity to sit down and chat with an MIT admission officer (chris peterson) and a caltech admission officer (jann lacoss). credits to mr syamil for organising the meet-up!! we had a great talk discussing uni admissions/applications and i feel much more motivated for this year's cycle yayyyyy 🤩🤩 ALSO I GOT SUPER CUTE MIT AND CALTECH STICKERSSSSS FROM THEM. then after our chat with them, we rushed to simon singh's lecture (tbh i didnt know who he was but daryl has 2 of his books apparently, like what a nerd amirite smh 🙄 jkjk hes actually famous, im just dumb and not as nerdy as the other imo guyz 🥸) but we were late so we had to sit in another hall and watch the livestream (cdnt see him face to face). and his was uhh... well... interesting. he kinda showed us a bunch of random stuff lmao. supposedly showing us how math relates to drama idk, but everything felt super weird and out of place?? like first he was like, BOOM HERE'S FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM!! then suddenly, BOOM ACUPUNCTURE!! and then BOOM CRYPTOGRAPHY!! THEN SUDDENLY BRO MADE A COMMENT ABT DANIEL TAMMET (the guy with synesthesia who previously gave a talk) and he claimed that daniel was a FAKE and i audibly GASPED bruh LIKE WOWOW THE DRAMAAAA 😱😱😱 (here's the link to his post abt that too) also woaw dr syafiq has met so many famous mathematicians (who were brought up during simon's talk) and daryl and i kept exchanging mind blown looks HAHAHSJDHSAJ ANYWAY HIS LECTURE WAS MEH BUT IT WAS 3B1B (grant sanderson) TIME EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SO WE WENT TO THE OTHER HALL WHERE WE COULD SEE HIM FACE TO FACE AND WAAAAAAAAADHSJDHAJ HIS TALK WAS ACTUALLY SO FRICKEN AWESOME.

his talk was titled "one more dimension, please" and it was literally abt solving geom problems by "raising a dimension" AND IT WAS SUPER COOL. like one of the things he showed us was the classic 3d proof of monge's theorem, but there were a few other problems he showed too. he also got into topology and complicated mobius strip/klein bottle stuff and my mind was hella twisted 🤡🤡 also he had all his graphics prepared so when someone answers his question he switches to that exact graphic and it's so impressive to see, so everyone would start clapping and cheering HAHAHAH. then late at night, we gathered in the pantry and played card gamesss (became a habit of ours every night lol). idr what games we played that day, but we usually played bluff, hearts, power and the game where u like, slap the pile of cards if the number matches the card ykwim. but also daryl being daryl, he slept early every single night and didnt join us till late. LIKE WHO EVEN HAS A SLEEP SCHEDULE DURING IMO EEEEEEEEEE WHAT A NERDDDDD 🤬👎🏻and also, shout out to kw bcs why is bro so effortlessly funny whenever we're playing card games BAHAHAHA 😭😭 like every time we play bluff right, kw bluffs so damn much and he keeps getting caughttt 💀💀 AND ALSO, the "slap the pile of cards" game, kw's reaction time is so slow. like everyone else has put their hand in the middle, meanwhile kw just stares and takes a moment to process it with a blank look on his face 😐 and then only a second later, hes like "oh-" HAHAHAHAH (no offence to kw tho, i relate to his struggles oof 😔) so yea bcs hes always last, hes always the one to take that pile (objective of the game is to rid cards btw). BUT LIKE - SOMETIMES HES NOT LAST THO 😭😭 BUT HE KEEPS TAKING THAT PILE OF CARDS BCS HES USED TO BEING LAST HAHAHJSHDSJA 😭😭

19/7, FRI: bath + fesh n cheps + idk how to amongus

BRO i woke up just a bit late (bcs stayed up late the night bef) AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT DARYL AND MINIVAN GOT TO TALK TO GRANT AND TAKE SELFIES WT HIM THAT MORNING LIKE BRUHHHH 🤬🤬🤬 this is like missing one day of school, but then for some reason EVERYTHING interesting happens on that day 😭😭 okay im still salty but wtv.

i think we hung out at the hub again after that, then our guide took us around bath!! we went to bath abbey, and also went to some shop (where we were amused by their british humour on gift cards LOOOL). I ALSO SAW A TRADITIONAL LEMONADE STAND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE 🔥🔥 and thenn, we went to an art gallery where i got to learn bout lithographs and also where wjr took this goofy pic 😌

then we had some FESH AND CHEPSSSSSSS at a restaurant in bath and omg I LOVEEEEEEEE VINEGARRRRRRRRRRRRR SMMM. the fish + vinegar was absolutely chef kiss 🤌🏻🤌🏻 like why is it not a thing to eat it wt vinegar in msia?? ALSO AH, MINIVAN KEEPS PUTTING SALT IN HIS WATER BCS ✨ eLeCTrOLyTeSsS ✨ OR WTV BUT I WAS GENUINELY SO WORRIED FOR HIM CUZ I DONT THINK U’RE SUPPOSED TO PUT THAT MUCH DAMN SALT IN UR WATER 😭😭😭 AND I WAS SITTING IN FRONT OF HIM SO I WAS JUST HELPLESSLY WATCHING HIM DUMP SALT INTO HIS BOTTLE DHSAJDHSAJDHSAJ 😭😭😭 I DID WARN HIM THO AND ASK HIM WHY HE DID IT BUT HE SEEMED VERY FIRM ON HIS DECISION SO- I'LL GIVE HIM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT AND TRUST HE KNOWS WHAT HES DOIN 😭😭 ANYWAY ENOUGH ABOUT MINIVAN AND SALT, we got back and hung out in the music room for a bit (bcs megavan + minivan + tmh are piano prodigies so they took every opportunity to play the piano). we played amongus but ive nvr played bef (so daryl had to help me at first) but i was impostor the first round bruh so i asked out loud “WHATS VENT” BCS I DIDNT KNOW ONLY IMPOSTORS COULD VENT HDASJDHASJ HELP 💀💀 then we had more lectures at night!!! the first lecture was by maryna viazovska (one of only two female fields medallists) and the second one was by grant again!! i didnt rlly enjoy the lectures as much this time, bcs it was rlly big brain and i cdnt comprehend it DHASJDHASJ. went back to our rooms, and played more card gamesssss

20/7, SAT: cutOOFs + bristol

woke up sooo nervous bcs cutoffs were going to be announced that day 🥶🥶 won't get into it here, but we hung out at the hub to distract ourselves from the stress. also, XTX gave out those "tangle" fidget toys and im 99% convinced that they deliberately handed it out at that time to keep us distracted while waiting 💀💀 anyway waiting was super stressful that i cdnt even sit down and i was addicted to checking my msgs every few seconds for updates bruh. but finally, cutoffs were officially out, and it turned out well for me so that meant i could spend the rest of the day celebrating and not being emo YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY 🥳🥳 then we headed for lunch AND GUESS WHO WAS THERE TOOOOOO?? AAAAAADSDHAJ ANANT AND EVANNNNNN!! AND GUESS WHO GOT SELFIES WITH THEMMMMM???

HEHEHJHDJASHJ crazy crazy. oh yea, and lixuan arrived at the time too bcs he was there for the reunion. then, after lunch, our guide took us to bristol yayayay. we went to st mary redcliffe, which is basically a rlly old pretty church. oh and look at what megavan wrote in the "prayer book" HEHEHEH

and there was a super cool pendulum there (powered by water which demonstrated chaos theory) and honestly (super nerdy but) i think i was more amused by that than the rest of the church OOPSSSSHDASJHDASJ. and then whileee we were there admiring the pendulum, a lady who worked there approached us and we all had a chat. apparently, she was born and raised in msia when she was younger (cuz her dad was involved during ww2 era or smth), and the crazy thing is, SHE WENT TO ALICE SMITH (i.e. daryls white school) SO WE WERE ALL LIKE "WOAHHHHHH" 🤯🤯 lmao then after we were done exploring the place, we just continued walking arounddd and we also saw one of those typical red phone booths 🤩🤩 also we found a snail and we were joking abt how it was turbo the snail from p5 HAHAHHA 🤡 we continued walkinggg and eventually made our way to the famous bristol bridge!! then after some pics, we made our way back. okay problem was, bcs we were in bristol righttt, we didnt hv enough time to make it back in time for TERRY TAO's lecture!! ☹️☹️ YEAH. THE ONE. AND ONLY. TERRY TAO. 🔥🔥 okay well actually, we COULD make it back in time, but sooo many ppl wanna watch his lecture irl obvsly, so there was a long queue of ppl (ppl starting queueing like 2hrs in advance probably) waiting to enter the lecture hall HDASJHDSAJ so in the end, we ended up watching the livestream of the lecture in the separate hall. his lecture was abt AI in math and i was honestly lookin forward to it, but ngl my attention span depleted within the first 5 minutes UHM 🙃🙃 but thankfully the lecture was only 1hr instead of 2hrs (the schedule said it was 2hrs tho so idk) cuz if it was 2hrs i wdve genuinely been so bored to death 🤠🤠 but i think terry's lecture was fine tho, it was just a me problem and also i was too dumb to comprehend some stuff 😔😔 anyway after the lecturee, i met one of the organisers of MBL (math camp im attending soon)!! she and mr syamil knew each other (from MBL balkans which was held earlier this year) so ig mr syamil told her i'd be attending this sept, so yea we had a quick chat abt MBL and i got to meet some ex-MBL participants too 🔥🔥then our team took some picsss outside, and then we all headed back to rest and shower for a bit la. then as usual, like every night, we gathered in the pantry for card games/amongus (with lixuan this time). AND ANDDD I MADE MAGGI IN THE PANTRY THAT NIGHT (to eat while playing card games la) - SO EVERYONE ELSE HAD TO ENDURE THE HEAVENLY SMELL OF MY MAGGI WHILE I FLEXED IT HAHAHAH I LOVE MAKING PPL SUFFER 😈😈 but then minivan was inspired by me to make his own instant noodles too, but his was bigger than mine :( they played amongus for a bit (while i made my maggi) then we played power. but then lixuan was getting tired (bcs he travelled that day ma) so we all agreed to just end it early. (pretty sure it was the only night we ended it that early lol.)

21/7, SUN: goofy pics + amazing fireworks + talking non-stop

went for bfast wt daryl + minivan + kw and then we went to the hub, but it was sadly closed UGHHH 😭😭 but it was alright cuz we could take an alternative route to the outside area of the hub, so we just played more games there as we usually do 🔥 oh jerome + his friend were there too. then we did some wacky bowling stuff with the shuffleboard thingy (i hv no idea what we were doing) AND THEN (this is the part where minivan ruins our relations wt other countries 💀), minivan pulled up his JOM P5 and showed it to jerome + his friend AAHSDJHSAJ 🙃🙃 then jerome showed us a kinda "troll" problem too which was their p1 for one of their tests LMAO exchanging troll problems at imo 🤡🫶🏻🫶🏻 and then idr but at some point that time, i went against minivan in the giant connect 4 (pro tip: nvr play against minivan, u'll get destroyed), AND THEN THE CHINA COACHES/LEADERS CAME AS I WAS ABOUT TO LOSEEEE and i could hear them talking abt parity parity stuff (basically talking abt how i was in a losing position la) rip 😔😔💔 but anyway then we were like, still bored and we still had time to kill, so we went to the badminton court to play more badminton HAHAHAH 😎😎 and then literally just as we were abt to leave, megavan spawned outta nowhere LOL. then the 5 of us went to a shop nearby and minivan was gonna get some coffee (i think hes a coffee addict ahem ahem) but then right... IDK WHAT HAPPENED, but i think we all left without him and continued wandering to the upstairs area (which we discovered was basically the hub 2.0 lol)?? 💀 but yea then suddenly we realised he was missing LOLOLOL so we went back to dorms. OMG then after we got back to dorms, we played charades (my idea 😌) BUT ISTG IT WAS SO STUPID. at first we were playing the normal version where u had to act (normal) verbs out. but then i suggested to create a custom deck, so it was me + minivan + daryl + kw + tmh and we all added maths stuff in the deck, which we then had to act out AND IT WAS HORRIBLE AND SO HARD HAHAHAH 😭😭 the funniest one was like, "chinese remainder theorem", and it was minivans turn to act out and he was so creative HAHAHAH he pointed to tmh and did like thumbs up or nodded or smth (but kw didnt understand it), then he pointed to daryl and did an "X" sign with his arms HAHAHAHAHAHAAHSDJASHDAJ (wont explain but iykyk 🤡🤡) okie moving on, we had our lunch aft that and then got ready for the closing ceremonyyyy!! (man howd it all go by so fast 😭😭) we cdnt bring any bags in, so i just brought my phone + imo water bottle. then i think wjr/tmh said smth like "everyone is gonna use the same bottle" implying we can easily mismatch or smth ykyk. and then i responded with "thats why i put orange in my bottle" bcs i put one of those orange vitamin c tablets in my water, and wjr approved 👍🏻👍🏻 (this is foreshadowing smth...) then we had to wait for what felt like forever CUZ THE BUS WAS LATE AGAIN 🤬🤬 (i thought being >30 mins late for every occasion was a msian thing but oh well, guess not!! 🙄🙄) oh and while waiting, minivan was searching for more victims to torture with his JOM P5. then we arrived at our venue but we cdnt go in yet so we ✨🥰 bonded ✨ wt the sgp team in the meantime, and even created a ws grp chat just for the 2 of our teams 🤠🤠 (yes, minivan took advantage of this golden opportunity to show his JOM P5 too ofc.) orite yayyy then the ceremony finally started and i could collect my medal 🥹🥹 AND THEN IT WAS THE PERFECT SCORER'S TURNNNNNNN!! so terry tao gave a bit of a speech (SO YEA IN THE END I STILL GOT THE CHANCE TO SEE HIM IRL YAYAYAYAY) then he presented the award to the one perfect scorer (from china DUH) and also that same guy perfect scored LAST YEAR TOO which is actually so frickin crazy and amazinggg 😭 imagine being THAT good that u can perfect score at IMO twice like bruhhhhh CRAZYYYY AND HES ONLY 16 UHM 😭😭 oh yea another thing, timothy gowers was also there as one of the award presentors, and i've known him for a while bcs i used to watch his yt vids (he used to go thru engel's problem-solving strategies book) AND ONLY DURING THE CEREMONY I FIND OUT THAT HE'S A FIELDS MEDALLIST?? BRUH HOW HAVE I NOT KNOWN THIS ENTIRE TIME??? im a disgrace to the math community oof 😭😭😔 okay anyway so now the ceremony's over AND GUESS WHAT. like... ive held on to my bottle the entire time okay... but then suddenly... i look back at my bottle... and... WHY IS THE WATER NOT ORANGE??? 💀💀 SO YEA I SOMEHOW SWAPPED BOTTLES WITH SOMEONE BUT IDK AT WHAT POINT IT EVEN HAPPENED, BCS I RMBR ADMIRING THE ORANGE AT RANDOM INTERVALS THROUGHOUT THE CEREMONY??? so then i looked around, checked with the ppl sitting next to me, and wjr even helped me to ask in the big imo ws grp chat... BUT NO ONE HAD MY BOTTLE BRUH so in the end i just kept that one 😭😭 i srsly hope someone just accidentally took my bottle and kept it too aaaaaaa ☹️ well anyway, after my bottle chaos, we took pics in the hall for a bit. then, we had to wait for the bus, AGAIN. and while waiting, jerome noticed that theres a dead spider in his medal (within one of the gaps), but then we noticed... ALL OF US DID. (except for daryl cuz hes irresponsible and probably lost his spider smh 🙄 or mybe his spider was a zombie and escaped the medal cuz it didnt wanna live with daryl lmao.) but i figured its probably an intentional easter egg for next year (australia) cuz for one, everyone had it in that same spot. and secondly, that specific gap of the medal had like a spider web design within it so yea im pretty sure its intentional. (i wonder if they hv easter eggs like this every year?) BUT. the dead spider looks.... REAL??? where'd they get all the spiders from??? and imagine being the guy who had to meticulously insert each of those spiders into the medals??? UHMMM 😐😐 okay then we got onto the bus and headed back, THEN TOOK LOTS AND LOTS OF PICSSSSS. and our leaders/observers wanted some candid pics of us, BUT WE DIDNT FRICKIN KNOW HOW TO ACT NATURAL AROUND THE CAMERA HAHAJSHDSJA it was so funny and dr syafiq was complaining we're so kayu (i 100% agree 💀) and so we ended up getting lots of goofy pics 😭😭 (there's this one pic where we're all pointing at ducks while kw is pointing to the sky :/) omg also, the sole of kw’s shoe came out at some point 🤡

BUT WE WERE LATE FOR THE CLOSING PARTY ALREADYYYY (like 2 hours late lol) and tbh i was confused at first cuz the closing party was held at a sports field??? so i kinda had my expectations low BUT GODDAMN WE ARRIVED AND IT WAS SO FRICKIN DOPE 🤯🤯 okay basically its outdoor so we could hang out and eat under tents and stuff, which sounds lame like ur typical kenduri or smth BUT IT WAS WAY COOLER. uh uhm i'll just dump a pic here so ykwim

(also it was super cold outside and my hands were working in slo-mo.) they also prepared outdoor games like the ones in the hub like mega-chess, and there was also a dancefloor + band broo. AS FOR FOOD, there were a bunch of "gerai" basically, AND WE CAN JUST GO AROUND ALL THE GERAI AND GRAB OUR FOOD FOR FREE AAAAAAA. and the food was pretty good i'd say. i had some amazing churros and i hadnt eaten churros in a long long time. ANYWAY, SO WHY DID THEY DO IT IN A FIELD??? BCS THERE WERE CARNIVAL RIDESSSSSSSSSS OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDD 😭😭😭 LIKE I ARRIVED AND IT WAS THE FIRST THING THAT CAUGHT MY EYE HAHAHAHA. there were a bunch of spinny give-urself-a-concussion rides + bumper cars, IT WAS SO DOPEEEEEE. anyway i mostly ate and socialised with a bunch of ppl (including chris + mit kids!! btw all the retiring ppl of the usa imo team i.e. 4 of them, ARE ALL GOING TO MIT) AND EVEN THE CHINA PERFECT SCORER DUDE (i got a cool memo pad from him that leaves some 3d thing once u rip out all the papers) but we cdnt talk much bcs he cdnt speak eng well oof ☹️☹️ YAH AND THEN RIGHT, wjr was already queueing up for one of the rides with other mit peeps (while i was socialising around that area), BUT THEN WHEN IT WAS GONNA BE HIS TURN, THE RIDE SHUT DOWN BRUH (bcs it was 10pm already and the dinner was supposed to end at 10). then wtv he just queued for another ride. AND THEN THE SAME THING HAPPENED AGAIN. HE WAS ABOUT TO RIDE AND THEN IT SHUT DOWN 😭😭😭 so yea in the end, the entire msian team didnt sempat to get on the rides awwww 💔💔 mainly cuz we arrived late la and i was busy eating + socialising. but its fineee bcs i think it was more fun talking to the cool ppl at imo anyway rather than making myself sick HDASJHDASJ👍🏻👍🏻 and then suddenly there were AWESOMEEE fireworks. i kid u not those were probably the most awesome fireworks ive seen in my entire life, and it genuinely got me interested to understand the engineering behind fireworks. like the fireworks lasted for rlly long and the patterns/shapes of the firework were rlly unique. like i was specifically so astonished by the spiral ones BCS HOW DO U ENGINEER THAT?? but not long after, we got kicked out of the field cuz it was past 10 already 😔😔 but at the time, the msian team was like hanging out wt the indonesian team i think (i was talking to ben) so after we left, we hung out for a bit more in front of the dorms. then after a while, everyone was done talking, so everyone else left la. but i was still talking to ben so we continued talking. (also one of the things we talked abt was the no ventilation system thing and i was glad to find out that he was confused at first too HAHAHA.) and do yk how like, when u go over to someones house or smth, mums will be like "we're leaving in 5 more minutes" but then proceed to chat with other mums while standing (as if theyre about to leave) for frickin HOURSSS?? cant believe im admitting this but yea i was guilty of it HAHAHAH. like we were walking towards my dorm but then we kept talking (abt a whole bunch of interesting things lol) and istg our chat felt soo quick. until suddenly wjr called me up to ask where i was and i saw the time and i was like "FRICK ITS ALMOST 12.30 AM" which means we were talking for like 2+ hours HAHAHAHHAHA 🤡🤡 brr so then finally i went back (the other guys were watching anime in the meantime) bcs i needed to pack my stuff.

22/7, MON: bath again + it was kw’s fault trust trust

i had to wake up EARLY (ew) bcs i had my PNB interview that morning rip. after that, we checked out, left our luggage somewhere, then we all went to bath city centre (where we went before) tgt. but this time we walked instead of taking the bus. oh and we also played 20 questions again, and at some point we were considering the taste and texture of insects in our mouth so that was interesting!! then we arrived and just walked around for a bit and then we all headed for lunch at some asian restaurant. (the food was super expensive as expected, and my meal was pretty mid honestly.) and also, minivan got special treatment cuz hes allergic to nuts smh, wheres MY special treatment 🙄😒 oh right then we went to some shop and i bought 2 keychains for 30 ringgit, and that was literally one of the cheapest souvenirs i could buy so- 💀💀 then that was kinda it. we headed back to the uni and took the bus to the airport (it was just us so that was nice). then at the airport, we got to the part where they scan ur bags- HAIYA very funny and dum la 😭😭😭 so like, among the 6 of us, 3 of our bags (me, wjr, kw) got held back 💀 and we were all thinking of reasons for it cuz we thought we already emptied our water so hmm. like wjr suspected it was his meds, i suspected it was my facial washes, and kw suspected it was his compass. and well... ONLY WJR WAS RIGHT HAHAHAHAH. TURNS OUT KW AND I STILL HAD WATER WE FORGOT TO DUMP AAAAHDSJAHJ 🤡🤡😭 and it was funny cuz the entire time we kept blaming each other bcs like "oh its ur fault that we all hv to wait" AAHDSJDHAJ and i just blamed kw for everything SLAYYYAYAYAY 😌😌🔥 okay la but then we played contexto while waiting for the plane and then finally boarded (so sad it all happened so fast 🥹🥹) ooo then bef we took off i rmrb discussing abt kpp wt mr syamil (and why the school fails to work) 👀☕☕

23/7, TUES: omg r we celebrities now?

we finally landed in msia at around 9pm i thinkkk. then we all had to change into our ✨ fancy pants ✨ bcs media was gonna be there. then after we were ready, we walked out and a wholeee bunch of ppl were there including our minister of education 👀 and also she was like calling out my name a lot when we arrived, and tmh later made a comment that i seemed like her fav child HAHAHAH SLAY 😌😌 oh yea suhaimi, haziman, tristan and cg ainun (omg and also pavitra's mum, by coincidence) were there too so that was a nice surprise :DD and then we all had to record vids and interview and take pics and bla bla bla and at that point, obv we were all tired after the travel and stuff so then we went homeee (minivan + wjr + tmh crashed at daryl's fancy house lol).

24/7, WED: wher r the old ppl + tasty chikken

so we were all gonna have brunch tgt at ioi city mall at 10am, and at 10 we all arrived already. BUT NO ADULT WAS THERE 💀 and then haziman came at around 10.30-ish la, but no sign of life from anyone else. we also recorded a very convincing video of us acting disappointed to send to the adults SLAY. so then we texted all the adults, and unsurprisingly, 2 of them overslept HAHAHAH. then they arrived a bit later and we all had some gud fud at kfry. also unnecessary info but while we were eating, wjr had the audacity to say that gold at imo is "not that hard", meanwhile i BARELY bronzed bruh 🤧🤧 ah well anyway, i guess that brunch officially marked the end of my imo 2024 awwww 😭😭

the contest itself

ngl i was rlly nervous for this years imo, especially after slipping up last year oof (still traumatising to think abt). 😭💀 ig i was aiming for bronze. but at the same time, smth in my gut told me that this year was not gonna end up well, even worse than last year, so i rlly didnt wanna get my hopes up 🥲 anyway, here's how both days went.

day 1: HMM very funky paper indeed, nothing immediately strikes as C or G. attempted p1 first. strangely enough, a sol came very instantly to me which doesnt usually happen to me lol. i didnt even do any big brain stuff. i sort of just did the usual thing of trying small values/cases and the sol came right away by doing so. i took quite a bit of time to write up tho, but at least i still had sooo much time left. and then heres where i died lol (as i always do after finishing p1/4😭). i basically spent all my remaining time on p2. well, i read p3 and messed around for a bit, but after getting a "sense" (by "sense", i mean... NO sense 💀) i was like HA HA NOPE!! (and the p3 turned out to be super hard anyway so im glad i dodged a bullet.) so yea p2, i was getting absolutely nowhere with it oof. dowanna discuss it here but i just tried a bunch of stuff but i felt far from the solution. anyway it finished and i got out of the hall AND GUESS WHOS THE FIRST PERSON (from the msian team) I MEET??? MINIVAN!! 🚐 and literally his first words to me were like "frick i didnt solve p3..." 😐😐 FRICK I DIDNT SOLVE P3?? WDYM "FRICK I DIDNT SOLVE P3"?? 😭💀 LIKE IMAGINE BEING SO PRO THAT NOT SOLVING THE P3 IS WHAT U'RE WORRIED ABOUT DHASJDHSAJDHASJ 😭 yea and then obv he solved the p2 ma (his NT is orz) and he was telling me it was ez so i legitimately thought that this p2 was another case of 2022 p2 and so i believed i was screwed for bronze!! AAAAAAHDSJDHAJ 😭😭 but then finally the entire msian team + megavan found each other and turns out only wjr and minivan solved the p2 (which minivan called ez 🫤) and even megavan said the p2 was hard bruh, so i was actually so relieved to hear that GDHASGDHAS 💀💀 and then ofc, we started discussing sols AND EVERYONE P1S SOL WAS SO DIFFERENT FROM MINE?? I STARTED PANICKING AND DOUBTING MY SOL 😭😭 and i was rlly scared cuz if my p1 was wrong, then literally its 1 or 7. like i dont see how i could get any partials bcs my sol was so different somehow, so it likely wasnt any of the official sols which can be dangerous. (also, i didnt believe i could partial for p2, so i was in a rlly bad position if my p1 was wrong.) but at this point i didnt wanna confirm my doubts bcs then i'll be demotivated for day 2. i think the 04s were a bit bummed that day too bcs kw and tmh didnt get the p2/3 and wjr didnt get the p3. but it turns out, that p3 was rlly hard actually. like, harder than most p3/6s. everyone was talking abt it and even after a few days, we hadnt heard of any guaranteed solves.

day 2: i'll begin by saying that i was kinda looking forward to day 2 bcs i knew there would be a G. i was actually contemplating which order i preferred for CG among p4 p5. on one hand, p4G p5C is a safe p4 for me, tho i'll struggle with the p5. but on the other hand, p4C p5G is risky bcs i have a chance of solving 2, but i also hv a chance of solving 0 (bcs my C for p1/4 + my G for p2/5 is unstable). but anyway, i opened the paper and boom p4G. so in my head i was like, okay well at least thats a safe 7 in my hands. (also sidenote, my first thoughts when i read the problem statement was "is tmh gonna bash this" 🤡) i think i solved the p4 pretty quickly too, and write-up took a bit of time. but that left me with almost 4hrs. so ofc i attempted the p5 combi and i was rlly stumped at first. (also im not a fan of the long problem statement lmao.) after some attempts, i realised binary search stuff seemed reasonable, and so my guess was smth of the form floor(log_2(2023)) + some constant. but i was like HMM last years p5 was already log2 stuff but nvm i'll continue. but even after having that guess, i was super stumped and had absolutely no idea how to prove minimality. so yea i was stuck and wtv, but i was at least hoping for partials bcs my instincts told me the binary search thing seemed to be on the right track. anyway as i was leaving the hall, ben saw me and he told me the korean guy behind him (who claimed he perfect scored day 1) got 3 as the answer. and literally 3 sounds SO ABSURD so i was like "no way" and ben was like "no way" too and so we laughed it off and assumed he fake-solved bcs 3 literally doesnt make ANY SENSE. like, it doesnt even sound logical. (btw, ben did binary search stuff too.) so yea we were just discussing our progress for p5, then kevin found us and we asked him "whats the answer for p5" TO WHICH HE RESPONDED "3" 💀💀💀 IMAGINE HOW THE 2 OF US FELT IN THAT MOMENT HDASJHDASJHDSJA 💀💀 we were both flabbergasted and just like "WHAT??!!" BCS 3 DOESNT MAKE SENSE BRUHHHH. then i continued walking along and i found the msian team where dr syafiq was there too AND I INDEED CONFIRMED THE ANSWER WAS 3 HDSJAHDASJ I FELT LIKE JUMPING OFF A BUILDING AT THAT SECOND 😭🤡 i was so in shock and genuinely cdnt understand how the answer was 3 bruh. in the msian team, only wjr solved it and even he got trolled for a good 3 hours. and also all of us attempted binary search and thought the answer was log2 stuff. (except kw cuz he misread the problem i think, so he moved on to p6.) anyway yea we were all complaining abt the p5 BCS ITS SO TROLLLLL AND NOT EVEN MATHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAGHHH. apparently, dr syafiq also told us that they wanted to propose that problem as p4 instead, but with the answer "3" so the problem was just to find the strategy. THE THING IS... WHERES THE MATH??? ok i'll continue the p5 rant later la. so then i asked dr syafiq if all our p1s were safe (bcs all 7s on p1 would be quite the achievement), and he said everyones p1 was a 7 EXCEPT FOR MY P1 WHICH WAS PROBABLY A 1. NOW YK THE FUNNY THING??? obv at that point i was like "OH FRICK" but rmbr how i was doubting my p1 after day 1??? idk why BUT SUDDENLY EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING WAS TELLING ME MY P1 WAS CORRECT DESPITE ALL MY DOUBTS BEFORE. so i asked dr syafiq what went wrong and he explained it to me but i honestly cdnt understand the flaw. like i understood what he meant, but i still didnt get what was wrong with my proof ig. okay well obv i was feeling very unsettled aft that bcs losing p1 means i completely blew my shot for bronze ☹️☹️ but deep down, my gut was telling me not to worry and that my p1 was probably a 7 which is rlly funny and weird bcs i was doubting my p1 so much before?? but suddenly when im told its wrong, i believe its right?? WHATS WRONG WITH ME?? but ig i had a good reason to believe it was correct la. bcs i reflected on my sol and i was rlly convinced it was correct, and also... i feel like i rarely fake-solve things...? i genuinely cant rmbr a time where i fake-solved smth (excluding 2022 cuz i was dum back then) HMMMM. i mean i probably hv, but if i hv then it was probably a rlly long time ago and i cant rmbr anymore OR i didnt realise it was a fake-solve. (i frequently get 0s tho!! sob sob.) so anyway i moved on, and then after that, we went on a walk right. (also keep in mind, my gut was telling me my p1 was correct, hence why i wasnt emo during the walk. and also the reason i hvnt killed myself yet at that point!!) but yes the ENTIRE walk, i was literally anticipating a text from one of the adults to tell me my p1 was correct LMAO. like my gut just KNEW it was gonna happen. and guess what? YEP my instincts were right. as we were almost done with our walk, megavan texted to tell me he saved my p1 and he was convinced it was correct. AND I WAS SO RELIEVEDDDDDDDD DHSAJDHASJ. basically, what happened is that dr syafiq thought i had some unresolved case due to my rushed, sloppy, somewhat-out-of-order write-up, which is why he thought my entire proof was wrong. (and i dont blame him tbh cuz yea my write-up was so sloppy and jumbled up bcs i rushed it so that i had more time for p2. 💀💀) so thank god my p1 was saved, which means i still had a chance for bronze yayay. (btw, even when our p1 scores were being coordinated, the juries proposed a 5 for me at first. but thankfully dr syafiq handled it and just explained my argument was out of order. im surprised they proposed as high as 5 tho, especially given that my sol was very non-standard.) aight then that night, we gathered in the adult's pantry where they were grading our stuff, and my initial score was 720710 which i was happy with, bcs 17 seemed safe for bronze to me given the difficulty of p2/p5. but i was wondering like, how did i even get 2pts on p2?? i was so far from the sol?? then i checked back with dr syafiq and apparently its cuz he thought i proved ab+1 was a power of 2, but i actually proved a+b is a power of 2 so he was mistaken 😭😭 but nvm i could still get 1pt, which is better than 0 la at least. but 16 to me was rlly rlly risky for bronze so i was def worried ☹️☹️

more aftermath + results: i was checking aops + ws grp chat + dc server like 24/7 BRUH 💀💀 bcs 16 is so borderline so i kept checking to see what ppl had to say abt the cutoffs aaaaaa. and then when the live scoreboard was released, i was stalking that 24/7 too 😭😭 so our team scores were 16/16/18/18/22/28. and so we were praying cutoffs would be 16/22/28 bcs then it works out sooo nicely for everyone. but there were so many varying opinions online eeeee. some ppl thought as low as 15 would be enough for bronze, while some ppl thought it would be as high as 18. so yea there was a huge range of potential cutoffs, and reading ppl opinions online wasnt rlly curing my anxiety tbh but i still had the constant urge to do it HDASJHDSAJ 🥲 but wjr was convinced that 28 wdnt be enuf for gold, and i felt rlly bad for him cuz its his last year and bro is such a stable gold medallist tho i meannn it feels so unfair 😭😭 this is all cuz of that stupid p5 la haiya then one of the days, when we were hanging out in the piano room, wjr stalked the live scoreboard and counted the number of scores which were >= 28 and he concluded that he had no chance ☹️☹️ BUT - he did beat the entire canadian team!! so he was using that to hype himself up as he shoulddd 💪🏻💪🏻 at that same time, we were also predicting country total scores etc. and we realised we actually beat a lot of the ASEAN countries this year WOOO 🥳 anyway, fast-forward to a night before cutoff day... SOMEONE HAD THE FRICKIN DEDICATION TO CREATE A PREDICTION MODEL THAT CONSIDERED ALL OUR (PREDICTED) SCORES TO CALCULATE CUTOFFS + RANKS 💀💀 and we were in a lecture when it was released, so daryl and i were stalking it hardcore brooooo (and yes, we ditched the lecture la). like we were calculating and looking at past percentages for bronze winners etc. and our conclusion was that bronze was very likely to be 17 😭😭 bcs based on the projection, >=16 was roughly 57% while >=17 was roughly 47% of participants, and theres absolutely NO WAY 57% of participants are gonna medal. we calculated for silver too, and concluded it was very likely silver was gonna be 23, so rip minivan 😭😭 and yea we looked and gold too and 28 definitely didnt hv a chance (worse than B and S) 🥹 now ofc, do take note that the model is not 100% accurate bcs some scores are just predictions e.g. they predicted a 3 for daryls p5, which would put him at 19 even tho his actual score is 16. but at the same time, i was looking at it and honestly it seemed fairly accurate enough to me cuz some scores are gonna be pushed up but some scores are gonna be pushed down too so... in the end those effects cancel out 🥲🥲 sooo i was pretty crushed and i went to bed emo that night 💔💔 BUT FAST FORWARD TO THE NEXT MORNING - CUTOFF DAY AAAAAAAAAAA. we were all anxiously waiting at the hub during jury meeting. and idk but there was some person wt inside info in the ws grp chat so he was leaking all the stuff that was happening during the meeting (idk if hes allowed to do that) 🤡 then at some point we found out that for bronze, it was either -23 (if 17) or +21 (if 16) from half SO I WAS LIKE WOAHHHH ITS CLOSER TO 16 LESGOOOO 🥹🥹 problem is, they need 2/3 of the leaders votes if they wanna go over half. so daryl and i were PRAYINGGG hard that leaders would be nice. FINALLY, cutoffs were confirmed at 16/22/29 and i was rlly happy lmao 😭😭 later, megavan told us that one of the leaders said "lets make more kids happy this year" and so ig it influenced them to go over half AAAAAAADHSJDHAJ IM SO THANFKUL FOR WHOEVER THAT LEADER IS 😭🫶🏻 and since bronze went above half, it made more sense for the other cutoffs to be lower too so that the ratios of medallists worked out nicely. and for context, they were initially deciding between 16/17, 22/23, 29/30, so basically all the lower cutoffs were chosen. so it worked out great for everyone in our team... besides wjr who was 1pt away 😭😭 and im sure if it wasnt for that stupid p5, he wdve definitely gotten gold AGHHHH 🥹😔 in terms of country ranking, msia got 30 this year which is actually pretty good. and also, we got 2nd* among ASEAN (1st is sgp whos undefeatable anyway, and we tied with vtnm) WHICH IS ACTUALLY PRETTY CRAZY CUZ THAT MEANS WE BEAT COUNTRIES LIKE THAILAND, PHILIPPINES AND INDONESIA 🤯🤯 generally, i think msia did quite well this year tho. its our first time fully solving p1 p4 and its also our first year (aft 30 years) where everyone came back wt a medal 🔥 anyway its time to talk abt the problems and rant abt p5

thoughts on the problems:

• p1: not bad and wasnt too difficult. given that my dumb solution worked (by simply just trying small values of n), im pretty sure anyone who is decently good at math could probably figure it out? well, other ppl did big brain stuff like shifting tho, but my sol had like 0 creativity or ingenuity tbh. also, the person who proposed this p1 is the same person who proposed last years p1 lol.
• p2: ERMM ab+1 came outta nowhere LOLOLOL. okay wjr explained the motivation but still, i think its quite tricky bcs its very hit or miss, depending on if u discover the ab+1 thing or not. megavan too said its quite hard unlike what minivan said AHEM AHEM.
• p4: interesting cuz ppl who're good at geom suffer more than ppl who're less good at geom? or at least thats what ive heard and observed lol. bcs it involves incenter which threw many ppl off? (wjrs sol is WILD and involved harmonic bundles iirc 💀) for me, at least, i think considering that rhombus with the reflection of A across I is natural, and its gg from there. but even megavan said he considered it to be hard hmmm - but again, i think its just cuz the incenter threw him off. but many other ppl spread rumours that it was hard too, but the statistics actually show thats its a normal and suitable p4 sooo idk what everyone is on LMAO 🤔🤔
• p5: RIDICULOUS. frickin hate this problem and absolutely not suitable for imo. u know its bad when 3 PPL FROM CHINA fail to solve it. want more statistics? KOREA, which ranked 3rd btw, ONLY HAD 1 SOLVE FOR P5. 💀 even our combi gods (daryl + tmh + kw) didnt solve it. okay tbh its actually quite a neat little problem BUT ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR IMO BRUH LIKE WHAT WERE THEY THINKINGGG 😭😭 as someone once said to me, p5 literally "punishes experience", which is like, the best way to put it. cuz the difficulty lies in guessing that the answer is 3, but even if it crosses ur mind u'd brush it off and think u’re wrong (like wjr) bcs if the answer were 3... then well, minimality would be trivial so then the whole problem reduces to finding a strategy. WHICH DOESNT MAKE SENSE BCS WE'RE AT IMO AND WE'RE SUPPOSED TO DO MATH. 🤬🤬👎🏻 the problem isnt DIFFICULT per se, its just so so troll and it screwed many of us up 🥲 and i dont agree with making it a p4 either bcs its not a MATH problem to begin with
• p3 + p6: well, i cant say much, but they were both def pretty hard this year with only 8 and 5 solves for p3 and p6 respectively. the problem statement for p3 is rlly nice tho and can sound somewhat easy (as wt many combi problems ig lol). for p6, i think it could get more solves, but a lot of ppl were trolled by p5 which left them little time to work on p6 🫤🫤

yeap so thats it for this year’s imo aw man 😭😭 i rlly enjoyed my time there and i actually met and made friends with soo many ppl while i was there (i aced p7 trust trust 💯). as a wise man (ahem ahem) once told me, it's about the frenz we made along the way 🌈✨ so thanks to everyone who made my imo 2024 a special one + my friends who believed in me when i didnt believe in myself 🥹🤧🫶🏻🫶🏻 last but not least, congrats if u made it this far? (i hope not 💀)