TahsinEnesKuru's blog

By TahsinEnesKuru, history, 5 years ago, In English

I read these blogs (kalimm's blog , matthew99's blog and I_love_Hoang_Yen's blog ) and decided to write my story. Maybe it's becoming boring but there is no other place to share my feeling.

9th Grade

I joined the olympiad class at my school. And that year I studied math, basic C and some algorithms. Because in Turkey First round of the national contest consists of these topics. I did well on that, Probably I would be able to participate the Second round but as you know from the kalimm's blog Coup d'état attempt happened and all of these rounds canceled. And also my school was closed the by government.

10th Grade

I went to another school. TUBITAK (Organizer of National Contests) did not announce for a long time for the contest. I stopped studying olympiad so that year I didn't improve my olympiad skills. Finally, TUBITAK announced the contest and I studied a short time and passed the first round. The Second and Third round will be released next year.

11th Grade

I changed my school again because at my previous school it was hard to study olympiad. At this year I studied hard and won a silver medal in National contest and I also was able to compete at the team selection contest. In team selection contest there were 6 problems and 2 days just like IOI. The first day of the contest I did well and became 3rd. I was very excited because my dream was becoming true. But the second day of the contest I couldn't solve the easiest problem and also there was a geometry problem and I couldn't get any score. At the and of 2 days I became 5th in the contest. There was 33 score between me and 4th person. I was very upset but I know I have one more chance.

12th Grade

In Turkey, there is an exam for university selection called YKS. It really needs to study for success. And I decided to not study that exam and I studied Olympiad again because in Turkey If you win a medal in IOI you will be able to go to any university you want. I see kalimm as a role model (You can read his blog ). And the second contest happened I became 3rd and win a gold medal. There were more than 100 points between me and the 4th person. I was very happy because my score was great and everyone and also I think I will be on a team this year. Finally, Team selection contest happened last weekend. The first day of the contest There was 1 easy, 1 hard and 1 medium ( geometry ). I solved in 20 minutes the easy problem. It was a good start. After the whole contest, I couldn't get any score (I hate geometry :/). BTW geometry problem's tests were weak. Someone get scores which they didn't deserve it. I was 7th on the first day of the contest. Anyway, I had to do really good on the second day of the contest. The second day I solved 3 problems get 32 points from the last problem. I was second on that day. As a result, I became 5th again and there was just 3 (3/700) score between me and the 4th person :(((.

Now I have no chance to participate in IOI. My all IOI dreams were gone. (:////) I know the lack of my geometry skills is my fault. But I am very upset about missing the IOI chance two times cause of geometry. Btw I will go to TOBB university(They have a scholarship for national medalist) like kalimm. Maybe I and Erdem will make a team and study for ACM next year. But my motivation has gone.

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5 years ago, # |
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Agaaaaa

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F

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5 years ago, # |
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Oh my god. It seems like I am having similar experience with you. For me, I'm currently getting:

- APIO 2017 8th rank (runner-up) in Japan (there was a tie in 6th, so 7 Japaneses are medalists)
- IOI Japan Team Selection 2018 6th rank, because unfortunately my cellphone became broken during the selection camp
- APIO 2018 7th rank (runner-up) in Japan
- IOI Japan Team Selection 2019 5th rank, 14/1200 points to 4th

Yes. I'm actually beginning to become notorious (in Japan) to be getting so many runner-ups in many important competitions.
But IOI Japan Team Selection 2019 was so unlucky for me. There were lots of score difference between 6th ranker, which is almost same difference to this between 2nd ranker. Also, 14/1200 is the lowest difference between borderline ever in as far as I know.

P.S. Unluckily, Japan has technically no system like we can go to any university without examination if they got a very good results in science olympiads. And also, probably because of history of Japan, most Japanese university exams are not asking "how genius they are", and practically asking "how long have you studied" times "how efficient you can study generally". I really hope Japan to have systems like your country.

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    Also in Turkey education system and University selection system is not good enough. You need to know many unnecessary things. And you really had to study to succeed in this exam. Luckily TUBITAK provides Olympiad scholarships and University selections opportunities for ioi medalists. BTW I hope you still have a chance to participate in ioi and win a medal ;)

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    I wanna hear the story of how a broken cellphone affected your IOI team selection performance

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      Well, generally, if the very shocking thing happens during the contest, I somehow break my mental, and sometimes I do not perform well during the contest because of this.

      IOI Japan Team Selection Camp is a 4-day-long competition. When the competition day 2 ends, I thought about reporting my results and feedback of it to twitter. So I opened my iPhone 5s, but it only showed "apple" mark, and could not open. I thought, "okay, if I charge the battery, something should change", and charged a battery, but nothing happened. I finally thought that my cellphone became broken.
      So, how my cellphone was important? It was very important for many reasons. Firstly, I can't take photos of Selection Camp. I take many pictures of events I participate, but it couldn't be done without cellphone. Secondly, I can't tweet about Selection Camp. Actually, Twitter is a very important thing for Japanese competitive programmers. Thirdly, I actually brought my PC to practice or learn algorithms, but there's no Wi-Fi at Selection Camp, so I thought about using tethering of my cellphone. So, we cannot even use internet without my cellphone!

      But a shocking thing also happened during Selection Camp 2019. I did not blunder in Day 1-3, but I heard that my school will demolish Wi-Fi port very soon because of reconstruction of school building, at the night of competition Day 3. It affects competitive programming community of my school so much, and I was practically leader of that. So, I was very shocked and could not sleep well after that. So, I blundered in Day 4, which decided my failure of the selection camp.

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        5 years ago, # ^ |
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        What about your friends? Things you mentioned would be a problem if you were alone.

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It was an inexpressible 12 points dilemma between my best friend and myself.

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hahaha how about missing the nationals every fucking year so far in high school for stupid mistakes like initializing a variable with 1 instead of 0 lololololol

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F for you bro :/

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    Thank you!

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      I don`t know if it will help you, but Im at the first year of high school, Im from Brazil, and Im really trying to go to IOI this year, I know its going to be hard for me, but if I pass, I have to make sure that you know that part of it is for you, really, cheers!

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It is very very sad story. Rip to you :(

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F

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5 years ago, # |
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Don’t worry man. I have never even got to the selection camps for IOI, or any international high school competition for that matter (it still makes me sad when I think about it). You’ll have plenty of time in university to improve if that’s your thing.