So my day yesterday started off with being caught by the night watch at around midnight. I was putting away my laptop after writing my day 1 blogpost when I made some noise and was heard at just the right second. I did 22 pushups, 22 sit-ups, and 40-s wall-sit. But I mean, at least I got to show off my biceps and abs to that female RA.

Soon enough, it was time to go and after breakfast I was once again at Combo 3 early. The class today was certainly harder (Double Counting), and I understood most of the things before getting annihilated by a combinatorial geometry that was a harder-end problem on a previous Romanian TST. In the problem session, I solved 3 problems.

On the way to lunch, Owen (a dude in my Combo 3 class) and I accidentally walked into a marching line of cheerleaders, one of which shouted “HEY NERDS!” When we reluctantly turned around, she yelled “DO YOU TWO PLAY POKEMON GO?” As an attempt to counter the awkwardness, I responded with, “No, because I’m a rebel.” Cheerleader: “HEY (friend’s name), THIS NERD SAYS HE’S A REBEL.” Friend: “NO, IF YOU’RE A REBEL YOU PLAY POKEMON GO.” By then Owen was already nearing death, and with my help we barely managed to escape. Awkward af.

In geo, I once again felt extremely sleepy, combined with the fact we did new concepts like Pascal, Pappus, Cayley Bacharach and Desargues. While I was half-dozing off, the OP pinetree1 answered all Cosmin's questions. Rip.

Worse, I suck at applying them so the only problems I solved were done using basic stuff like angle-chasing and cyclic quads.

After geo, I procrastinated with my roommate and Raymond24Y until dinner, after which I played 4^2 and failed miserably. The game’s rules were really different from “handball” in my school, which I used to dominate at. Worse, the girl who I texted yesterday came to play, and after watching me fail miserably, left with a it’s-over look, which clearly bolstered my morale. Rip. After that, we went to the RA meeting, had some good laughs as always, and I slept right after.

This morning, I woke up at 6 only to find my crazy roommate’s bed empty, as always. I proceeded to be indecisive as to whether I should go on the morning run, and what the tipped the balance was the possibility of showing off my 10-mile-a-day-running skills to any girls that will be on the run.

After dressing, I sprinted to the meeting point lest I be late only to found my worries were clearly well-founded (see pic 1). After about 10 mins, the second person arrived, and subsequently a few more, including Raymond24Y, my classmate Jan and a decent-looking white girl. The track was apparently closed for stripping, so we just ran around a grass area until I stopped to see a reluctant guy on the sides. I stopped to invite him to run, and something crazy happened. Rip what a small world.
After I finished my last lap sprint, I began flirt-targeting the white girl, only to find my newly-made friend GOT A STEP AHEAD OF ME (pun intended). On the way back, Raymond24Y and I could only cry as the white girl slowly gets consumed. Rip.

In Combo 3, we did PIE, which was EXTREMELY nontrivial, to the point I could only understand half of the lecture (Vlad’s notation was killer). The morning run also took a toll on my stamina, so I only solved one problem during the problem session (and I was given a hint).

At lunch, I talked to more new people. After that, I took a nap in my room while listening to Girl’s Generation, the effects of which were immediately successful, as for the first time I didn’t feel sleepy in Geo 3, which was trivial today cause we just did radical axes. I managed to solve IMO 2009 P2 (though I was given a little hint) during the problem session.

On my way out, I once again saw the super pretty girl I talked about on day 0 of camp. She was walking behind me, and I stopped to pretend to text, hoping that she will surpass me and I can follow her (in a non-creepy way) on the way to the cafeteria. This is also a good pick-up strategy in general, I believe — follow her from behind, observing her for as long as you can until she notices you, at which point you will feel you have to introduce yourself to her. The last step is just to muster out a rush of courage, which I failed to do, and my pursuit ended in vain.

After dinner, Raymond24Y followed me to my dorm, and after a little nap and a spray of deodorant, decided to head to office hours. I saw a few other dorm-mates, who were trying to convince me to go later since it will be very crowded early on. I didn’t feel like arguing, so instead, I targeted two girls ahead, and told them, “Target detected.” Then I jogged to the two girls, and here was a some-what condensed version of our conversion:
…Then I went to the third floor for office hours, and because the room was so crowded, Jan and I found another room and worked on Combo 3, and I managed to solve a medium-level Combo 3 problem as well as get some hints. I suck. ;(

Anyways, my brain juice was pretty much sucked up by the end of that, and I came back to my dorm, listened to a few more Girls Generation songs before my dorm-mate Daniel came and as I promised him yesterday, went on a short run together. On the way, we passed by the super hot AMSP girl I like, another march of cheerleaders, and finally a small frat of college girls whom Daniel doubted I had the courage to shout hello to (I ended up doing it). Then we came back and in the shower, I played songs by TFBOYS on my phone, and Daniel and I sang together (we both knew the lyrics perfectly), which was extremely special to me since up until now I’ve only sang those songs alone by myself during lonely nights in Shanghai. After that, I found two other dorm-mates in my room and we joked about random stuff like how a guy called Liu who looked really nerdy got dragged by two girls into a 3-player card game the whole time. “So a 3P,” I said. Then we had the RA meeting, the funniest part being one of the dorm-mates stomped out when our RA said that the museum trip next Monday will not allow cellphones. Afterwards we took a group pic and that was that! Good night! I’ll post the problems I’ve solved this weekend, hopefully.