I woke up freezing again and to the alarm clock of my crazy roommate. Apparently Cindi's RA group is also
late (aka the Chinese girls group) so more awkwardness and the such. First up was the Combo 3 test, which was insanely demoralizing. Problem 1 was an "easy" triple summation generating function that you have to show is equal to the 2n+3rd Fibonacci number, the insane algebra of which I didn't get far on. Problem
2 was the sole graph theory problem, and while I've done similar extremal principal proof by contradiction problems in class, I followed my original plan and skipped it. Problem 3 was: (not verbatim) Find all finite sets of points such that for points A, B of the set, we can find C in the set such that ABC is equilateral.

I tried many extremal arguments, and eventually found one with the maximal area of a triangle, but after the test I found out one of my final steps had a flaw. ;(

Problem 4 was what looked like a roots of unity filter problem eerily reminiscent of the 1995 (might be different year) Problem 3/6 that Vlad presented in class which blew the majority of class away, and I don't feel like defining a multi variable generating function, so I didn't attempt... And I didn't attempt Problem 5... Cause it's problem 5.

I found out after the test most of my classmates solved zero, but when my kindhearted friend John pointed out my flaw in my Problem 3 solution, I died for a few seconds, and out of frustration, quickly wrapped up my meal and went to my dorm...

I was determined not to fail my Geo 3 test, and I ended up reviewing the geo Lemmas at lunch, being antisocial as my friends talked loudly.

Result? Another failure. Apparently problem 1 was a trivial exercise (everyone in class solved it), but P2 was a projective problem whose key observation I just couldn't find. Problem 3 was a locus problem and involved Apollonious circles, the sole thing I didn't review, and my write up is probably wrong...

How sad... (This is also my RA group's yearbook quote)

At dinner, I sat brooding over my pathetic math life, until I heard a round of
applause. It was PS Loh! He decided to then sit at the girls table (good choice) and the rest of dinner he was surrounded by around 20 people. Talking about celebrity status...

Then for some reason my insane roommate brought up the dare of him going to PS Loh and saying a sentence filled with puns made from his last name like calling him a Po Shen Bro and that he's po Shen pro. He then did it and got the applause of everyone surrounding. Then he came back and sat down in his seat across from mine, and along with it countless judgy eyes landed in my direction. Ahhhhhh.

After dinner, I reviewed my inversion notes a bit, then went to the talk, which was interesting at first but got boring when we did a combo problem (I'm not saying I felt it was bad, mainly just I was a bit down in spirits to do another combo problem). I stared and fantasized about girl 'A' a few seats ahead, and soon after left for my dorm, where some ninja was played before Po Shen appeared out of nowhere and announced he's staying on our floor for the night. I got his signature and a picture with him, which feels very special. I appreciate it. <3

Then me Steven and Daniel harmonized and sang in the shower with me blasting my speaker and me dancing in the shower as always. The thought of leaving makes me so sad, and I just feel unprepared going back and junior year starting in less than a week. I'll write a reflection later, but for now, good night.