Yes! I named him that!

Ok so my original proposal was met with some disapproval - Florence. Despite the dictionary stating it was a unisex name, my stepmom rejected me giving him a girl's name. My other proposal was Abraham, which in Chinese sounds like "Arabic."

I also suggested Madison, which was rejected again cause when combined with the family's surname, didn't "flow" nicely.

Finally, yesterday, I came up with the names of Emory and Phoenix. The latter was called off due to "phoenix" in Chinese being a term used to characterize a baby girl.

So Emory it is. I chose it because its meaning is "leader," and due to my dad and stepmom being leaders themselves, I thought it would only be suitable for my brother as well. It is also the name of a fairly respected university - further satisfying my stepmom's wish of giving my brother a scholarly-sounding name. Finally, it reminds me of one of US History's greatest writers - Emerson, which I read a lot about last year in English, and whose ideas I strongly identify with.

I first went to the lounge outside the movie theater, and sat my butt down to read ACoPS, but immediately got distracted by the overwhelming presence of mid/late-20s women and felt too shameful to continue reading a math book in public.

As I was reading usnews, two couples began making out on the sofa adjacent to mine, and so I left.

Then I went, ACoPS in one hand and Lemmas in the next, to this coffee shop a floor up so I can find a wifi-spot to finish my Javascript homework, only to getting blockaded in front by two sizzling hot female teens on my way up the escalator, the angled nature of which gave me a really 'intimate' view.

After that, I plopped myself down at the coffee shop, and while in the midst of indulging in the theorems of Newton, Brocard, and Brianchon, heard sounds of gossamer-like footsteps approaching. I looked up, and back into my inner soul looked the eyes of the two previous girls.

As always, my body activated fight or flight - goosebumps, sweat beads, etc. - the extent to which grew inversely proportional to the distance squared between the girls and I.

For some reason, as opposed to ordering coffee, they sat only a few feet away from me, and my hands trembled while my eyes stood fixed on the blurring diagrams in front of me. As I twitched my head over so slightly to observe their action without garnering attention, I noticed that they were giggling with each other while each of them took turns shooting glances at me... and I realized they may've been following me the whole time. They inched closer, waiting for me to initiate conversation.

That was way too much for me, as I immediately threw my books into my bag and fled the scene, only to realize they might continue following me. The only way was forward, and in a few moments I realized I was in the stall of a boys' bathroom.

Darn.

...so I spend a solid 45 mins reading the pigeonhole section of ACoPS, all the while my ears being infested with some pretty obscene noises from the adjacent stall - clearly, I was not the only one dealing with holes.

...stupid girls.

I was only able to accomplish so much - mostly just reading Lemmas and doing WOOT stuff, and maybe working through two or three olympiad NT handouts - yay I can lift exponents!

I've observed that out of the four subjects - AGNC - most people's weaknesses are either geo or combo. It has come to my attention that I'm of the latter, which is of great concern as I'm struggling a lot of applying basic heuristics creatively to solve problems. For some reason, combo feels like a dread, whenever I'm agonizing over what steps to take.

On the other hand, I've noticed geo and NT are much less spontaneous and in general pretty rewarding in terms of learning new techniques and working through solved examples - it's also more of a positive feedback loop, compared to combo, when you agonize for 2 hours, only to see an out-of-the-blue step that immediately solves the problem.

When school starts, I will be directing more attention to combo - in WOOT and from ACoPS, which is the only book as far as I know that teaches you WHY each step was chosen to solve a combo problem.

For alg, my 105 and 109 books have apparently run into some FedEx logistical issues in getting to China, so when they do arrive I'll definitely reserve space in my bag for them.

I've also realized it's quite inefficient to work through PEN, both the issue of low quality and out-of-place difficulty issues as well as the limited amount of time I have. Instead, I find binomial-theorem's handout more suitable and interesting.

Geo is awesome as always - more Lemmas, 110, yay. Also, I kind of failed in my goal of learning to bash. Instead, I'm gotten quite addicted to projective; when I use it, it almost feels like I'm nuking the entire euclidean plane, and it can demolish problems with long solutions in an instant. See more on this in the science fair portion below.

...are scarce. First, I have to tear out all my guts and barge into the school principal's office tomorrow about offering the AMC, hopefully both the A and B because apparently there has been some logistical issues in contacting MAA to offer the AMC at my school and my principal still hasn't released any word yet.

I also registered for HMMT, and after many e-mails, I was told that unaffiliated individuals like me will be accepted on a lottery basis, so I'm crossing my fingers for this.

...I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want to go, as it would probably be a literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: I'm aiming to get top 50 individual. I would also be able to introduce myself to awesome people all the while discussing amazing problems written by amazing people. And also it would be a nice mid-Feb breather to be able to tour Harvard and MIT.

...but the logistical issues are nightmarish - basically getting past all the people who see no point in me going while dealing with issues of jet lag, exhaustion, social anxiety and also considering it around time of AMC B.

Also I'm doing OMO and ZIML yay. Anyone else?

...also I need to take the PO (WOOT practice olympiad) tomorrow oops.

...are also not looking accessible. Some disappointing news first. I had my first call with the director of Yale's future scholar program, essentially me trying to explain to her that I'm good enough to do math research. However, she might've gotten the best out of my timid voice and shaky stature, and I didn't really get my point across that strongly.

...so she recommended I start something physics-related, and today she and I had a call with a Yale phd student in material science. He gave me the link to this year's AMC 12A and asked how difficult I find the problems. I told him my disappointing contest results, and sigh...

I didn't get much out of the call, as his field didn't really match mine.

I should probably shoot her another message tonight and see if I can drive my point across.

Good news is that I finally have a (potentially good) idea of what to research for ISEF, and know of someone who might get me off on good footing, so I should go ahead and contact him after this.

...hm still not sure where I can get with this though...

Also cjquines1 and I are discussing of the possibility of writing a combinatorial paper together and maybe submitting it to Mathematical Reflections or something.

...though once again he'll probably one-man carry me hard.

is annoying af. My reading scores and writing scores are dismal, and I definitely need to be putting the time in daily as I REALLY want that national merit scholar distinction. The reading passages are interesting - anywhere from a fiction story about 3 men on a boat to alternate splicing in RNA, but my result dismal as I'm sillying a LOT of questions. My grammar is also getting rusty.

I'll try to take a reading and writing test every day starting now, as well as recording down my mistakes and really getting to the bottom of this.

Also my dad decided to make me take my first SAT in Jan. My goal is a 1530 - which will require more work. I also binge-ordered a lot of books and forced him to get me an essay tutor.

more like screw. My dad is finally getting convinced by me that GPA is not the holy grail that will determine your life, you destiny, and your everything. Still, I have to deal with my stats teacher as well as catching up on my physics and chem class. The only bad thing is that my chem teacher is literally a ghost after class So I binge-ordered a bunch of chem books as well as got another tutor.

Honestly all of the material content-wise is trivial; nothing short of olympiad problems honestly stimulate me nowadays. It's just the process of dealing with people and this system that's tiring.

Nevertheless, EVERY CHALLENGE IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ME TO RISE. HAHA I'M LOVING THIS SH*T.

Basically everyday these days I'm spending all my free time in the library so the librarian and secretaries all know my name like that of their own children.

Then when I start dying of lack of caffeine I would bike to a coffee shop next to school and spend my time there until I have to go back to eat dinner with my grandma.

...then I would get back to the coffee shop and work until its closing, before I bike back home and start doing math until as late as 5 AM unless there's a test the next day and I try to sleep early, as I'm realizing too many of my bad grades are due to sillying and not following instructions.

I would save maybe at most half an hour a day to rap some Kpop songs and watch hot Kpop girls' performances.

So yea ^ is my life.