It's 12: 40 AM here and the night, as always, is just starting for me.

For the past few weeks, I've come to learn about of how I'm viewed by others in school (practically everyone knows me). In fact, it's quite varied - from one person calling me God and bowing before me every-time he sees me all the way to jocks who keep on cutting me at lunch line. A few weeks ago, I overheard my crush calling me crazy (she doesn't know I like her though). In fact, the teachers' impressions vary as well. Just day before yesterday, I was called out by my Chem teacher after failing to follow two parts of the lab instructions - a) put on lab glasses and b) sitting on a chair while mixing acids. She sternly told me that other science teachers have very negative impressions of me as a rude person. I was undoubtedly very upset - they don't even know me and yet they're already formulating their own conclusions? It's one thing for my teachers to scold me for not following instructions in class; it's even fine for them to think of me as rude, but what crosses the line is for them to disrespect me for who I am outside of the classroom by discussing behind my back and making judgements about me when they don't even know who I am!

On the other hand, there are teachers who actually know me and respect me for who I am - I've gotten especially close to my APUSH teacher, Multivariable teacher, and math contest coordinator.

During the ungodly hours of night, pencil in hand, I sometimes feel awfully lonely, misunderstood, despite the fact that I appreciate friends who've come to accept me for who I am at school. I've learned rather well to not care too much about what others think - factors that I can't control and will only hurt me by preventing me from being myself. Nevertheless, this is a good thing - I still occasionally seek motivation from my own dark side - the feeling of wanting to prove others wrong, I've realized, is the strongest source of motivation one can have.

Nevertheless, I question myself, why is it that I'm stubborn enough to push myself to the physical extreme everyday in order to be as good as I can? Where does this motivation come from?

As the AIME is coming up, I realized that my motivation for making USAMO has turned into a purpose greater than myself. I still find it surprising that if I were to qualify, I would be the first ever qualifier in school history. Many people view me as just a self-interested student who's very good at math, but in reality if that was my only purpose I would not nearly have this kind of motivation. I want to prove the point that students at my school (and people in general) are capable of much bigger things than they think they're capable of. From my observations, there are oceans of potential waiting to be ignited. Heck, if I never discovered AoPS, I would be just an above average math student. So many students take their own talents for granted - they call other high-achieving students geniuses as an excuse to give themselves a rationale for not giving their 100 percent. They believe that life is nothing more than trying to fit in to the system others place around them. They take so many things - hard work, passion, others - for granted. Instead of respecting high-achievers, they antagonize them as arrogant elitists. Obviously, it's hard for them to understand what the word respect means when they've never pursued anything worthwhile themselves. Once again, I'm not trying to direct this at any specific kind of people - just a general trend I've observed in high school students.

This is why AoPS people are fantastic people, and not for reasons you may think (that is, being good at something). The journey of pursuing something worthwhile (math or anything else) at such depth sheds light to many problems of society. However, I emphasize, the truly great people are able to acknowledge these flaws and look past all these flaws (and there're a lot of them with teenagers nowadays) while still uphold optimism, and more admirably, try to fix these problems. That's why I believe my personal ambitions have long gone past my own self-interest. I want to represent an idea and be a symbol for others. That's why, even if I have to wait until 4 AM to be done with all my school work, ISEF prep (sucks up most of my time these days), math camp apps (submitted SUMaC at 4 AM this past Saturday!, submitting Ross soon), APUSH readings, other stuff, I'm still going to reserve as much time as I can to spam AIME problems, because I want this USAMO so, so, so, so, so, bad I'm willing to die for it.

Next week, hopefully, with math camp apps done and ISEF project ready to present, I'll be able to devote all my time after school on AIME as well as get rested (oops 3 red bulls a day is bad).

Ok time to go buy red bulls.