Finally an actual not spam post. First one in many months

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June 2023
Even before this, I had always wanted to make nationals, but the real grind started in June of last year, at the JSMC. These two weeks at JSMC have probably been the most important two weeks of my life so far. I was in the best study group and had a very orz roommate. The people there were my biggest motivator for me to start the grind for nationals.

I frequently played FTW with my roommate, shendrew7, and I would also grind mathcounts trainer while he looks over my shoulder and answers the questions way faster than me because I was bad at math back then (and still am (no jmo )). I would discuss math and math comps with my study group (consisting of songyanxin, NL008, and someone else who is not on AoPS afaik) and roommate, and my motivation to qualify for nationals would increase every day.

When I came home from camp, the next week was filled with 10h/day grinding of previous mathcounts tests and other math. It would be no surprise, then, that I got burnout for the next two months until school started...

August to October 2023
With the beginning of school came the start of WOOT, which would bump me back to reality and get me back to the grind. The first few weeks of WOOT was when I actually did it (not anymore oops) and brought me back to math. Throughout September and October, I would be preparing for the AMCs, and I wrote my own mock AMC, bringing me to the world of problem writing. (joshualiu315 said that it was "not the perfect test but its good". Of course being joshy he did very orz with 135.) This period of time did not contain a lot of MC grind, because I had already done the 2008-2017 state/national tests, but the AMC grind definitely helped with mathcounts.

November 2023
With the beginning of the First Contest Season came the AMCs, HMMT November, and A&M. I did well on the AMCs with scores of 145.5 on the 10A and 135 on 12B. I got 1st in best student closed division at A&M and 1st in theme at HMNT. With these results, I would again undergo a month-long burnout until MATHCOUNTS season.

December 2023 and January 2024
In these two months, I would be preparing for MATHCOUNTS State with my team (and other schools) while the individuals would prepare for Chapter. (None of them made it past chapter lol) We would have a meeting every Sunday for state prep. Each session was a mock followed by a lecture on some of the problems. However, this period of time would be more dominated by AIME prep (smh i failed). I would be doing a lot of mock AIMEs and also start writing one myself (it's still in progress with 11/15 problems written). After this would begin the Second Contest Season.

February 2024
We start this month with a bang by getting an 8 on AIME and not qualing for JMO. That aside, MATHCOUNTS Chapter would be on the 10th and I would get first in sprint, target, and team. (I still haven't gotten my score back but I think I got 46.) After chapter, I would continue grinding for MATHCOUNTS State.

March 1-21, 2024
In the first week of March, the USA(J)MO questions started appearing in qualifiers' portals, and with my horrible AIME score, I wouldn't even make JMO. With JMO crossed out, I would have only one goal in mind for these three weeks: MAKE NATIONALS.

I would do state rounds from 2016-2023 with a talking timer to simulate the stress that I would have in the real competition. I also did some AoPS mocks including WMC and some sprint mocks on mathdash. I did not do well on most of these mocks, and every day, Nationals would become increasingly out of reach, as State drew ever closer...

March 22, 2024
This day would be the day I would depart for Dallas. I was very nervous throughout that entire day. My coach picked me up at the school (30 minutes late bruh) with the other people in my team. We arrived at the hotel, dropped off our luggage in the room, and had hot pot for dinner. I went to sleep at 9, fell asleep at 10, and had two separate dreams about bombs for whatever reason???

March 23, 2024
I woke up at 4 and couldn't fall back asleep until 5:30. After waking up at 7:10 and eating breakfast, I walked into the testing room. The reality of the situation had finally sunk in; the day was here. The day that I had been waiting for for the past 9 months was finally here. All of my preparation culminated into this one competition. 38 problems, 46 points, 4 available spots. 9 months of work.

Right before sprint round, I recited the first 332 digits of pi and the first 36 powers of 2 to calm my nerves. I kept an ear out for the announcer...

"You may begin."

With that, I immediately turned the page over to begin the Sprint Round.

The next two hours was a blur. (I would put details of the individual rounds here, but discussion is not yet allowed - I will review the problems in a future blog post.) I hastily ate lunch, stacked some apples on top of each other with my team, and walked over to the waiting area for the Countdown Round.

After a 30-minute wait, the doors finally opened and I entered the testing room again. At the beginning of the countdown round, my name was the first to be called up. I was paired with Roger - the results are self-explanatory. :/

After the end of the Countdown Round (Roger vs. Channing, and Channing won) was the Award Ceremony. The team awards came first, and our team got first place against all odds. The individual awards were next, and my fate would be announced within the next three minutes...

"In eighth, Aryan Shome!"
"In seventh, Jayden Zheng!"
"In sixth, William Chen!"

I was halfway out of my seat. I was prepared to get fifth. I braced myself as the announcer said...

"In fifth, R-"

I think I yelled a bit too loud here. It was a good ten seconds before I realized that the person in fifth was none other than Roger, who made nats CDR last year...

I came in third place and made nationals. The thing I had fantasized about all the way back in June had come true. I made it.

The journey is not over...