First of all, for a long time I wanted to write this blog but I keep delaying it and finally here I am. After seeing matthew99's blog I decided to my time has come. I really wanted to write like him but my English skills aren't enough to use "you would" dozens of times. So I will explain how I didn't perform well in my life, and if you do same things you will end up succeed at failing in your life.
And it's very important to say at this point, I'm very bad at English, so if you're disgusted you can stop right there and I'm truly sorry about it.
TLDR : I am a loser.
I was a regular student before high school. I interested with math olympiads little bit but I didn't get even a national medal just a several contests. By the way I won a The New iPad. So I am passing that times and coming to high school.
In our country national eliminations goes like that, paper based elimination at may, national OI at december, team selection contest at march/april. High school is 4 years so we have a 3 chances to participate(At least we did have).
In first grade I didn't manage to pass first paper based elimination because I'm a dumbass. In second grade a passed first elimination and at national OI I got 18th degree and got last of bronze. Results are here.
On second problem of first day, the setter was more dumbass than me and lot after the contest we learned that checker was wrong. The problem was simply "Print the connected subset of nodes in a tree such that multiplication of values at nodes is maximum as possible. There can be negative ones." Greedy solutions failed, and dp solutions passed if it prints the lexicographically minimum one or something. Mine was greedy and I couldn't come up with an idea and spend all time on that stupid question.
On second problem of second day, even though I love the setter I can't avoid from these words, he was a dumbass too. We never heard checker or input files are wrong but, for to get 30 points you just need to print the maximum of an array but 5 people couldn't get that subtask done.
I wasn't good and lucky so I simply failed. Everyone told me not to prepare for team selection contest because they're 17 people better than me at OI and I have to pass at least 14 of them. enesoncu and EMINAYAR was have a IOI medal and ikbal was a god so I though I have no chance. But muratt intended to study for it and he was at a lower grade than me at my school and I can't except that he will be better than me :P We really supported each other and we had a great motivation(not beaten up by the other) so we really worked hard.
If you really want you can find problems written in English by ikbal here and results here.
Second problem of first day was a really easy sparse table problem. I finished it very fast as solutions is very obvious and simple. But I couldn't manage the get accepted like 3 hours and I did even change my N = (int)1e5 + 5 to N = 100005 because I couldn't find any single bug. I got other points and return this problem and nothing changed till the contest ends. After the contest I heard a really sad story.
Number of nodes is N < = 105 but number of queries can be M = 2 * N at this problem. The setter was same person who creates "maximum multiplication of tree problem". He wrote N < = 105 at constraints but I didn't think input size could be 2 times larger so couldn't manage to pass bigger subtask. It's an excuse and it was my fault but WHY WOULD ANYONE SPECIFY THE BOUND OF OUTPUT????? I can't even remember his name but still I can see him in my nightmares(There was a sentence like that on Game of Thrones so it was a sarcasm and I wanted to clarify it)
Anyway I got the 6th degree at first day I was happy because I did pass many people and I still have a chance. Second day I got 100 points from 3rd problem very fast and I was quite sure there won't be many 100 points so I started really believing I can go to IOI. 62 points from second problem was easy so after like 100 minutes I got 162 points.
Here's stupidity comes, after that I didn't go for first problem because it looks easy(or hard I really can't remember) and found a solution that includes mo's algorithm and trie for max xor at second problem and another stupid things(it was real solution anyway) but I didn't manage it to pass so I got like 30 minutes left at the very last of contest.
30 minutes and there was a problem I didn't even think about it. After reading problem a realized it's really easy to got 36 points and started coding for it. My solution was slow but here's the funny part. I didn't get TLE but got WA instead. I couldn't fix it and end up with 23 points.
Two more funny parts, the intended solution uses KD-tree but N < = 25000 because of high constants and time limit was 5 seconds so O(N2) solutions did pass. Many hours after the contest I heard from a friend of mine, our rabbit can't jump in 4 directions, it can jump to right and up only. BTW the solution is same except two if's.
So even tough I did very well at contest(compared to myself), because of -50 in first day and -77 in second day I got 5th degree having a 2 points difference from 4th guy. Coaches tried to decide which one of us should get in team but after that they decided it was unfair to choose 5th guy even tough there's a really small difference, and they were right.
In our country if anyone gets a medal at internationals he/she will have a right to go any university in our country. If anyone couldn't get to team at 3rd grade they usually stop doing olympiads because they need to study for university. I was loving doing it so I couldn't let it go and I thought I still can get IOI medal next year and don't struggle with university exams shits.
At national OI I got 3rd degree, I couldn't manage to solve matrices and fibonacci problem but I was happy at my results. I didn't stop studying for anytime. Before team selection contest I was wanting get a good score on first day and feel comfortable at second day. At first day I got 300 points and I got really happy at contests.
After first day I learned they were 9 PEOPLE WITH 300 POINTS. Okay, it was easy but, WHAAAT? I got really angry because setters didn't manage any shits. At second day they write 4 hard problems.
As a spoiler I solved 3 of them and got 1st degree and solving 1 was enough to get into team. I solved one of them like 2 hours. After that I got accepted with brute force at one of the problems. Then I solved another one and there was like an 1 our left. After that they changed input data for "brute forced problem" and I got -80 at contest. I was really having a negative points at contest and I went to toilet and start punching walls because my life was depend on it and I have no choice other than IOI medal and I couldn't stand the chance of it.
I realised I need to calm down and managed it don't remember how. Changing inputs at the contest(at even 1 hours left) was really dishonest behavior. Okay my solution is wrong but I waited like 2 hours and they didn't announce anything, I stopped thinking about real solution and start dealing with 4rd problem that I have no clue. Because of that it wasn't fair I got really angry. Anyway somehow I found the real solution in a few minutes and coded it like 40 minute and got accepted.
After I got 100 points, I send a clarification request which contains the following message "You don't need to try to blow up my solutions, it's the intended one now". It was a foolish thing to do but I couldn't stop myself.
I was studying at my top performance till the IOI. Than the real shit has come, which isn't none of my fault this time. Coup d'état attempt happened in our country and they decide not to participate in international olympiads even tough there wasn't any single shit got wrong. It was my whole life and I did have nothing to do. It's just sad and if you don't live in garbage country you should be happy about it sometimes :(
TOBB University gives scholarship to students who haves a national medals. So it was my only chance and I got in there.
We participate at ACM-ICPC SEERC and got 6th degree. My teammates was very bad and I'm not hesitating saying it because they know it too and there isn't a chance that they see here :P Our score was good enough I think when we consider I'm the only one who write codes and deal with solutions. Anyway I got very sad after contest because we finished one problem 1 minute after contest(I submitted that code on Codeforces gym and it got accepted). After some weeks we learned that we are invited to World Finals. It was really shocking because something went good at my life for the first time. Anyway my team was useless and they didn't get visas even though they applied for 2 times.
I went finals with my coach. It was great to participating in it. I was the only Turkish person coming there. I was proud of myself. Anyway I always wanted to have a medal at World Finals even tough I didn't see anyone even participate at it. I wasn't that good for it and I didn't even have a team so there isn't a single chance for me.
They were 3 really easy problems and I finished them in 34 minutes as I remember. I got 12th degree as I remember. It was quite fast for my level and I got very motivated. I looked problem D and in a few minutes I thought it can be solved with divide and conquer optimization. Here's my stupitidy starts again. I didn't prove it but I was quite sure it will pass but instead coded TERNARY SEARCH. I don't have any idea why such thing happened :( Of course id didn't pass but even that time I didn't try D&C optimization. My performance isn't that bad still and I found the solution for problem A and started coding it. It was a geometry problem so I have bugs and got some WAs but it didn't stop. I couldn't manage the get AC. I thought I need a break and try to go for problem C. Solution was obvious but I thought flow was too hard for a problem that most of teams had solve. You idiot, it's WORLD FINALS, YOU ARE NO TOURIST, AND YOU ARE ALONE, AND IT'S JUST A FLOW.
How can anyone think such stupid thing? I really don't know and I hate myself most of times. After that I returned D and completed it in like 2 minutes.(Even that point I didn't code D&C but instead expand the limit of ternary search like while(r-l>1000) and it got accepted) In other minutes I didn't get anything done. After the contest so many people congratulate me even tough I messed up so bad. They don't know who I am, don't have to care about me, don't need to do kindness to me but even that case they treated me like a family. Volunteers, coaches, participants I'm really grateful to know people like you in my life.
At the ceremony Dr. Poucher announced a university and a guy and said that he was alone and we need to applause him. For the ones that was there, that guy was me. Supporting is the best feeling on earth and there're so few times a felt it. I wanted to thanks to anyone who care about me even tough for a second.
So that was my story. Moral of the story is don't be stupid and read problems at contest. BTW, I realized I forgot to mention, I did read geometry problem wrong on finals. I thought it says we connect two vertices but it said we connect any two points. Solution isn't much different just add a small case but I couldn't do it because I realized my wrong a lot after contests.
In a short time period I'm planning to write another long blog but if you hated this so much please let me know so I won't disturb you again in that case :)
Have a wonderful life.
Dramatic....
Btw, what is muratt doing these days?
"They" decided let's some students don't participate at national OI. Because politics rocks. He didn't have a chance to go IOI. So he practised very hard for "university selections exam". There are 2 millions people participating in it and if you are at top 1000 it's almost sufficient for all schools. And he got 23rd degree. He choosed Bogazici University and maybe someday he return to this stuff.
Impressive(×_×).
Didn't you think to be in a team with muratt? I think you together can do much better.
P.S Looking forward to your next "overdramatic" story)
We thought but in that case he should have come to my university. It's not bad but there are at least 2 universities better than us in Turkey. So he didn't come here and we have no chance to be in a team.
Thanks for sharing.
I really liked the part where you talked about what motivated you to study for the TST and the part where you described the support you got at the ICPC finals. I'm also surprised that you remember all those details from past contests -- I only have vague recollections of mine.
Also,
is maybe a bit of an overstatement.
For example my visual intelligence is so useless I can't even remember "how to go back to hotel" or where is our school and smth like that. But we realised with muratt, we have a so useless skill. When we are talking about old contests other people in olympiad couldn't understand us most of times. Maybe in our commumity there are more people like that and I don't claim it's a talent but it's a funny thing to mention.
And also, it was sarcasm and I did it because it's similar to matthew99's. Anyway there's still a chance that my life can go right but just, I didn't manage to perform any of my dreams and it's just sad.
Lol, from the blog title I expected some sad story about how CP caused some big problems in your life, how you have lost love of your life etc (by no means I wanted that to happen to anybody) but what I got was just next whining "oh, I made bug in this problem and that problem got wrong checker". That's called clickbait, downvote.
You can be my favorite and idol on CF so it's kinda sad hearing this from you. I will never smile again in this ugly world.
BTW, I know I'm whining and they are stupid stuff that can be happen to anyone. But the things I can't control like coup d'etat, wasn't my fault. And it really did cause big problems in my life. I didn't lose of my life but I lost a chance to go to a nice university. And even we wasn't a good team, we still wanted to participate at World Finals but we couldn't.
I think stupid things at my 3rd grade can be my fault but not to participate IOI and participating alone in finals are kinda sad and I didn't anything to cause them. Anyway I'm sorry that I clikbaited you. But it really caused big problems :(
"they didn't get visas even though they applied for 2 times."... umm same happened to us, we also applied 2 times... pretty disappointing !!! In our case the whole team was denied. Team sUrPRise from University Of Pinar Del Río. I'm the coach by the way.
Do I understand correctly that your university is 3rd best in Turkey? This doesn't sound too bad. You will probably learn a lot. Programming contests are not everything and I suggest you to find something else you like and that will make you a living. Most likely this will be something you learn during your studies, but maybe there is something else.
If you really want to go to the WF again, but with a better team you could try some student exchange programme (you are allowed to represent the visiting university) and go to a university where you can find a team.
I understand that you didn't realize your dreams. You will also fail again and again, because reality is not as good as dreams. But you still have a lot of time to get new dreams that will come true. I see that you are able to work hard so don't give up on that.
About your writing, it's good but too chaotic for me. For me, it would be easier to read if you made clear boundary between contest details (which are not really interesting but are needed for the general overview of how many times you had bad luck) and the story itself. I am looking forward to the promised next blog post.
LoL, I believe that it was a sarcasm and he is not tired of solving problems :)
Oh yeah, look at his comment above.
I mean that after university ends you need to start doing something and programming competitions are not enough (unless you are top10 in the world). This has nothing to do with being tired or not.
Representing the visiting university is a good idea and I can maybe think about it. Thanks about that.
I know dreams aren't reality but my dreams wasn't so dreamy. I wanted to get a medal at IOI and it was enough for me but I was aiming for gold medal. Even if I can't get it, it wouldn't cause a big problem if a got a medal. For example, ICPC medal is a dreamy dream and it's not an interesting situation that I'm not having it.
I know my writing really messed up. I can't even explain myself right in English and the blog became a really long and it was 5am so I finished it anyway without any correction. I really know it's important to make it in a good shape.
See you at promised blog, I'm thankful about your kindness.
Okay, I decided my problem. I want to go to WF with muratt but we can't. I have no problems with university except ICPC team. (Sad face here)
Not only are you an International Master, you have been a Legendary Grandmaster as well. You are no failure. Not winning a medal on an event like ICPC as a criteria for failure is simply ridiculous. You're no dumbass.
I strongly recommend you to not be so harsh with yourself and learn to appreciate yourself. Life is too short to live with so much self-angst. Do you know how many people wish they had your level of problem solving skills ?
I recommend you to read a book called Love 2.0 by Barabara Fredrickson. It has a chapter on self-love and it may help you make peace with your life and appreciate and love yourself more. It will help you feel lighter and happier.
Wish you all the very best in your future.
I was just a Polyanna before. When I couldn't end up in a team in 3rd grade, I thought "If I would get a medal, probably I wouldn't study for next IOI so that's better." But after that there wasn't "next IOI".
So I love being a Polyanna and loving myself but the stuff like that just makes me sad. And thanks for your appreciation.
Thanks for this post; it is a bit depressing and kinda messy — but interesting story to read.
I want to say a few words on it. It's nice to have some goals and dreams (I think life would be really boring without them) — but it is quite likely that you are going to fail a lot over your life; sometimes because of bad luck, sometimes because of not trying hard enough, sometimes because your goals were way too ambitious. In case it didn't lead to any bad consequences — you shouldn't take it so seriously. Has somebody died because of it?.. Or maybe you broke the heart of your parents with these failures and now they think you are complete loser and shame for them?.. Come on.
What I want to say — it may sound rather harsh but basically nobody cares about your competitive programming achievements. Most of the people don't even know what it is about, and even if you'll be successful in it — very few will know about it. If you'll fail — nobody cares as well. Either you are doing it because you like this activity, or because you picked it as a way to challenge yourself, or because of some other reasons — do it to get fun, not to be upset.
I invested quite a lot of my time in competitive programming in past, and it took me a lot of time to figure out what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and what I want from it. I'm not doing it as my main activity anymore — but I have to say that nowadays I enjoy it even more than I did half a year ago, and way more than I did 3-4 years ago, and I find it interesting and entertaining enough to spend my free time on it, alongside with other things I'm interested in. And that's one of the reasons why today I'm much happier with my life than I was, let's say, 3-4 years ago.
I don't have any serious accomplishments in competitive programming — and I think it would be making me very sad if I start to care so much about all my failures:) I know people who stopped doing competitive programming after university, being like "I hate it now, I tried my best and completely failed, don't want to hear about it anymore". Don't be like them. You are member of a great community which can help you to get in touch with a lot of awesome people, and that's what matters. And you are an important member of this community in some ways: when I opened this post I recalled you by your previous comments and that story with getting to WF when you didn't expect it. When people remember you — that's a sign that you left a trace on it :)
I know people saying that I'm a godlike competitive programmer; I also know people who say I'm just mediocre, or even quite stupid and dumb in problem solving. Usually this grade they give correlates in an obvious way with their own skills and ratings — but not always :D There are lots of contestants who think you are really awesome (and you can even see it from comments here already). I don't expect you being best in the world in future — but there will be nothing bad for you in having such a crazy goal if it will make your life better and will not hurt you in case you fail it.
Firstly I'm sorry because of it's messy :(
You're so right, nobody died because of it. I'm just sorry about missing team by 2 points or failing at WF. But I couldn't go to IOI at my last chance and I didn't have a backup plan because I did got into the team and I was pretty sure I could get a medal. It was risky but I was only thought about maybe I will fail so hard at IOI but anything else.
So without backup plan, my plan didn't go well so it made me feel very very bad. I was in a very bad mood but somehow I escaped it.
You mentioned that you remembered me, I'm thankful about that :) It's really nice to hear a wise man's advices. I think having a dreams is nice and important but they must not make us upset like you said.
Thanks again, I'm grateful :)
"I don't have any serious accomplishments in competitive programming"
At this point I steal a glance at his handle. Yup, this guy speaks the truth.
Only a black-red.
"We participate at ACM-ICPC SEERC and got 6th degree. My teammates was very bad and I'm not hesitating saying it because they know it too and there isn't a chance that they see here :P"
Apparently there was a slight chance that i see this ^^.
But he's right about we being pretty bad. Back in my days my level was enough to get silver medal at national contest. But people's skill increased exponentially in our country. And Erdem came to my University 3 years after my graduation. (I did almost nothing about programming contests in those 3 years)
It looks like we can go to next World Finals together. And i dont intend to leave you alone once again :3
PS1: I'm not sure if you really mean it(Because you shouldnt) but it will take like 3 or 4 years for you to realize you are not a loser.
PS2: I could help about your post :D
By the way stop shitposting and start practicing :3 I can gladly make the shitposting part in our team.
But you became a Writer!..
.
I think people shouldn't be too harsh for themself for making "stupid mistakes" in important contests. At least in my experience making stupid mistakes is more frequent than not making them and a contest where you didn't make any stupid mistakes is a good/lucky contest. Having low probability of making stupid mistakes in contests is one part of competitive programming skill even though practicing for consistency is less rewarding than practicing for solving the hardest problems.