IOI: International Olympiad in Informatics

CIIC: Competencia Iberoamericana de Informática y Computación (Iberoamerican Competence in Informatics)

Hi again! After some days of questioning what to do during my summer vacations, I’ve decided absolutely nothing. One thing is for sure, I won’t go to Israel or anywhere close.

Have you ever wondered if you could write a novel based on your life? Believe it or not, the answer is probably yes. And I bet it would be amazingly interesting, but why don’t everyone does that?
I also would like to know, I personally believe we all have a great story to tell, sometimes we just don’t know how to tell it, and maybe even sometimes, we tell it in a non interesting way. Anyway, I think the stories we share one to each other are more than enough, but still something is missing.

Having said that, I will continue my previous story.

Before traveling to Kazakhstan for IOI 2015, I remember I was really excited, it was going to be my first time out of the continent, my first time in Asia, and also my first time in Europe(as we had a large connection through Munich).
I dreamt more about the trip than the competition, and I believe that was a mistake. Even after winning a bronze medal at CIIC, I still didn’t see myself as capable of doing things right in IOI, I still thought I was going there to show I’m not pathetic.
But I should have gone to show that I was really valuable and a good competitor.
I made a big mistake by underestimating myself, and I paid for it.

On the first day of competition, I read the second problem and thought “This is easy, this is just a All vs All sorting”, I implemented the sorting and got 0 points, so I thought “Yeah, any idiot could think of that, it has to be more complex”, and completely dropped that problem(I didn’t try again).
By the end of that competition, I had 10 points(disappointing score) and none of them were from the second problem.

When we talked to our coach, he told us that it was ridiculous no one got points on the second problem, because with a simple sort it was possible to get 45 points.
I immediately told him I did that sorting method and got 0 points. When we checked my code later, we realized I failed because I didn’t read the problem correctly.
If I would have trusted on my solution, and stayed on that problem I would have gotten 45 points, and with a simple observation on that solution it was actually easy for me to get up to 80 points.
I cried, I felt like shit, I still remember the exact moment, with our coach explaining the solution, and me realizing I had lost from 45 to 80 points just for not trusting myself.

So, I still look back at that day and think “If I just would have…“
But it’s gone, it was gone then in 2015, and I only had left the second day of competence.

My second day was amazing, it wasn’t a thing to be proud of, but I got 56 points, and for me that was amazing, on my first IOI.
I finally understood that it was not impossible to win an IOI, and I finally knew how to compete in an IOI. I was definitely ready to come back next year and do better.

I enjoyed every second I had left on that trip, Munich was amazing, and being there with my friends just made things better.
Yeah, I also believe one thing that made us strong as a team, is that we were somehow good friends, so the environment felt really light and cool.

I believe until today that was my highest point in my career as a Competitive Programmer, I just had won a CIIC, I didn’t suck at my first IOI, and I felt great.
I actually felt like I was the best in Bolivia by that point, I really believed that.
But everything that goes up has to go down, right?

The fall

After IOI 2015 we still had one last competence for that year, the National competence. For the first time in years, I felt really confident I was going to win, I felt like I did everything right, and I really deserved to win after all I did in CIIC and IOI.

But you know, sooner or later you learn that life is not about what you deserve.

During that competition I made the rookiest mistake of all, and it was only because I was really sure that by the end of that day, I was going to win again.
My mistake was seeing a problem, notice I had the correct solution for 100 points, and I just knew no one else was going to think of that, I mean, by that point I knew the other people competing, I knew that was MY PROBLEM, and with that problem I was going to win.
I solved it, I sent it, and got 0 points.
I checked every line of code, I checked every possible case and still, 0 points.
I spent 4 hours arguing with the judge and with myself, because I was sure my code was ok for 100 points.

After 4 hours I realized I was not going to get anything from that problem, so I finally tried another problem. I got 100 points in an easy problem in about 5 minutes, and in just another 30 minutes I got some other easy points.
I was just about to get another 25 points, but the time was over.
I had lost. One of the saddest things of that day, is that with only those extra 25 points, I would have won a silver or golden medal. But no, I had to get 100 on that stupid problem…

During the closing ceremony they called my name for a bronze medal, out of 12 medals I got the 12-nd, I remember I walked crying to receive my medal, I felt humiliated, everyone watching me.
After being so sure I was going to win, everyone saw me fail.

I threw the medal in the garbage, I didn’t want it(That was wrong by the way, don’t ever do that, you have to appreciate those things even at your lowest).

Later that year, I don’t know why for the first time ever, they announced in a mail, who was the competitor of the year.
For a second i thought it was going to be me, as I had won the highest bronze medal in CIIC and got one of the best results in IOI, but it wasn’t me.
Call me crazy, but that mail was the thing that broke me.
After that mail I couldn’t code, it was impossible for me to concentrate, or to even try and learn algorithms.
I was completely broken.

2016

I asked the national coordinator to take me out of the international team, as I didn’t feel like competing again, I just wanted to rest for a while.

I didn’t participate in CIIC that year, I watched one of my best friends doing some amazing work in IOI 2016, really something amazing.

My programming teacher in my school asked me if I was going to compete again that year, and I wasn’t sure, maybe I could compete only to travel with my friends to the nationals…

That will be the final part of this story, which will obviously come out, soon.

Thanks for reading, and I really hope you learnt something from my failures.
Have a great week, drink some tea and maybe listen to Airbag, they are really something else!

Sin dedicatoria esta semana, o que se yo, a Mafalda, por no comerse la sopa!