IOI: International Olympiad in Informatics

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

Hello, it’s Diego again, enjoying my vacations, having a lot of social interaction, which actually got me tired, so I’m taking the weekend to rest from people.
Besides I have some work to do, so it’s good to be home for the weekend.
Does that happen to you? That you need to take a break from people?
I personally have some kind of social battery, so when it discharges it’s really hard for me to interact with other people.

I am also thinking about traveling somewhere, I just can’t find the motivation to decide the final details.

But well, enough about the present me, and let’s talk about the past me.

I had stopped coding for about 8 months, after long conversations with a close friend I decided to make 2 big changes in my life, and one of them was to retire as a Competitive Programmer right after my “last dance”(It was my last year of high school, so that year was my last chance to participate in the national olympiad and win a golden medal).
I believe I did one thing correctly during that year, to feel that any wrong step could lead me to fail, even considering just a year ago I was one of the best, I didn’t feel like it, I was at the bottom and I climbed the mountain really carefully.

I got a golden medal in the regional qualification for the national olympiad.
One month before traveling to the national olympiad I had decided to spend the rest of the month training, only training, no school, just coding.
Casually, there was a coding camp in my city, so a few friends came from La Paz to assist, there are two things that happened during that time.

  • A couple of friends laughed at me when they told them I didn’t feel I could win easily at the nationals, they said to me “Who is gonna beat you? Nobody still in high school is better than you”, the way he laughed at me for not trusting in myself somehow gave me strength.
  • One of the guys that came was a judge on the national olympiad from the previous year, I demanded him to show me the judge so I could finally prove that the 2nd problem in that contest was broken.
    I checked the evaluation system, and I was wrong, I forgot the case where n = 0 was sent to my code, I added an if, and… 100
    A year later, I got 100 points on the problem that started my fall. I cried of course, later that month I got all the 400 points on that contest. It felt amazing, it wasn’t important or worth nothing, but finally I looked at that contest and said “I solved you”.

I traveled to La Paz and stayed with a friend to prepare for the olympiad. A week before the national olympiad there was another contest in which every contestant of the national olympiad participated.
Believe it or not, after training again, and feeling I was again doing things right, I solved 0 problems, and at least 5 guys from high school got 2 problems right.
So that was it for me, I wasn’t going to win, so I spent the rest of the week playing video games and relaxing(Best decision ever).

When the day arrived, I just played the same song on loop until I entered the contest hall, I didn’t know what was going to happen but it was going to end.
After 4 years of competing, my “last dance” had arrived.

I got 100 points in just 10 minutes, then another, and another, and finally 30 points on another problem(which yes, now I am sure was wrongly setted).
I was sitting at my desk, and even before the contest ended I knew I had won…
I just felt it in the air, I saw it in my penguin(Dario), I knew.
After 4 years, I got my golden medal, my career as a Competitive Programmer had ended, or so I thought…

After a while, someone actually convinced me to keep going and qualify for IOI 2017, in Iran. I wasn’t sure, I was satisfied with winning my golden medal, but that person was right, I could have gone further, and I was capable of doing a lot more.
It was really difficult, and I really had an awful time doing it, my mind was in a bad place and I didn’t care enough, I just kept going.
One of my worst problems in those months preparing for IOI was my head, depression, loneliness, feeling I was chasing a dream just because “I was capable”, not because I really wanted it. Don’t misunderstand me, I really wanted to win an IOI, but I was not in the right place to do it, I had some bigger issues to solve, and this is important.
There is NOTHING more important than your mental health, NOTHING.

I almost won a silver medal in CIIC that year, but I missed some points to make it, so just another bronze(which I loved, by the way). And in IOI, I was lost, I just wanted to finally give an end to all this thing. I remember the first day of competence I got a low score, I was bummed, and the second day of competence I had to decide between getting some points to get a non-pathetic score or try my best during all contest to get 100 points in some problem and maybe that way win.
I never came up with an idea for 100 points, I came out of that contest hall crying.
They were tears of “I could have done better”, but mostly tears of “I can’t anymore, I’m so glad it’s done”.

With the years passing I went back to coding, the way I love doing it, teaching it, solving interesting problems, and thinking maybe someday I will make something great with it.

I spent amazing years competing in Informatics, but it demands a part of my mental health I can not dispose anymore.
For the kids still doing it, in any field or category, you don’t always have to win, you are more than a place in a ranking.
Real life demands a lot more than being the best, yet still, aim for being the best, because when you are, for a second it is amazing(until you realize there is someone better somewhere out there, and you have a bigger target to aim).
Again, don’t misunderstand me, I love these competitions, I still organize them and I love it, but they’re just that, competences.

My life has gone well since 2017, I believe I made a great progress working on myself, my head mostly.

Thanks for reading me, sorry for taking so long.
I hope you enjoyed this, as I enjoyed writing it.
Have a great weekend, and eat some popcorn.

Dedicado a Don Willmar, quien trajo el mundo de las competencias de Informática a Bolivia, DEP amigo.