Olympiad

Months ago Mr. Elvin signed up four of us from our class for this Mathematics Olympiad. Apparently it's a big-ass competition held simultaneously in every district. The winner gets to go overseas, for the next stage.

I had to go forgo a writing competition on the same day for this crap but I signed up for maths first. So, I chose maths over writing. Me. Going for maths. ME. Ha. Ha. This is what they send to represent our school. Me.

I went with Edbert Lim and Cheong Tzen Ren and this cool girl named Chalystha Lee.We met up in the canteen where Ernest and not Ernest from the F5/6category were practicing add maths questions. 

I didn't study. I felt guilty about it but I've been to a maths quiz like this before in primary school. And I had this niggling feeling it would be the same. I was sure the questions wouldn't be syllabus-based.

Or maybe yesterday I was just too busy playing The Sims 3 the whole day and then watching football.

Mr. Elvin took me, Cha and the bird while En. Khairul took Tzen Ren, Ernest and not Ernest. The two F6 girls were meeting us there. (In case you're wondering, I didn't know what the other F5 Chinese guy's name was, so I shall just call him not Ernest.)

Once we were there at UiTM in Shah Alam, we saw a whole load of capable-looking students (some came in busloads, there is no limit to the amount of teams you submit, but you have to pay a whopping RM50 each). We F4's had been gassing and fooling around the whole journey there (shamelessly aided and abetted by Mr. E - "Messi looks very messy") and started freaking out.

"Tzen Ren, can you please tuck in your shirt? You look embarrassing."

"I should have brought my tie!"

"Ohmigod, they're all studying."

"That girl has an Olympiad book. Like, a book on Olympiads."

"I should've worn my specs."

"Give me a book, give me a book! I need to look like I'm studying."

And then the private Chinese school people started arriving, you know, those geniuses, with no nametags only serial numbers sewn onto their clothes. The Cina ones with specs and shorts and look like sticks. (There was one who was positively two-dimensional.)

"The ones with short pants always win," said Mr. Elvin significantly, making us figure knee exposure must factor into the equation somehow.

The 2.5 hour paper consisted of 9 questions, 3 of which you needed to show working. I answered 4, and two of them are probably wrong. This was the easiest question:

A meeting was held at a round table. Twelve women had men sitting on their right side. Seven women had women sitting on their right side. 75% of the men had women sitting on their right side. How many people were sitting at the table?

The rest had equations and x's and triangles and angles and are so complicated I don't even remember them. I was right, though. They weren't syllabus-based. They were akjdroiuaeriairuaoirueoiuzlsdkjf-based.

Part of my working, for one question. One.

And then I kinda gave up and wrote some crap down instead.

We rode home with En. Khairul, Ernest in the front while Chalystha, Edbert, Tzen Ren and I squeezed at the back. We had a lotta fun singing to songs and squashing the boys a-purpose everytime the car took a left-turn.

Anyway, thanks to the three of them, the day turned out bearable. I've come to depend on my classmates so much, I don't know how to act around other people.