IMO Selection School, April 1998

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1998 IMO Selection School Sunday, 12th April to Wednesday, 22nd April Riverview School, Sydney

Juniors	Seniors
Kim Anderson Jason Lo Yi Hua Lu Joydeep Mitra Kieran Rowe Thanom Shaw Allan Sly Kester Tong Brendan Wong Kashu Wong	Andrew Cheeseman Geoffrey Chu Stephen Farrar Justin Ghan Steven Irrgang Justin Koonin Hiroshi Miyazaki David Varodayan
This list is very incomplete and possibly quite wrong. Please send in additions and corrections!

Our final mathscamp! NOOOOOO!

Memories

A girl at a mathscamp?! Surely it couldn't be! Earlier on the first day I had jokingly expressed my desire for a female representative at a mathscamp (of which there had been none for two years) but when we went to the phone room at night and saw a girl on the phone, since I had not seen her at any of the meetings or at dinner, I assumed she was just a college resident or something, and not a mathscamper. I discovered that her boyfriend's sister was in the same year and school as Step's sister and thus managed to create a chain of six degrees of separation! Only afterwards was I informed that Thanom, like us, was there for the mathscamp.
We got to a playground, Justin told us that he didn't know how to swing! And so we made it our mission to teach him, and eventually we had some small degree of success...
We had to stagger our shower entries and exits as there was nowhere to get dressed and undressed in private! Well, at least they had shower curtains, as opposed to the previous April camp. The shower curtain tried to suffocate Step.
Step and I escorted Thanom back to her room late one night, but she couldn't remember which one was hers and accidentally stumbled in on a sleeping mathscamper.
The B-Session was so complicated and we couldn't solve it. When we got to the room, Dr Hunt was there and we were scared because he never gives out complete solutions! But then he left and Ben replaced him, so we were all relieved. While he was explaining the solution, William was talking to someone behind Step and I, and Step turned around and SHOOSHed him!
Because we'd all been writing maths all over our placemats, the kitchen staff wrote "mathematical" messages for us in return! One of them read "E=mc²" and we were all angry that they'd leave us such a foolish equation.
For some reason, we suddenly realised that driving lessons were actually cheaper than taxis.
We all signed a birthday card for Thomas! Curt and the Spicy Gherkin also signed, "Spicy Birthday!"
We met Gladys, Thomas, Kim, Nick and Sam, and we all played Pictionary! I was on a team with Hiroshi and Thanom, who wasn't a very good drawer. "Abstract painting!" I guessed for one of her worse drawings.
Travellator!
Andrew read my December camp diary and discovered that we didn't like him! Then Angelo read Thomas's IMO Chronicles and discovered all the controversy surrounding him and Carolina! It was so funny!
David and I invented the "Shoop!" game.
I got 28/28 for my test! Dr Hunt wrote the score on the front page, and next to it was a big scribble. I tried to work out what he had so vehemently crossed out, and I thought maybe it was "EXCELLENT", but David finally deciphered it: "TRY HARDER!"!!! We laughed so much, not only because his comment was so amusing, but also because he had been embarrassed by his joke and scribbled it out.
In the middle of the last sentence of the proof Justin was presenting on the board, he suddenly said, "PENIS!"
I drew in Thanom's hair.
Angelo's four hour Analysis lecture! Argh!
Step did amusing bird (currawong?) imitations.
We played six cup bowling (as opposed to ten pin bowling) on the pool table. I got two strikes in three turns!
We bought socks as presents for all the tutors! David got Australian socks, Hans got Daffy Duck (appropriately green), Ben got Marvin the Martian, Angelo got piano socks and William got monkeys!
I didn't murder and rape Thanom.
Step and I discovered a God's proof to a question on the Junior test and we told Thanom to present it. However, after reading my December camp diary, she became convinced we'd schemed her by giving her a incorrect proof! But after much reassurance to the contrary, she consented. While she was presenting it, I took a photo and she was now convinced that this was also some kind of scheme! Crazy, crazy girl...
One day at lunch, the jugs were empty, so Step labelled one "ų" and I labelled the other, "This jug has deliberately been left empty." When the cooks came around to fill them up, Angelo confusedly showed them the sign, thinking it was a leaky jug or something!
During a lecture, Step pointed out an error Angelo had made. Angelo said, "Now what does that remind me of?" I replied, "Your own stupidity?"
Presenting a solution on the board, Step wrote, "Step's Surprising Solution (SSS)" and X said, "Oh, congruent triangles!"
We were trying to ring Prasad at his new house, but none of us could remember his new phone number. David knew that he had written it on a piece of paper in his wallet, so we searched through all the junk in there and picked out all the ones with phone numbers. Finally we found a phone number which seemed at least a remote possibility of being Prasad's, so Justin rang it. And who should answer the phone but HIS MATHS TEACHER!!!
We read "Deep Thoughts" out loud together. When we got to the second to last one, I read, "You know how to really a woman mad?" Then I became hysterical and couldn't read for laughing! So I passed the book to Step, who couldn't read it either, so it was up to Thanom to finish: "Just run up and kick her in the butt." The others found my laughter more amusing than the actual joke.
Despite his aching back and sore throat, Ben decided to come along with us for a long walk through the rain for a game of Bartok. Consequently he got much sicker, and had to go to hospital, so Step and I had to take over the junior problem session! Fun!
Mark Kissin's pants were falling down during his lecture which none of us paid attention to.
William got one of the maths relay answers wrong, throwing the entire competition into a state of disarray!
The losing team got the best prize of all - sparklers! However, we didn't have any matches or lighters, so we stuck a piece of paper in a toaster to set it on fire! William got very angry about all the noise we made.
To prevent Thanom from falling asleep, we all went for a jog in the rain at 4am on the last night. We all jogged in step (like a march) and then we all did skips in time every eight steps. It sounded so cool!

You can go home now.
Or, if you prefer, you can return to the main Mathscamps Memories page.

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