Diary Part 1
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Weird Diary-Competition Thingy
Part 1 - Days 1 to 5

8-|:)

Day 1
Sunday, 13th July 1997

For me, it all began when I saw Angelo's stupid grin greeting me as I disembarked flight QF534 from Adelaide to Melbourne. That was the moment when all traces of my boring Adelaide existence disappeared behind me and I took the first step of the biggest journey of my life.

Was that a corny enough beginning for everybody?
Good. I'm glad.

The mood right at the beginning of these maths things is always strange. I don't know if the others agree with me, but for me there's always a short period of time right after I've reunited with everybody when I just have to recover from the shock. Because it really is completely different from everyday life, and it's hard to believe that it's really happening again. I haven't explained this well at all, and probably made the whole thing up, but this is why, as Dan, Norman and I rode together in the taxi to the University of New South Wales, we hardly said a word to each other.

As soon as we arrived at the Uni, though, the shock was pretty much over, and we were ready to tackle the first disaster together - namely, the taxi driver had dropped us off at the wrong gate and we now had to try and find our way, through the pouring rain and carrying our massive suitcases, to the International House where we were staying. After five minutes of aimless walking, we came across a security guard and asked for directions. He informed us that the International House was more than a kilometre away. So we energetically set off dragging our huge suitcases along and got thoroughly drenched as well as lost and arrived at the accommodation about an hour later. My arms were hurting for days afterwards from carrying my suitcase so far. (It wasn't fair - Norman had one of those suitcases with wheels and he could just pull it along!)

Even when we arrived at the International House, we were still lost. We couldn't find a reception and couldn't see anyone we recognised. But we were finally saved by Professor David Hunt and his cohorts Step and Thomas.

Anyway, all of us got organised with our rooms and stuff, then we pretty much did nothing until dinner. After dinner we had our first problem session in which we discussed the weekly exams that had been sent out to us since April for training. None of us were really concentrating, we were just looking at photos from previous maths camps or comparing how many chupa chups we'd brought (I think there was a grand total of around fifty or sixty) or trying to make tazo spaceships without any tazos. It was pretty fun!

After the problem session, I went back to my room. I tried to turn on my heater, but the stupid cord wouldn't reach! And it was soooooo freezing in Sydney, so I was pretty annoyed. I asked everyone to help, but none of them knew what to do. I went down to ask for an extension cord, but the office was closed and I didn't know who to ask. So I went back to my room, and suddenly Norman ran in, pulled the cord around to the other side of the heater and plugged it in! I was embarrassment personified at that moment.

After the heater fiasco, we all came back to my room and had a really long conversation ... I can't explain what we talk about, it's too weird to write down! But once we get started we can go on for hours (and often do, and don't get any sleep, and fall asleep during the next day's exam)!

We eventually got to sleep, deciding not to stay up the whole night (as is often done on the first night of maths camps, but more commonly on the last night) seeing as we had daily four and a half hour exams starting from the next morning, 8:30am. So that was the end of the first exciting day.

Which is the lie?
We hardly spoke to each other on the way to UNSW.
The taxi driver dropped us off more than a kilometre from the International House.
We finally arrived at International House an hour late after getting completely drenched and lost.
I was stupid enough not to realise the heater cord was on the wrong side of the heater.


8-|:)

Day 2
Monday, 14th July 1997

I was the first to wake up at 7:22am (I wrote down the time because I thought it was important for some weird reason), so it was my duty to perform wake-up calls for the rest of the team. Breakfast was at 7:30. For some reason Dan wouldn't answer the phone. I rang twice for ages, but he just wouldn't answer. So after we'd gotten ready, we went up to Dan's room - and he was already up and ready! He claimed that the phone only rang for a second and stopped before he could pick it up. A likely story, Alison Ashley!

Breakfast was boring.

At 8:30 we had our first exam. There were four questions (each worth 7 marks, as usual) and I solved one of them and ended up getting 9/28. I was not very encouraged.

After lunch, we went to the computer room. We found a whole lot of cool stuff on the Internet, like a place that figures out what words will spell your phone number, and another place which works out all the anagrams of your name, and other cool things! Meanwhile, Thomas got bored, so he got on the old 286 computer and began writing Nibbles in QBASIC. I couldn't believe he just wrote a computer game! It was pretty good too. We made the game for five players (we just couldn't fit six hands on the keyboard at a time!) and played for over an hour! You can download Nibbles here.

Step and I went out to search for the Co-op bookshop on the Uni campus. We went to the building where it was supposedly located, but were redirected to another location. When we finally got there, we were told to go back to the first location! Annoyed and dejected, we began to make our way back to the International House. On the way we stopped at a pharmacy to buy what we call the Koonin lollies (since Justin Koonin brought them to the last maths camp and everyone loved them (and we can't call them the Justin lollies because otherwise I'll have an identity crisis and explode)).

After dinner, we had another problem session. We went through the morning's test then spent ages trying to solve the function g(x+y) + g(xy) = g(x) + g(y) + g(x)g(y). It was so stupid. Why on earth were we using g's instead of f's?

We rang David Varodayan (the reserve for the 1997 IMO team) to organise to meet sometime and go somewhere on Wednesday, so we arranged to meet him at his school Wednesday afternoon. After that we went to Norman's room and played Pictionary until 11:40. Pictionary is the official maths camp game, and must be brought to, and played, at every maths camp.

Which is the lie?
Thomas wrote a whole computer game from scratch.
We were led in circles while searching for the Coop Bookshop.
Pictionary is brought to and played every maths camp.
I can't think of anything else today which might be a lie.


8-|:)

Day 3
Tuesday, 15th July 1997

Again, I was the first to wake up at 7:29, quite surprisingly. I'm usually the sleepy head at maths camps (famous at NeMeSiS lectures for wanting to show willing by sitting RIGHT at the front in front of the lecturer, then promptly falling asleep). Anyway, I did the wake-up calls again. Dan again refused to pick up the phone. I was annoyed.

At breakfast, I discovered that I'd lost my meal card! They didn't let us have meals unless we gave them our meal card which they swiped through this cool machine. I just stole some cereal then ran off to look for my mealcard. I eventually found it. It was in my pocket. Less than two days, and I'd already been embarrassment twice.

The exam we did that morning was the funnest exam I've ever done! Thomas finished the exam in less than an hour, Norman and I finished after about two hours, and Step and Jon soon followed. Dan was left all alone by himself to finish the exam, and luckily did finish before time was up! We played table tennis and pool afterwards. I must say that my winning shot of pool was extremely excellent. I gloated and gloated and gloated, and deserved to too.

At lunch, I asked Thomas to make me some cordial (I think Step did too ... or maybe Norman) and he came back with what I suspected was PURE CORDIAL. It was toxic! It made my throat hurt in a really weird way (rather like when I had the Gnocchi in Buenos Aires) and Thomas had a furtive look when I asked him if he knew you were supposed to add water. (Another thing I remember about the cordial at International House was that no one believed me about the icky stuff on the orange cordial lid.)

After lunch, we felt guilty because we weren't doing any maths, as we were expected to during free time, so we went to the classroom sort of place and pretended to do some but just ended up drawing weird stuff all over the board. But we did try this really cool problem - if you're not interested then skip the rest of this paragraph. The problem is as follows: Alan and Mark each choose a positive integer and tell it to some guy. The guy then tells them two numbers, one of which is the sum of the two numbers and the other is some random positive integer. He then asks Alan if he knows what Mark's number is; if the answer is no, then he asks Mark if he knows what Alan's number is; and so forth. You have to prove that eventually one of them will answer yes. (You have to assume that Alan and Mark are super intelligent and are also honest and neither of them cheat or have ESP.)

Afterwards, Step rewrote Nibbles so that it worked nicer. Then he included doors so you could go through a door on one side of the screen and come out the other side. It was really cool! On a completely unrelated topic, I was happy because I got seven e-mails.

We had a problem session again, getting our test back. It was really funny because Thomas was the first one to finish the test and thought he was really good, and he was the only one who didn't get 28/28!! He got less than half marks and we all chastised him and made him look quite the fool.

We went to McDonalds afterwards and got some REAL food. Then we went for a big walk. It was during this walk that I had my near death experience. Really. If you think this is the lie, then you're wrong. (Why does everyone ignore that sentence? Why won't anybody believe I had a near death experience?) I got really dizzy and I saw the light. It wasn't really like a tunnel, it was more like a spot of light which kept on moving in a circle which gradually got bigger and bigger until it hit the ground. I soon recovered, and discovered that Jon had saved my life. They told me that while I was having my experience, I was acting psycho and almost ran head on at full speed into a concrete pillar - Jon tried to catch me and cushioned the collision. I was very grateful, and decided that from that day onwards I would live my life to the fullest.

We got back and played Bartok. Bartok is the other official maths camp game, it's a really cool card game. I ask that if you are not a maths geek then you do not attempt to play this game, as you will just end up making a mockery of it by transforming into UNO like my school friends did when I tried to teach it to them. The concept is very simple, but the game is not - you start off playing similarly to UNO in that you take turns to put down a card, either of the same suit or same number as the card on the top of the pile, and you pick up a card from the pile if you do not have a legal card. You get a penalty card for being too slow, or for playing incorrectly or out of turn, or for any mistake generally. And you're not allowed to ask questions. And you must say "Bartok" when you only have one card left. The winner is the first person to put his last card down. There are many vaguities, like what happens at the start when the first card is overturned (our rule is that play starts from the first person to put down a legal card) or if you can play after you pick up, etc. It sounds pretty easy, but the twist is, once someone wins, that person can now make up any rule he/she likes which will come into effect from the next round onwards. Hey, actually maybe the concept isn't so simple after all.

For a clearer explanation, you can go to Ben Burton's Bartog Page. No, that was not a typo - sadly, some stupid people call the game Bartog instead of Bartok. Don't ask me why. (And yet stupider people call the game Warthog, this is because they are idiots.) Actually, there are two big controversies about Bartok. One is the name of the game, and the other is the origin of the game. So far I've heard it was invented at a maths camp, a physics camp, a music camp and Amsterdam.

To give you an idea of the spirit of Bartok, here are the rules which were created during that night's game:
The game that night was pretty hard but nothing compared to some other games we've played, especially when you get up to twenty or so rules! You see, people forget rules, and one of the rules is that you can't remind someone of a rule, so millions of penalty cards are handed out constantly for being out of turn or being too slow or playing incorrectly... It's so much fun! If only I could find some people in Adelaide smart enough to play.

Which is the lie?
I lost my mealcard then found it in my pocket.
Thomas got less than half marks while the rest of us got 28/28.
Eventually Alan or Mark will know the other's number.
I had a near death experience.


8-|:)

Day 4
Wednesday, 16th July 1997

This morning, Norman took over my duties as wake-up caller, waking me at 7:22am. All I remember about breakfast was that I decided to go the coffee (stupid Norman (for two reasons)) and it was the most disgusting coffee I'd ever tasted. As soon as I took a sip, I spat it all over Step (not on purpose, honestly!), who was not amused. He went off to get clean up, and whenever we felt tired today we just took a sniff of Step which woke us up!

We had another exciting exam. When it was over, we had lunch then all (except for Jon) took a bus to Sydney Grammar School where we were meeting David Varodayan and Justin Koonin. It was really funny, because Thomas goes to Sydney Grammar too, and when we all tried to embarrass him in front of his friends he got really nervous and furtive all of a sudden! I'd never seen Thomas like that before...

We didn't do much interesting... We went on the huge travellator again which we went on at the April camp, and we went to the art gallery like we did at the April camp, and we saw the pendulum/ostrich egg thing which we missed at the April camp, and we went and had dinner at the same place as we did at the April camp. For some odd reason which I can't quite remember, it reminded me of the April camp.

David had presents for us - firstly he had a copy of the 1993 (?) Melbournia, which is the school yearbook of Norman's school. It had a very amusing photo of Norm in it! He also had this game called Sixty Seconds, which we all found amusing because the game package asked us, "Am I flaccid?" on the back. And Justin Koonin gave us more Koonin lollies! YUM! (I have to refer to Justin as Justin Koonin all the time, because of my aforementioned identity crisis.)

We went back after dinner for a problem session. I got 18/28, although I soon realised that I got 7/7 for a question for which my solution was ALL WRONG! I was embarrassment once again.

At night, Norman and I tried our hand at the jocular game, Sixty Seconds. We discovered that the timer they provided only timed 48 seconds, which made us very indignant, because we only got 80% of our money's worth and it wasn't even our money! In the game, one person picks an object on one of the cards and the other person has to guess what the object is by asking yes/no questions. I don't understand how the game's makers could have possibly thought you could work it out in sixty seconds - as yet, I don't think we haven't solved one in less than five minutes! I mean, how are you supposed to work out "A Citroen 2CV" or "Muffin the Mule" or "A brace of pheasants" or "A duck in orange sauce" or "A li-lo" in a minute?! (I was going to go through all the cards and pick out the hardest ones, but I didn't have to... I found those on the first five cards.) But none of them were as hard as the seemingly simple, "sandpit" which took Angelo at least an hour. About halfway through he realised it was made out of sand, and I think he must have guessed "sandpit" fifty times. We just couldn't make him accept that it wasn't a sandpit.

Which is the lie?
I spat coffee all over Step at breakfast.
Thomas became furtive when we plotted to embarrass him at his school.
I got 7/7 for a question for which my solution was completely wrong!
The Sixty Second timer only timed 48 seconds.


8-|:)

Day 5
Thursday, 17th July 1997

I don't know who did the wake-up calls this morning. I think I got three separate wake-up calls for some reason. They were all late anyway - it was at 7:50 and we almost missed breakfast. At breakfast we got hats and T-shirts from somewhere. I think altogether I got about five T-shirts given to me for the maths olympiad and I don't think I'll ever wear any of them. (Angelo told us about his friend who loves all the geeky maths T-shirts because they're so geeky that if you wear them, you pass through geekiness and become cool. Personally, I suspect he's talking about himself.) Anyway, here's a picture of the T-shirt, stolen off the Australian Mathematics Trust's Publications page. The caption reads: "EULER SEVEN BRIDGES OF KÖNIGSBERG T-SHIRT. Attractive and professionally designed, here is an opportunity to personally promote mathematics. This is the T-Shirt worn by Australia's IMO team. $A20.00" Wow! They're using us to sell geeky T-shirts!

T-shirt

I was really happy about the exam because I got all three questions out! But I only ended up getting 17/21 because I stuffed up my first one a bit. Well, a lot actually.

We finally got to use the computers again during the afternoon! I e-mailed lots of people. Then it was ready for another Nibbles rewrite - added features were randomly placed obstacles, moving obstacles, sound effects, music, option menus where you can change player names, number of obstacles, speed, etc... It was soooooo cool! Step and I argued a lot about how the little doodly circus music goes. You know, "Doo doo dodododo doo doo doo-doo doo doo dodododo doo doo doo-doo doo dodo doo-doo doo dodo doo-doo dodododododododo doo doo doo-doo..." Well, maybe you don't know.

We had a really short problem session then we played Nibbles some more. We were planning to stay up the whole night since it was our last night in Sydney, and we could sleep on the plane anyhow. We stayed in the computer room for ages talking about stuff, then a few minutes before midnight we decided to go to McDonalds (boring Norman and Thomas didn't come though). But we got there a few minutes too late! They had just closed the doors, and wouldn't let us in despite our puppy-dog faces. (Jon does an exceptionally good impression of a puppy-god. Whoops! I mean dog. I wonder what a puppy-god looks like.) The only comfort was that we got food from a service station next door.

We didn't end up staying up all night, but we did sleep pretty late.

Which is the lie?
Nothing which happened today could be a lie.
So there's no use me making up a lie because it would be too obvious.
I don't know what to do.
This sentence is a lie.


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