Photo and Video from Germany

Mr Chia (Deputy Leader), Daniel, Ivan, Ryan with Simon, Barry, Jia-Han, me, Dr Wong (Leader), Shu Li (Team Guide)

This was recorded by Jun Wei (note: sound was cut-off halfway through the video)

IMO 2009

Just came back from Germany. The Singapore team won 2 Silver medals, 3 Bronze medals and 1 Honourable Mention. We are ranked 30 out of 104 countries. The top 5 countries are: China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and North Korea.

At Changi Airport Terminal 3, 12 July, leaving for Germany. 11 of us were on the same plane (6 participants, 1 deputy leader - Mr Chia, 4 observers - Jun Wei, Jiawei, Mr Teo, Mdm Teo). Dr Wong, Dr Tay and Dr Hang left a few days earlier.

On the opening day. Ryan is holding Simon, our mascot.

Excursion at Breman.

Excusion again. Took photo with one of the speakers and our tour guide.

Ok, things that I can remember:
a) The food there tasted horrible. Every grain of rice there was very big and does not stick, so the rice kept falling off my plate.
b) Everything there costs more than 2 times the price in Singapore, especially in the airport where a bottle of mineral water costs 3 euros (S$6).
c) At 10pm in Germany, it’s as bright as 6pm in Singapore. At 3am in Germany, it’s as bright as 6.30am in Singapore.
d) I heard the China team completed the first day very quickly, and were writing more solutions to the same questions to hope for special prize.
e) We went to a climate house, where one of the rooms was a very dark rainforest. Ivan got lost there. Later he saw us at another room but when he went there, we were gone. Since he was far behind time, he ate at the café and was more behind time. Later we made an announcement: “Ivan, please come to the exit.” Then he met us there.
f) “fer-sa-gern” (don’t know how to spell or pronounce) means fail.
g) Germany does not sell chicken rice.
h) Ryan bought a very small soft red bolster for 10 euro, I think.
i) They played werewolf with the Philippines, while I was asleep.
j) We played werewolf with the China team.
k) Seashores are windy, even the birds are blown away by the wind.
l) The red light is a lot bigger than the green light (in Germany’s traffic lights).

The exam hall. There was a total of 565 participants in the hall.

World's Greatest Business Mind (Hilarious!)

This is good & hilarious! You can watch me on TV. Haha.

http://www.worldsgreatestbusinessmind.com/20090715-Lim-Jeck%20-create.html

You can also be the world's greatest business mind. Just change the url to your name.

Now in Bremen

Hi. The internet cable works!

Off to Bremen, Germany

Tonight I will be flying to Germany for the 50th IMO.
The itinerary is as follows:
12 Jul: Singapore / Frankfurt
13 Jul: Frankfurt / Bremen
14 Jul: Opening Ceremony
15 & 16 Jul: 1st and 2nd day of competition
17 & 18 Jul: Excursion
19 Jul: 50th IMO Anniversary Celebration
20 Jul: Excursion
21 Jul: Closing Ceremony & Farewell Dinner
22 & 23 Jul: Depart back to Singapore
I heard the legendary Terence Tao will be there. He was the youngest person to win a gold medal at the age of 13 in IMO 1988. He is now Professor Terence Tao!
I will not update my blog until I return from Germany.

Photos from South Africa

My sister just came back from South Africa, from the IWYMIC maths competition. The teams from RI & RGS won 1 Gold, 2 Silvers, 4 Bronzes and 1 Merit for individual awards. My sister won a Silver medal. Some photos taken are below:

SMO 2009 (Open) Special Round

The SMO (Open) special round was held at NUS LT27, and it started at 9.06 am. There were 5 questions. Q1 was geometry, which for the first time, I whacked using trigo instead of using normal synthetic proof; Q2 was a very easy number theory qn; Q3 was quite difficult algebra, Q4 was a very difficult inequality qn and Q5 was a not-so-difficult number theory qn.

It took me about 4.499999 hours to solve Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q5. I tried Q4 but since it was inequality, and I HATE inequality, I did not spend much time to work on the question, because I simply could not remember all theorems on inequalities, such as AM-GM, Power mean, Cauchy Schwartz, Jensen's, and alot of other random theorems discovered by some long-name people.

The competition ended at 1.36 pm.

My sister is flying to South Africa tonight (2 am) with her three RGS friends and teacher. She is taking part in the World Youth Mathematics Inter-City Competition held at Durban. RI also sends a team there.

Modules this Semester

This semester, my most-like to least-like modules are:

1. CS2201 Visual Basic .NET Programming. Initially I was on waiting list for this elective. Luckily they open a 2nd class due to its popularity, I am so very lucky as programming is my favourite! But I will be missing 4 weeks of this module :-(
2. MA4109 Calculus I. I heard that this module is comparable to calculus courses at college and university level. Guess it would be tough.
3. MA4401 Polar Coordinates, Parametric and Vector Functions. This is an honours module.
4. CM2104 Foundation Chemistry 2
5. PC2110 Foundational Physics II. This semester, we should be learning electric & magnetic forces and simple circuit knowledge.
6. EL2105 Language for Literary and Functional Purpose
7. CL2102 Chinese 2B
8. HY2101 Southeast Asia – From Colony to Nation (Selected Countries)
9. PE. I am lucky that I can skip this for 4 weeks :-)

Good thing about this Semester is, there is no Biology module. Also, I will just be sitting in for History - no projects, tests and exams. That means, all my modules are mostly subjects that do not need memorising/studying. Yay!