cz_xuyixuan's blog

Thanks to Codeforces — An OIer's Narration
By cz_xuyixuan, history, 5 years ago, In English

Hello there, I'm a senior high school student from China.

For a long time, I've been devoting my life to Olympiad in Informatics. I’ve made progress all along the way with a few partners. But after the entrance of university was granted, they quitted OI, one after another, while I kept going, hoping to take part in IOI, which is definitely not easy in China.

This has kept me wondering, “What if I fail?” “What if all the efforts of me turn out to be meaningless?” From time to time, I suffer from such thoughts in agony, but luckily, I haven’t given up.

Yesterday, I became a Legendary Grandmaster on Codeforces, which has been a wild dream of mine since I knew the website. Thanks to Codeforces, this appellation exhilarates me so much that I suddenly find my efforts did count, they are at least recognized here. Perhaps, because of this, I won’t feel that bad even if I fail in the upcoming selections to IOI.

And thanks for reading this mess in me. Hope you all make your life Legendary as well.

Spoilers
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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +43 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations!

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5 years ago, # |
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Congratulations,cz_xuyixuan!

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5 years ago, # |
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Congratulations!. I hope one day i become Legendary Grandmaster like you. I just start competitive programming for 3 months, and i don't know how to start, but my friends, my teacher help me. I will be try hard to become Legendary Grandmaster like you.

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
    ← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -7 Vote: I do not like it

    really sorry if my grammar makes you misunderstand, my english is not very good, but i want to congratulate him

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      5 years ago, # ^ |
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      Your comment is literally 1 word to congratulate them and the rest of it is about yourself xd

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +10 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations!

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +40 Vote: I do not like it

Congratulations! Are you a whovian!?

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Congratulations!

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5 years ago, # |
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Congrats

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5 years ago, # |
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orz orz

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5 years ago, # |
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you are inspiring

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5 years ago, # |
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Congrats Yixuan Xu .

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5 years ago, # |
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cztxdy

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5 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +176 Vote: I do not like it

"What if I fail?” “What if all the efforts of me turn out to be meaningless? — I hope that's not the case, but even if it is, bear in mind that no contest or small set of contests can properly reflect one's level. Both in your selection, as well as in IOI itself, there's a matter of chance: a few days when things may go wrong, either because of stress, or because of not feeling well, or due to simply having a bad day when your brain decided not to cooperate. Therefore, neither of them tells much and accurately: even if you do well, it may be the case that somebody else that would've been better just had a health emergency or something. Obviously, the converse applies: if you do badly, it doesn't mean much either. It is definitely nice to go to IOI and even do well there, and it'd be unfair for someone at LGM level or who spent so much time training to not get there, but sometimes life is unfair anyway. You should change your mindset and acknowledge the other reasons for which you did what you did, one of which, if not the most important being that you liked it. All the knowledge that you've acquired, all the moments of happiness when you finally got the idea for a problem, the success in various contests, like CF rounds, are just some random pieces of proof that what you did was not in vain. And more importantly, again, you liked it — you may justify it by your target, but even just being able to pursue it without thinking about anything else means that you enjoyed the ride. That means you haven't done that only because of success (let alone success in some particular events) but also because of the temporary happiness that you get by training for these contests.

Congratulations on becoming a LGM! That's already statistically harder than getting a gold in IOI (hard to say about a spot in IOI from china though, probably they're about as difficult).

Anyway, keep recalling the nice memories, the beautiful way in which your thinking was altered by these problems and all the other positive parts of having trained as much as you did, and try your best to change the initial mindset: you're not doing this for IOI, you're doing this for satisfaction that you may as well get from plain knowledge.

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    5 years ago, # ^ |
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    Genuinely, thank you for your kind words.

    Indeed, nowadays I am trying hard to change my notions about success as well as retrospecting the past happiness I had along the ride, and this post is a sign of that.

    I believe it’s the story of most people that we encounter negative thoughts like I did, and I am trying to beat them. Anyway, it’s lucky for me to meet kind people like you to guide me on my way.

    And again, thanks for teaching me the lesson.

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Congrats!!!

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congrats!

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Congratulations!

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Congratulations!

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5 years ago, # |
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Congratulations!
You will take part in IOI.

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5 years ago, # |
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Congratulations!!!

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5 years ago, # |
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Congratulations!

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