Wherein Harry just doesn't care
Mar. 9th, 2005 08:55 pmPhysics Olympiad. Huh?
Last year my mom found out there was one (or rather, a first-round-qualifying test, like the AMC), and was quite annoyed that I hadn't taken it. She said I had to next year. Why she cares, I have no idea.
So I took it, and I passed, and today was to be the second part.
And we start, and I look at the problems, and I realize: I don't want to do these problems. The first two are just tedious, the third I don't understand, and the fourth is trivial. This is ridiculous; why am I doing this? Here I am, taking the second part of a competition I never wanted to take the first part of. I have no particular desire to be in the Physics Olympiad, or even to do well on this thing; I don't want to do these problems. Besides, I'm tired. So after about an hour of looking for a nice way to do the first problem, and of trying to understand the third problem, and just staring off into space, I go up to Dr. Vijaya and I say, "Dr. Vijaya, I... I don't want to do these problems. I don't want to take this." And she says OK, and to hand in my envelope. So I do, and go back to doing math problems.
From what I heard, I think Part B actually had some better problems; but obviously I never saw it. (And, of course, the third problem might be a good problem if I actually understood it...)
-Sniffnoy
Last year my mom found out there was one (or rather, a first-round-qualifying test, like the AMC), and was quite annoyed that I hadn't taken it. She said I had to next year. Why she cares, I have no idea.
So I took it, and I passed, and today was to be the second part.
And we start, and I look at the problems, and I realize: I don't want to do these problems. The first two are just tedious, the third I don't understand, and the fourth is trivial. This is ridiculous; why am I doing this? Here I am, taking the second part of a competition I never wanted to take the first part of. I have no particular desire to be in the Physics Olympiad, or even to do well on this thing; I don't want to do these problems. Besides, I'm tired. So after about an hour of looking for a nice way to do the first problem, and of trying to understand the third problem, and just staring off into space, I go up to Dr. Vijaya and I say, "Dr. Vijaya, I... I don't want to do these problems. I don't want to take this." And she says OK, and to hand in my envelope. So I do, and go back to doing math problems.
From what I heard, I think Part B actually had some better problems; but obviously I never saw it. (And, of course, the third problem might be a good problem if I actually understood it...)
-Sniffnoy
