Who's going to MathCamp 09?

[noobius]

I'm Aaron Lear, a junior going on senior from Ft. Collins, CO, and I'm totally psyched to be coming to Mathcamp.

I'm pretty much a colossal underachiever compared to all of you. Not really been doing anything since I quit football and chess.

Previous to this year, a lifetime of public education had mostly destroyed my interest in math. Fortunately, I met a guy at a science summer camp who was really cool and got me remotivated (and who happens to be a Mathcamp alum). I don't actually know what the specific fields of math I like most are right now; just wherever I can see the cause-and-effect.

I love reading, even if I don't do as much as I should. Mostly like fantasy and sci-fi. My favorite authors include Gaiman and George Martin (although the latter really needs to get writing). Recently discovered Pratchett, and Good Omens is one of my favorite books right now.

Politics: Sounds like I'll be meeting other libertarians for the first time in my life.

[ycz9000]

Apparently Leo Zhou isn't going this year. An excerpt from the relevant Gmail chat:

Me: It's sad because there's a Leon Zhang and a Leo X going this year
Leo: really
well thank god i dont have to be in that mess

But apparently leoxnlin's name is actually Leon, too?

Carl: If you like Olympiad problem solving, you'll definitely find the weekly team problem-solving contests fun. Mostly original problems, all good ones. And hard.

Leon Zhang: I guess I could go by Joe and you could go by John. >_> Or [ʈʂ]ohn if you must.

James/Jimmy: Yeah, I was a bit concerned about Smash becoming unnecessarily important. I think it's just up to individual self-control, though... there's no reason SSBM has less intrinsic value than, say, Settlers of Catan or bughouse.

[calc rulz]

[numberdance]

I'm Jessica, and I'm currently in 9th grade. I live in Oklahoma, and this has been my first year in public school, which has mostly gone well. I do miss homeschooling sometimes, though.

Other than math, I like reading (Favorites include Orson Scott Card, Kristin Cashore, Tamora Pierce, Lewis Carroll, and Shakespeare), writing, fencing (foil and epee), and learning foreign languages. I'm pretty good at French (took the AP test a week and a half ago), okay at Spanish (AP next year...*nervous*). I'd also like to learn Japanese, German, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, and Hungarian.

I'm on my school's Quiz Bowl team and Speech team. I don't do debate, just competitive acting -- prose and declamation were the two events I did this semester.
I listen to music a lot, but I don't play an instrument. Or sing.

I did Chem Olympiad this year and made the national level...and then failed the lab portion of the test. I'm hoping to do better next year, and I'd also like to do Physics Olympiad...

[skyhog]

I'm Matt Staib, a rising junior at Iowa City West (Iowa City, IA, to point out the obvious (Hey, there's a West New York in NJ, I still have some reason to be captain obvious)). This will be my first year at Mathcamp. I like pretty much all Math evenly, with the exception of maybe number theory, which I like (even though I know I still have much to learn) and geometry (which I'm not particularly fond of...) Also, I suppose I'm pretty well-known within our Math club for making gobs and gobs of stupid mistakes (eg. missing 4 points on this year's AIME because of failing at addition) but hopefully that shouldn't matter too much at Mathcamp .

Anyway, other than Math, I suppose I'm pretty into music -- I play trumpet and violin (No, I don't have a general favorite, though I seem to alternate regularly between liking one more than the other). I'm also a huge Rush fan, or fan of pretty much any prog rock, classic rock, classic prog rock, etc. I also listen to various/random jazz and classical music, though not enough to have any real favorite artists/composers.

I suppose I could also be considered a computer enthusiast. I enjoy programming; mostly in Java and C# (and TI-BASIC ) (yes, I know I should learn some lower-level languages, but w/e). I'm also fairly competent in Linux, after running it independent of anything else on my desktop since... maybe winter of my freshman year. I tend to shift a lot between distributions; I'm running Fedora right now but I ran Gentoo for about a year (eventually replacing it when I broke X11 and decided it was time for a change (grrrr fglrx drivers grrrr)).

After Math, music, and computers, my interests seem to diverge a bit. I do enjoy the occasional game of chess, though I'm not super great (my games tend to start with me stumbling accidentally upon some great move and worrying my opponent, and then flubbing it up by the end of the game and losing). I also enjoy Mao, Silent Football, Munchkin, Set... basically any random and remotely geeky game. Hm, what else... AP Euro has interested me in philosophy a bit, but other than that, I can't think of much else to say...

Oh, one last thing: I just lost the game

[mustafa]

[skyhog]

[mathq]

i got a message that i've failed because i'm too young lol...
i'm only grade 8

[Darmani]

[thebluejay]

Yay! new people!

Ok, deep breath for the Geeks Anonymous speech.

My name is Manya and I will be a senior in Belmont MA next year. This will be my second year at camp, the first time was the best five weeks of my life, I do all kinds of math competitions during the year but never win anything (HMMT, ARML, AMC, AIME, and more stuff I'm forgetting), I don't play an instrument, can't draw, can't sing, I am a libertarian, which means, living in MA, that I get into a lot of political arguments that I have no hope of winning because I can't argue to save my life, I am a believing-but-not-practising Jew, I don't program or cube, I read way too much, I speak Russian fluently because I was born over there, I am learning French in school, I took AP Bio this year and therefore deserve a comforting hug or twenty from everyone I meet, and I have a huge crush on MIT.

Whew.

There are also two new people I know who got accepted, so I'll have to nudge them into posting here. Joy.

I saw a bunch of "wow, you guys are all so talented/smart/awesome at way too many different things" comments, and I think that you're getting the wrong impression here. My long list of things I can't do, above, is proof that not everyone that goes to Mathcamp is a genius in every single thing that humankind has invented and needs to be put in the zoo for people to come and look at.
It's just most people that are like that, not everyone.

Oh, I just can't wait for this field trip to end! I want to meet all you new people and see all you old people!

Oh and, people? When you see/meet Laura, bop her nose. Once. And then don't touch it and don't let anyone else touch it. And call me over.

[mustafa]

[skyhog]

Admittedly, it is pretty fun... most of them are GPML competitions, but we also sometimes go to the Minnesota State one in Mankato, the Rose-Hulman competition in Indiana, and, of course, Madison. We do typically sweep most of these, though most are within Iowa (or, you could say, our own territory). We've been failing Rose-Hulman for a while, though (consistent 2nd). It seems we can never get enough of our top people to spend 6 hours in a car each way for an hour-long competition... I wonder why ( bus > car )

I propose this: The level of fun associated with a trip is directly proportional to the size of the vehicle, the distance of the trip, and the average "strangeness" of the people participating.

[ycz9000]

[Darmani]

Clearly that relation fails. I propose that the ability to exercise one's strangeness be quantified (desired actions/doable actions?) and inserted somewhere into the equations. Clearly, bus rides are more fun than plane rides (well, at least your standard commercial flight), and rides in a high-end train are better yet. I would state another mode of transportation which would probably be even more enjoyable, but I fear being bombarded with obligatory links to a certain Youtube video.

[shelly32494]

Hm,
I'm not going...

but everyone have funnn ;]]

meenamathgirl, emannes, zeph hopefully i'll see you guys sometime in the future XD

[skyhog]

[Brutus]

Hi folks!
I am Aniruddha (Ani in short) from India. From what I have read so far on this thread, I think I'm going to have a great time at mathcamp this year .
I've been reading all the profiles that have been posted here and I am amazed at the stuff you people have done!
Anyway, looking forward to meeting all of you!

[stewSquared]

Hello, I'm Stewart Stewart. (stew^2 - cool name, huh?)
I'm a rising Senior from American Falls, a small farming town in SE Idaho with an amazing shortage of nerds, and a Mathcamp 08 Alumnus. I'm not a math whiz, but I do love math. My strengths lie in combinatorics, but I also like number theory (though I'm not that good yet). I didn't take the AMC this year, as my school decided it wasn't worth the money . I dabble in programing (C++ and Adobe Flash), but I'm not a real Genius in any of that (I try to make up for that by being interesting instead )

About me:
Like a lot of you, I read xkcd. I'm a Dvorak typist. I enjoy esoteric subjects, and am obsessed with training. I try my hardest to be an individual (I hate fitting into the crowd - I like 'me' to mean 'Stewart Stewart' and nothing else). If you can't tell I love parenthesizing statements - I find that my appositives are often set apart with parentheses rather than commas (I see some of you share the same habit...). No, depite my fascination with (((parentheses))) I do not use Lisp. Games are the greatest. One of the best parts of mathcamp is the fun games that's always happening. Also, I love seeing girls smile

Hobbies:
Skiing!; Juggling (clubs, rings, various 3 and 4 ball, 5 ball cascade) and other forms of object manipulation; Unicycling - this is my newest hobby I'm currently 'level 4' if that means anything to anyone here; Speedcubing - I sorta stopped and let juggling take over back in February (I had just started dipping sub-20 too! - but I'm practice up for mathcamp right now and should be able to get it back down there); I play Clarinet and Tenor Sax, and I dabble in Piano playing; I've studied chess, but I've given up because there's no competition for me around here (and I'm too lazy to find some online) - not that I'm really good, It's just that no one else really cares for the game enough to be my guinea pig . I'm looking forward to playing some real chess at mathcamp; Various other hobbies and developing talents - It's been said of me (and probably with much truth) that my only real hobby is collecting hobbies

Media/Politics/Relgion:
I love studying, or just learning in general. I study math, but I also spend a huge portion of my time online just to read (Wikipedia ftw!). The vast majority of books I've read in the last year have been manuals and textbooks but as far as fiction goes I used to be really into Robert Jordan (well, I still am, I just need to get back into the series).

I don't watch TV (that's what youtube is for). Although I play instruments, I don't listen to music. I play video games from time to time, and I'm pretty decent player. I don't care for politics and try not to get involved. Both of the major political parties are unappealing to me, so I guess I'm just Independent. As far as religion goes, I'm LDS (mormon).

That's all for now, I'm looking forward to a great summer with you guys! (keep the intros coming in)

By the way, Matt Staib just made me lose.

(PS are any other unicyclists here?)

[ycz9000]

[benzi455]

Is your name really Stewart Stewart?

As far as seeing girls smile... on a scale of 1 to brofest, what is the gender balance like? Please don't point me to an FAQ, every1 nos that the l3t n0bs go to forums and irc and get betr answers.