Quotable quote

"Second place is 1st place loser." - Sir Quiwa

1 week ago

One week ago, we all had our share
of laughs, excites, panics, and scares.
For in Cebu, we all did compete
to be the best programming athlete.
We hailed from the place called UP Diliman
(bordered by the Commonwealth and Katipunan).
We were twenty people as a whole;
six teams, two coaches, and a lot of soul
whose goal was to fight and to be the best
in the ACM ICPC Philippines contest.

We had our grueling practice session
right before they served our luncheon.
The only thing I can say about the practice
is that the judge seemed full of mysteries.
We asked about the issues we found
but got answers as clear as muddy ground.
After the lunch (which was great, by the way),
we waited for a long time in the hallway
before they told us to go to the rooms
because the contest is starting soon.

For the longest time, we had to endure
an endless log-in-log-out overture.
Seems like some teams were not followers
of the directions from the organizers.
Anyway, after 30 minutes or so,
I felt my bladder was gonna explode.
So I went to the urinals, released my pee,
returned to the room hurriedly
because, to my surprise, the contest began
while I was outside (oh man, oh man).

As I got to my seat, I picked up the paper,
looked for the easy ones (hard ones for later)
Marte was already coding, I think problem B
while Kevinsky was saying C is also easy.
I read problem D (shucks, full of text)
so I immediately shifted to E (the next)
which was a math problem, thank goodness.
I found the formula, then proceeded to the rest.
Meanwhile Marte has submitted B, and was waiting
only to receive an RE (What the hell's happening??)

'Imposibleng runtime error!', Marte exclaimed
while showing us the code, he explained.
Anyway, we continued on and coded
eventually the problem B was accepted
and so did C and also problem E
so we decided to look at the final three.
Marte coded F, I reread problem D.
I and Sky realized D was also very easy
so after Marte coded F, and proceeded to A
I coded D, with Sky helping along the way.

Eventually, all our solutions were accepted
and with a final "Yes!", we finally rested.
We three went outside and drank a cup of coffee
(or in my case, a single bottle of iced tea).
We were the first team to finish this battle of wits.
Our second team followed after a few minutes.