This is finally a post that is not (entirely) about math.
The day after the AIME, I had an orchestra concert. And considering that I was in the school’s top orchestra in a mediocre chair, I didn’t have much reason to mess up badly. But I did.
I went home that night heavily burdened from all my mistakes as well with the full consideration that I am unable to place an olympiad qualification on my resume for college applications. Although I still have a year, it still sucks to miss an opportunity to show what you are capable of to admission officers to open up gates for optimal education in the future.
But as I have already stated before to myself, I must consider what I will focus on for the remainder of my high school career.
When one has several hobbies that they have the potential to get good at, it sucks to pick and choose which ones to dedicate your full focus, energy and hard work to. I chose mathematics, computer science, and swimming out of a handful of activities I currently participate in.
Indeed, the hard truth is that no one can be a professional or even an expert at everything. We, as mortal human beings, are not God. We are imperfect and will always be. That’s just how the world works.
I realized this veracity the hard way in the time leading up to freshman year. I thought I could get achievements for almost all olympiads there exist, get into All-State Orchestra, and participate in Sectionals. But as time passed, it became increasingly harder to focus on a single subject when many other activities were detracting from your time, such as schoolwork or frequent sports practices.
In this manner, I decided to trade off proficiency on the violin that I had built from kindergarten or first grade for other subjects for olympiads. My middle school self would never have even imagined that I would become my school’s math club treasurer. But even though I lost one, I gained one. When I questioned myself, I discovered that I was reluctant to practice violin until I got Regions or All-State and beyond. I was unwilling to become proficient to the point that violin would be seared from my identity. Yes, I’m still in my school’s orchestra. I enjoy the music. However, there was a difference between playing the violin as a hobby and playing for real. Once I established that line internally, I picked a side.
There wasn’t a good reason to be unhappy after that concert, after all.
The reason why I’m still deciding to stick with swimming is that besides academic contests, it’s one of my only hobbies from childhood that I still strive to improve in. I’ve made a whole ton of friends through swimming (a lot more than an orchestra, actually) and have a much better personal connection with them than most people at school. Meets are cool when you get to see each other, even though it sucks when you don’t drop time. But each year, I’ve managed to improve, whether it was as big as a seven-second drop in the 400 free or a mental debrief for “pushing through the pain”. When I compare violin and swimming side-by-side, I see much more potential in swimming: not only because I’m more willing to work at it, but also because I have been through many intense workouts to even be where I am today. I still remember the days in Level 2 and Level 3, which were incredibly tough but enabled me to drop quite a big margin in many events every single year.
I’m deciding to maintain my focus on academic contests despite a little more time spent on swimming. It’s a personal decision. Most of it is not going to count for college applications, and if you think it’s a waste of time, go do your beeswax and quit wasting time reading this post.
To match my goals, to succeed, and to accomplish my hopes and dreams for high school, I have to brace myself for a year that will be a lot busier, more painful, and a lot uglier than junior year. I will sporadically take breaks (historically, breaks have made me worse off).
This road of learning won’t be easy, but I think I can get to the finish line. For now, I’m going to get off of my three-day break and get rolling.