(It’s bugging how I can’t post on this website on my school chromebook)
Thank God for giving me a great year in competitive programming.
I participated in the Goodbye 2023 Round, which was rated for all participants.
As with most of my Div.2 typed contests this year, I solved two problems. This contest contained a lot of math problems, which I genuinely thought quite cool. Unfortunately, because of the discrepancies in system tests and disputes in problems G and H1/H2, the problem authors were largely criticized by many users in the Codeforces community. As much as I can understand the errors and last-minute changes for this contest, I respect their time in preparing and coordinating the contest.
At the moment of typing up this post, the contest announcement has more than 2000 downvotes on Codeforces. The world already has enough negativity. Please be respectful of the organizer’s efforts (regardless of the quality of the contest) and treat each other with kindness. Thanks!
As for my performance, I solved the first two problems relatively quickly within a ten-minute time frame. Afterwards, I looked at problems C and D and didn’t have many ideas about them. I tried problem D for a while, only to get stuck and think that it was a vague brute-force problem. It actually wasn’t, because you could consider the rearrangements of the digits 
Looking at my rating graph, it doesn’t seem like much improvement score-wise (1245->1287) within a year. However, I believe that my intuition and experience with algorithmic problems have improved. My experience on Codeforces this year was filled with many twists and turns. I’ve learned a lot of things about practice efficiency and coding. But I’m still going to keep going and enjoy competitive programming while high school lasts. Nope, not for the college applications (most of it, at least).
At the very least, I’ve had a lot of fun participating in these contests and doing problems. Grinding a ton of problems has nurtured my problem-solving skills. I’ve also learned many lessons. Big thing? Quantity does not imply quality.
Despite my rating graph, I believe that this is not in vain. All those hours doing problems, and slowly learning, developing, and adjusting my internal model will someday be put to good use (not limited to programming). All the sweat and tears in advancing my Codeforces rating and ultimately my computing abilities. Wasted – not. This experience was worth it, and I enjoyed the problems.
You know what? I’m not a quitter.
I keep going.
Goodbye, 2023. Hello, 2024.