10/11/2024

We've got some life updates!

As you should (hopefully) know by now, I am very focused on competitive programming at the moment. However, I've got a big side project: BT Young Scientists, and potentially Scifest. While it's completely different from my path of life, my great friend Amélie conviced me to work on a BT project with her. We're calling it "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Manosphere: The Mental Health effects of Adolescent Boys aged 13-18", and if you haven't guessed already, our project shows our research on how teenage boys are affected by content which sets a certain stereotype or image of men and women. For example, Andrew Tate would be a content creator who believes that yes, men are the superior sex, and all that kind of jazz. What am I doing though? Well, I'm so glad you asked! I'm making an extension which blocks this kind of content from appearing on your feed. For now, this only checks keywords, therefore some educational content may be blocked, but it works for the project idea! It also is a Chrome-only extension, but if we'll do well, I plan to develop it further, for more web browsers and to do better checks for this content! Also, I know this is a shameless plug, but please please please do our BT survey right here! That would be so appreciated, you've got no idea!

Onto the bigger question - how did EGOI go? Well, I scored a grand total of 62 points, which isn't a lot, but I'm grateful I got such a massive opportunity! It was an absolutely wonderful experience - I quite literally met hundreds of girls like me from all around the world, and that my friend, isn't something I ever thought I could experience. If someone told me last year that this actually does happen to me, and that I actually managed to score points in EGOI, well, I would have laughed. When I flew back home, the entire week felt like a dream, to be honest. I was just in the Netherlands without my parents, doing an international competition which only 4 people from each country get picked. Yet somehow, I was that person, doing that competition, and doing somewhat well. And now, since then, I've been practicing non-stop. I'm back in UCC, which actually became a little too easy for me, compared to what I have been practicing. I also took extra classes for two hours every week. I accidentally found this guy on Codeforces which does tutoring for CP, so I thought I would give it a shot. 1 month later, he's an awesome tutor, and I'm honestly seeing an improvement in the speed I can solve and understand problems, so could there be a potential medal for next year's EGOI? Who knows... (also, please enjoy the snazzy new layout I made for the website - much less messy, right?)