Hi all! I am so sorry that this blog hasn’t been updated for long, it just because I have been too busy with my study and some major exams including 49th IMO, International Mathematical Olympiad, from 13th to 22nd July 2008, in Spain and a recent High School final exam from 4th to 6th August 2008.
After a long flight for about a day, all Cambodian team members finally reach Madrid, Spain on 14th night. During the stay in Spain for about a week, I faced many new things and got both sweet and bitter taste of life.
To begin with what I gain from that, I met many people around the world, even math genius! Furthermore, I made friends with many students from various countries including China, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, both south and North Korea, and many other nations. I have learned a lot from them, and we even share some souvenirs with each other. However, I think I should have made more friends and gotten more email contacts since I don’t think there is another opportunity for me to join next IMO. In addition, everyone was in the party just after the exams and dance together along with many rock songs which was another new taste of life that I had never done before. What’s a surprise thing was football competition, all students were together to compete another competition besides math. Playing sports usually the best way to gather people together and strengthen the friendship between people. Unfortunately, there was not enough for the final match! :(
Regarding my participation on behalf of a Cambodian contestant in 49th IMO in Spain, it was the bittiest experience ever in my life, I know that most people was expecting me getting at least Bronze medal back, but what’s an ashamed performance! I can’t believe that I did such an embarrassing thing, 5pts/42, in my dream goal since I started to focus on outstanding mathematics in the early of 2002... I just let Cambodian mathematics image down! God, I should have done much better! I should have raise up my national prestige! What I learned for 6 years was just a waste in a few seconds! Everything about Math is over to me! Sorry all my friends, teachers, family, supporters and all Cambodian citizens. But I WILL do all my best in the future, I WILL try to keep our national prestige high as possible, I promise.
Though the competition drove me upset for long, but I think this is a huge experience for my life which I must learn from; I believe that this experience will make me stronger in the future! Actually, NO ONE IS PERFECT! And also NO ONE can always be successful! There is a phrase stated that “The most successful person is the person who face failure the most, and be dare to correct it!” Meanwhile, Mr. Honda, who had been considered as one of the most successful person, said his success is only 1% of his try! In this way, to become a successful, he had faced many failures and he had tried to correct his mistakes steps by steps! So I will try to correct my mistakes and join the future competitions.
Well, in order to take part in the development of Cambodian mathematics, I together with students who love mathematics have decided to publish a math book which will be all about the key strategies for solving math problems, especially for outstanding student competitions and Olympiad competition. I think the book will release in about 2 months, we are trying to make it sooner with high quality. Well, we are also working on book’s name; I will appreciate if you leave some suggestions regarding the Name of the book. Actually, my main goal of the publication of the book is to encourage Cambodian students to focus on math and to work hard on it! I strongly believe that new Cambodian Mathematics Generation will win gold medal in Olympiad type competitions both regional and international in a soon future.
Note: If you know other IMO contestants contact, please send those to my email directly, thanks in advance
