Sun 30 Sep - Mon 1 Oct
Following a rushed packing and breakfast, we jumped onto the bus at 0730 for a 2 hour ride to Malpensa Airport (Milan). Most people slept, others talked (I caught up on NCIS). We boarded our flight to Abu Dhabi. Upon arrival, we were told that our following flight was delayed by an hour. This was not a problem, however, as we had free WiFi. After another 14 hours, we were back home in Sydney and met with family.
It was a fun IOI. On the whole, it was a great experience. For Goldy, Nic and I, it feels as if we've been training for 3 years to get to this stage, so it is a happy/sad feeling of it all being over. We've made some great friends at the IOI some that we may keep for a very long time.
I'd like to thank everyone who has supported us (friends, family and tutors), especially Jarrah and Chris, our team leaders, for a sensational experience over the last 2 weeks, both training and competing. It certainly has taken up much of their time (and their sleep) and for this I am ever-grateful.
We now look forward to the year ahead. The AIO is over, and results are yet to be released (pinging bgbn). It will be a long and hard process once again, but for many of us in Australian Informatics programme, we will aspire to qualify to represent Australia at the next IOI in Brisbane.
If you are reading this blog, and have an interest in computing and/or want to get into informatics contact either Jarrah or Chris or our (unofficial) IRC channel (#aioc on irc.freenode.net) and we'll try and get you involved. It's a life changing experience and definitely worthwhile. I will never, ever, ever forget or regret doing informatics. And hopefully, you never will too.
Following a rushed packing and breakfast, we jumped onto the bus at 0730 for a 2 hour ride to Malpensa Airport (Milan). Most people slept, others talked (I caught up on NCIS). We boarded our flight to Abu Dhabi. Upon arrival, we were told that our following flight was delayed by an hour. This was not a problem, however, as we had free WiFi. After another 14 hours, we were back home in Sydney and met with family.
It was a fun IOI. On the whole, it was a great experience. For Goldy, Nic and I, it feels as if we've been training for 3 years to get to this stage, so it is a happy/sad feeling of it all being over. We've made some great friends at the IOI some that we may keep for a very long time.
I'd like to thank everyone who has supported us (friends, family and tutors), especially Jarrah and Chris, our team leaders, for a sensational experience over the last 2 weeks, both training and competing. It certainly has taken up much of their time (and their sleep) and for this I am ever-grateful.
We now look forward to the year ahead. The AIO is over, and results are yet to be released (pinging bgbn). It will be a long and hard process once again, but for many of us in Australian Informatics programme, we will aspire to qualify to represent Australia at the next IOI in Brisbane.
If you are reading this blog, and have an interest in computing and/or want to get into informatics contact either Jarrah or Chris or our (unofficial) IRC channel (#aioc on irc.freenode.net) and we'll try and get you involved. It's a life changing experience and definitely worthwhile. I will never, ever, ever forget or regret doing informatics. And hopefully, you never will too.
Thanks for blogging and well done to everyone!
ReplyDelete(from an old hand who you have probably never heard of...)