Full disclosure: I’m uploading this on June 30, 10:20 pm, but because I’d like to pretend I’m responsible and actually write my journal on the right date, I’ve edited the publication date to June 4. This is the first time I’ve picked up journal writing since around two years ago because MOP is just SO EXCITING!!!!!
I’m going to MOP today! MOP is the Math Olympiad Program, where sixty students from around America are brought together to do math and chill. Six students every year are chosen to be on next year’s IMO team. The IMO, or the International Math Olympiad, is basically the biggest math competition in the world.
My brother attended MOP in 2016 and 2017, as an eighth and ninth grader, because he’s big-brained like that. I honestly never expected to get in—this is the first year I’ve even taken USAMO, which is kind of the preliminary test for MOP. When I got the email informing me that I’d been invited to MOP, I went and hugged my friends, hopped a few times in excitement, and then sat down again. Of course, because I was in history class, I did all this without saying a word to preserve the sanctity of the silence (though granted, I usually don’t preserve any such sanctity), so my friends were all very confused. They were like, “Sophie, what the heck are you doing?”
So yeah, I’M GOING TO MOP!!!!!!!!! I started packing, like, a week early, just because I was so excited to get going!
Anyway, I just got on the plane (8:16 PM). I’ll be meeting up with another girl going to MOP at SFO and then we’ll be going to Pittsburgh!!! It’s kinda thrilling, kinda freaaky because MOP is like, the ideal, the end goal, the everything (for, you know, HS mathletes, which is a very small group of people, but whatever, it’s still GREAT!). And now I’m GOING!!!!!
“ The IMO, or the International Math Olympiad, is basically the biggest math competition in the world.”
isn’t math kangaroo even bigger than IMO?