----------------------------------------THE STREAK ------------------------------------- I don't know why I have an obsession with streaks I just ended my 303 streak yesterday. I kind of forced my streak especially after it got to 100 days. (my goal was 365 but I solved 380 problems so I guess it was a half success) Felt bad for a minute, but quickly realized that I just "freed" myself.

During my 303 day streak I was probably solving easy problems 80%+ of the time (or perhaps ALL of the problems I solved are very easy for some people here)

-------------------------- here are the gains/losses -------------------------------------------- to wrap it all up: I improved my speed (reading problem statementsn & implementation)

Basically EVERYTHING ELSE would have been better if I did just 2 hard problems each week.

At least I learned something from this experience: I'm a friggin*****(who wants to play wordle lol)

ANYWAYS I hope that nobody would do this dumb thing like me and waste their time on a streak

instead of doing more fun and challenging stuff

(or maybe everyone else is smart enough to figure that out and I'm just slow asf)

------------------------------------------- below is a goofy ahh personal story ----- -------------------------------------

Anyways, I did some Usaco problems lately and felt that they are very different from the easy problems I did (even in bronze division). They require less knowledge but more thinking. Even though sometimes I feel stupid (maybe I'm right lol), the process of solving these puzzles made me rekindle my interest in problem solving. (something I feel like I ditched after middle school ...)

The major I'm going for is not rly related to cs/math, but I enjoy solving those puzzles even if I'm not good at them.

As a high school student living in China, I got like 0% chance of going to any kind of chinese high school olympiads. This means I'm probably at a disadvantage in terms of applications because i spend time doing many things not related to class work and my college major.

CP likely might have nothing to do with my future career.

Still, I think solving puzzles are often very fun and something I can keep doing without getting bored.

I think solving these puzzles is as fun if not more as playing games (My favorite game is: this GOATED CRICKET GAME)