Well, this girl in my physics class really has a thing for me, so now, I have no idea what to do… how do I balance my time between a girl (that I like btw), and the ultimate goal of making the UK IMO team in 2014?… You know? I’m prepared to take a gap year and work 18 hours a day to achieve this goal, and a girl will only take time and effort away from my dream, and ruin my plans of ever making any good contributions in mathematics. If you are reading this, then just know that I have nothing against you. Have to light my fire now, sorry, one cannot become great without making sacrifices, and one has to understand that many of the great mathematicians and physicists of the past centuries and the present day didn’t achieve what they did by possessing some sort of magical ‘genius gene’ that allowed them to churn important proofs and theorems by turning a handle, but instead, by working hard each and every day, and having the patience and determination to continue working hard every single day of their lives. They all had a goal in mind, and set out to achieve that goal… some of them burnt out or retired after accomplishing their mission, their life long ambition, while others simply moved on to new goals and territories to cover. I don’t belive in talent, or genius, just hard work and dedication to whatever it is you want, but the ‘want’ has to be HUGE, and the work you put in has to be proportional to how much you want that thing. This is one of my more deep, insightful posts about myself. To anyone reading this, I’d just like to wish you good luck in achieving your goals, because I know what it feels like to want something so bad, then to realise there are no shortcuts or smooth sunny highways, just hard work and continuation can get you there. So yeah, you want to do something, cut the shit, and actually start working towards it, and no matter how far up you reach, always stay humble and remember the people who helped you get there, especially the ones who believed in you from the start. (: