Competitive Programming

I first started Competitive Programming when I was in Grade 6. Since then I have solved over 1976 coding problems and competed in 74 competitions. It has been a love-hate relationship: I love the moment when an unprecedented insight hits me out of nowhere—I remember during a competition I was so exhausted that I laid down on my couch and the moment I relaxed, the solution came to me! But I am also stubborn, so I stay on problems for far too long. I would spend hours thinking about problems, think about them on the way to school, in the shower, while working out—it became a near obsession. Then, wanting to share my interest in programming (and because it seemed fun), I uploaded videos of my programming tutorials and competitions online. I made editorials for the Canadian Computing Olympiad, USACO, and other online contests. There were no other videos on the internet that were explaining these problems so I felt I had to do it. Through making these videos I practiced my skill for presentation and I found out I love to teach!