Again it's 6:00 am ...

i'm saying : "es7o ylla 3shan 3wzen nnzl nftar we ntla3 bsor3a nktb sf7et el math fe el library"

they woke up .. my hand is in bad state so i didn't participate in writing ..

we finished writing it then attached it to our library (3 typical versions)

We were late so we took the last Bus - which wait every last person to go .. so we arrived at the end of the talk of Bill Boucher (the executive director of ACM ICPC World Finals)

he was very funny -- if you forgot your ID so you have to do 10 "d3't" and he has to put his shoes on your t-shirt

one of the judges forgot his ID and he had to do so :D

it's dress rehearsal time (Practice session - like a demo contest with real problems so they can test the Contest environment)

Some rules you have to hear .. i heard But the funny thing that the speaker was Bill Boucher and he is so funny

one thing he said :"you have to be here with your t-shirt as outer layer and your badge - Don't bring any other thing"

so contestants asked them and he said "you can of course have your glasses and your totem also"

again contestants asked him about pants :D and he said " it's not important the most important thing is your badge and your t-shirt so if you don't want to wear pants :D you don't have too, But some marshals(runners) may not like that :D"

it's 9:30 am, it's the time to start the practice contest ... we started to solve and we managed to finish the three problems we had .. and got a good rank

we were happy for our performance and Dr.Salwa & our coach started to believe that we are gonna make a new achievement in the real contest

After the rehearsal(12:00 pm) we went to have our lunch at the university dining hall (the same place as the previous day)

From 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm there was "IBM Fun Activities"

it was a very funny activities they told us that every team will have to finish some games.

this activity was consist of 3 levels:

The first level is solving easy sudoku and making 4 cars .. of small peaces they gave to us (as my hand was not well i took the sudoku and they took the cars .. after i finished my suduko i was helping them in making these 4 cars)

The second level (after finishing the first) solving medium sudoku and making a horse toy and another big toy too ( i solved the sudoku and then helped them)

after that,

The Third level: solving Hard sudoku and making a real bicycle :D -- again i solved the sudoku and tried to help then on the bicycle

We finished all three levels and moved to "IBM Technology show case"

during the "IBM show case" they held a contest between all continent - a strange contest they chose from every continent contestants 5 so they could represent their continent and i was selected in the team of EuroAfrica.

The questions was strange "i.e. telling a story then asking what is the expected number of cars that will be in china in 2020"

we were close to win but we didn't - it finished with score 4:3:1 (our team was 3)

After that we went back to our hotel, have our dinner -- watched the ICPC challenge Finals

then went to our room so we could sleep.

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it's again 6:00 am - the ICPC world finals day.

it was a very strange day ... none of us was in good mood and we all lost our concentration.

we never did that bad in a contest - we participated as a team together in more than 60 contests But that was the strangest - problems were easy but we didn't manage to solve more than one problem (i think if we were in form we would solve 5-6 problems in this contest)

strange situation that in the contest we faced a problem that we have solved one like it before - But during the contest we couldn't - after the contest finished (on the same minute we said the solution was "Grid Compression") that was strange .. But "thanks Allah i'm sure that is the best for us"

after the contest i wasn't in mood, i didn't know how could i look in my coaches face. But i believed that our real level qualify us to solve more than 5 problems and that was because Allah doesn't want us to do that and that was the best for us to do so. so i said "el7mdllah" and moved on.

At the end of this day there was closing ceremony it has great shows and i enjoyed it.

Here we are,

The third day was full of actions.

it was the opening day of the World Finals.

the schedule is full, we managed to participate on all events (coach & Dr.Salwa asked us not to.. )

.. as usual the day started by waking up at 7:00 am to have our breakfast ... then we had to go quickly to our rooms to wear the heavy clothes to start the activities

at 8:00 am the buses started to move to HEU (Harbin Engineering University)

at 8:30 am the opening ceremony had started, first they introduced all the teams, they sorted all the teams then introduced them on the stage-after the introducing every team moved to the seats (they gave us a map to the hall which show where is our seats)

then the ceremony started, i liked the 12 girls bands too much, it was a great experience to see Chinese art (live)

the ceremony lasts two hours after that we have to move to the library team area so we know our place in the contest and get our t-shirts and hear some rules :D

while i was in my way to the team area, i was walking with the coach's mother because her shoes was not prepared to walk on ice .. But unfortunately she fall and take my hand with her, so my hand got hurt (2 times)

we moved to the contest area .. and took our t-shirts then went to the dining hall to have our lunch - one of the strangest launches i had ever had .. (let the pictures describe it instead of me)

it's now 1:30 pm and we have to go to ICPC snow Park so we start the activity of the ICPC snow sculpture

ICPC snow sculpture : it's a competition which the teams compete to make the best letter in the sentence " ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest Harbin Engineering University "

they assign each letter to 2 teams, so we had to work with North Texas university to make the letter 'L'

we managed to make it like L of titres game and worked for around 3 hours in it :D, i think we made a good one (judge it from the pictures)

- I worked to hard and forced my hand to work, so after this activity my hand was hurting me too much

We had to go back to the hotel have our dinner then go to the ICE SCULPTURE ( i have seen many pictures about it so i really wanted to see it)

BUT :S:S

my hand was hurting me too much .. i started to ask about first aid in the hotel but they were helpless .. they told me to go to the hospital to do X-Ray to now either it's fine or not

i told them it's not broken , i know But they said that i must go to the hospital and told me to take a taxi to the hospital ... Amr & Sadek let the buses too and offered to go with me to the hospital - i was so sad that i'm not going to attend the ice sculpture

Thanks to Allah we found a student (i can't pronounce his name so i'll call him M) who worked as a reporter for the university he was soo helpful and he went with us to the hospital and deal with the doctors and helped us too much

I had the X-ray and the doctor told me that my hand is not broken - i just has to put a medicine and relax it for 2 weeks ( he is kidding the contest is after tomorrow , that's what i told my self)

then M take the name of the medicine and bought it to us and bought also a bandage and we took a taxi to the hotel again..

It was 9:30 pm, the buses left the hotel at 8:30 and they will be back at 10:00 pm

M offered us to take a taxi to the ice sculpture and he will go with us and guide us there so we can see as much as we can.

So we take a taxi and went, it was around 9:50 and we are there he told us that we have 30 mins to play :D and we enjoyed this 30 minutes as much as we could, we thanked him lot then take the buses to hotel again.

We were very tired so once we reached our rooms we fall asleep.

sorry for not keeping you updated day by day ..

But the blogger doesn't work on china and i couldn't find chance to do as i did on the first topic.

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I'm back now (home sweet home) but i'll complete this dairy so i'll now talk about day2 in Harbin

This day was amazing we wakeup early at 6:00 am as we have to have our breakfast - it was a good breakfast i had (salad, bread, cake, noodles, tea & apple juice)

(kol shwya w7da tege t2olna "coffee or tea :D" mrra a2ol tea we mrra coffee :D + kanet b2a kaman btege t2olna "excuse me" fa a2om ana rage3 lwra t2om hya tfrsh el mndel 3la rgle 3shan mw23sh 3la hdome hehe)

after the breakfast we moved quickly to our suite :) then my team mates went back to sleep but i couldn't so i wrote my first blog topic (day1) then @ 12:01 pm we went to the dining hall to have our lunch (start to have strange things :s i tried sushi :s and it's very very bad - so i decided not to eat sea food there

After that we changed our clothes wear the ice clothes and moved to the bus (elcoach mrdesh yege m3ana)

It was a trip to the snow sculpture

Harbin has the biggest and the best snow sculpture in the world

That was very new to me to see snow what about seeing that huge amounts and extraordinary beautiful shapes made out of snow :D - it was a great experience that i had.

the problem we had this day that the camera's battery didn't last more than 30 minutes i don't know why exactly but it seems that this extremely cold weather ( this day it was -35) affect the battery of the camera, but because there were many wonderful views i started to use my mobile camera, i'll not talk about what happened there but i'll let the pictures talk :D

After that we decided to enter a coffee shop to get some warm :D - but it was a very wrong decision after we went out again ... it was soooo cold -- we just had a hot drink so we are warm inside but it's very cold outside so we decided to go to the bus (it was around 5:00 pm) and we was very tired...

the buses took us to the hotel (Shangri La) we changed our clothes then went to the dinner hall we had a strange dinner (strange chicken and beef ... also i ate noodles - Amr ate "ghazl el bnat") and there was a the snow sculpture orientation (they explained to us what should we do in the next day and what is the letter will our team made of snow next day)

That was a very hard day - i was soo exhausted so once we went to our suite i fall asleep

hello , long time no posts

but you know i have been doing my best in ACM training last 2 months "ya rab yege fyda"

I have decided to blog every day of this wonderful trip to share with you my joy and happiness.

So lets start with the (longest trip i have ever made)

31/1/2010

my flight was @ 10:30 pm Cairo time - i have to go early because there is a match between egypt and Ghana (caf) . so i left my home @ 6:00 pm (the match starting time) and i reached the airport @ 7:15 pm then started to meet my team - quickly we went to the counter and .......

it's 11:00 pm Cairo time (in the plane) - i tried to sleep i couldn't .. sadek is sleeping and amr is talking with dr. Salwa

1/2/2010

it's 8:00 am Cairo time- still i can't sleep and amr and Dr.Salwa still talking :D - i swapped the seats with sadek to be beside the window - the view is wonderful

it's 9:00 am Cairo time (3:00 pm @china) we have arrived to Beijing we claimed our Baggages then we went to get our tickets for the next flight (air china flight) and i have lost my jacket :'( "it was new and it was very thick, i have bought to wear in Harbin"

our flight to Harbin is @ 6:10 pm - so we have to wait -- we take a tour in the airport which was soo cool

we found a water and coffee machine i liked this machine very much as it has cups made of paper

you take the paper and you can put the water in it :D - i insisted to take a picture w in front of it

then we move to the gate and i have slept about 1 hour

it's 6:30 pm - in the plane going to Harbin .. "kolo bytklm sene" their English is very bad

the even the tv was in Chinese and all the channels was also in Chinese "D:

then they came with the food ... asked us what do you want " 7aga da ghreba Or noodles with chicken" so we all take noodles :D

it was very very bad meal .. i was hungry i ate all the noodles but could't eat the salad "kan t3mha ghreb"

we have arrived .. then we took our baggages then (my bags' hand had been broken :S) "yade el nella"

we are soo late and the registration will end @ 10:00 pm - it's now 8:30 pm

we have to go quickly to the hotel we have many bags and we can't take them all with us and the bus will move @ 12 pm - so we took a van with (240 RMB = around 200 L.E) and i went (with amr) to outside the airport to put the bags on the Bus

it was -25 C -- it was soo cold and i was freezing ( no jacket - only ice-cap, sweatshirt and scarf)

we felt like some body with no ears and fingers -- and also the floor with was very slippery because of ice - and my glasses were full of "shbora"

it was a very exciting painful and funny minutes we had(me and amr) - but they passed :D

then we moved to the van and went to the hotel - we were in a rush as it was 9:30 pm and we had only 30 minutes to complete our registration.

after the registration we went to the rooms then "Fan" (Chinese volunteer) knocked the door, to tell us that our bags had arrived so i went with her to outside (this time i was only wear the sweet shirt no gloves and no ice-cap and no scarf) other painful moments - but they also passed.

it was a great day full of fun and painful moments.

PS: Thanks to manaal for letting me to write my blog on her pc (blogger ma2fool fe china!!!)