I'm Neal Wu, 14 years old, and I've just finished the 9th grade.
This is my first year participating in USACO, so it's also my first
year at the training camp. I go to Baton Rouge Magnet High and live
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

My first programming language was either TI-Basic, which I learned
sometime in middle school, but only enough to create simple math
programs (such as calculating the quadratic formula), or Pascal,
which I learned by taking a class in 8th grade; I'm not completely
sure which was first. I didn't learn much Pascal, though, but I
took a C++ class in school this year, which was my first encounter
with the language. I don't remember how I was introduced to USACO,
but the October contest from this year was the first contest I
participated in. Later, after learning more C++ in school (before,
I did not even know what arrays were), I started working on the
Training pages more, and greatly improved. In January I qualified
for the Gold division, and since then I have been participating in
USACO Gold contests and was excited to find out later that I had
qualified for the USACO training camp.

I will be taking Java in school next year, but I will probably stick
with C++ for most purposes (especially in programming contests).

I also am a member of TopCoder, and I just got back from the TopCoder
High School (TCHS) Tournament, where I placed 4th overall. At TCHS
I even met several other people who also participated in the USACO
contests.

Aside from programming, I also participate in math competitions,
and I will be attending MOP this year. I have also been in a few
local spelling bees, and I play the violin, though I haven't practiced
much recently.

. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone at camp.