Baylor Challenge Course Release Forms: Fill & Download for Free

Most comprehensive list ever.List of Lists☆NameDescription★★★Good Blog Post Resources about Algorithm and Data Structures — CodeforcesA collection of fantastic tutorial blog posts written by Codeforces users. Some intriguing ones include Palindromic Trees, Policy Based Data Structures, and a lot more.★★★Data Structures and Algorithms — CodeChef DiscussA very complete list of competitive programming resources. A must-have in your browser bookmark.★★★How to prepare for ACM — ICPC? — GeeksforGeeksA detailed walk-through of the preparations for ACM-ICPC.SyllabusesFind out what topics you need to learn.☆NameDescription★★★IOI SyllabusA detailed syllabus on which IOI contestants will be tested. This is still somewhat relevant to ACM-ICPC.★★★How to prepare for ACM — ICPC? — GeeksforGeeksA detailed walk-through of the preparations for ACM-ICPC.★★☆Programming Camp SyllabusA list of important topics in competitive programming with exercise problems.★★☆Juniors Training Sheet, by Mostafa Saad IbrahimSimple problems for newcomersTutorial WebsitesAwesome websites with great tutorials.☆NameDescription★★★Topcoder Data Science TutorialsA list of tutorials written by respected Topcoder members. Many top programmers started learning data sciences from here.★★★E-Maxx (Russian), (English)A tutorial website widely used and referenced in the Russian-speaking competitive programming community. Only a small fraction of the original site is translated into English, but Google Translate would work okay.★★☆Algorithms — GeeksforGeeksA website with a large archive of nicely written articles on different topics. It is a great complimentary resource for algorithm courses.★★☆PEGWikiA website with amazing in-depth wiki-like writeups on many topics. It's far better than those on Wikipedia in my opinion.★★☆Notes — HackerEarthA great crowdsourcing platform for tutorials. Also visit Code Monk.★★☆USA Computing Olympiad (USACO)Contains several training pages on its website which are designed to develop one's skills in programming solutions to difficult and varied algorithmic problems at one's own pace.★★☆basecsA blog with in-depth, illustrated tutorials on basic algorithms and data structures.★★☆Competitive Programming — CommonloungeShort video tutorials for beginner and intermediate concepts. Advanced tutorials selected from the best ones available on various CP blogs.★☆☆OLYMPIADS IN INFORMATICSAn international journal focused on the research and practice of professionals who are working in the field of teaching and learning informatics to talented student.★☆☆algolist (Russian)A Russian website devoted to algorithms of all sorts. Some topics listed on this website seems pretty interesting.★★☆演算法筆記 (Algorithm Notes) (Chinese)One of the most popular tutorial websites among the Taiwanese competitive programming community. The maintainer for this website spends immense efforts on researching algorithms.★★☆国家集训队论文 1999-2015 (Papers from Chinese IOI training camps) (Chinese)Papers from the Chinese IOI training camps. It's interesting for the fact that one can tell different regions emphasize different things.Open CoursesConsider beginning your competitive programming journey with these awesome courses!☆NameDescription★★☆Code Monk, by HackerEarthA fantastic step-by-step tutorial on the essential topics in competitive programming.★★★Stanford CS 97SI: Introduction to Competitive Programming ContestsOffers comprehensive lecture slides and a short list of exercise problems.★★☆How to Win Coding Competitions: Secrets of ChampionsA course by ITMO University on competitive coding on edX.★★☆Codechef's Indian Programming CampVideo Lectures from Codechef's Indian Programming Camp 2016. Lectures given by top competitive programmers like Sergey Kulik, Kevin Charles Atienza and Anudeep Nekkanti. Primarily focused on exploring these concepts by applying them to actual competitive contest problems.★★☆Reykjavik T-414-ÁFLV: A Competitive Programming CourseAn awesome course taught by Bjarki Ágúst Guðmundsson (SuprDewd). These lectures feature neat slides and a nice list of problems to practice.★★☆NCTU DCP4631: Problem Solving and Programming TechniquesA course on basic topics featuring good lecture slides.★☆☆Materials (English) from Arabic Competitive Programming ChannelSome materials (slides & source codes) covering a broad range of algorithmic topicsOpen Courses for Algorithms and Data Structures☆NameDescription★★★prakhar1989/awesome-courses#algorithmsA fantastic list of open courses offered by notable institutions (MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley ... etc.).★★★MIT SMA 5503: Introduction to AlgorithmsLectured by Prof. Charles Leiserson (one of the coauthors of Introduction to Algorithms) and Prof. Erik Demaine (a brilliant professor who has made remarkable breakthroughs in data science), the course offers great materials, accompanied by intuitive and comprehensive analyses.★★☆UIUC Algorithm Courselecture notes, homeworks, exams, and discussion problems covering a broad range of algorithmic topicsBooksA list of recommended books for competitive programming.☆NameDescription★★☆Competitive Programming, by Steven and Felix HalimThis book contains a collection of relevant data structures, algorithms, and programming tips. It's a well-received book. ... The first edition is free for download (pdf).★★☆Programming Challenges: The Programming Contest Training Manual, by Steven Skiena and Miguel RevillaThis book includes more than 100 programming challenges, as well as the theory and key concepts necessary for approaching them. Problems are organized by topic, and supplemented by complete tutorial material.★★☆Competitive Programmer's Handbook, by Antti Laaksonen (pllk)An introduction to competitive programming for aspiring IOI and ICPC contestants. Free to download (pdf).★★★Looking for a Challenge, written by a group of authors associated with the Polish OlympiadsMost of the problems described in the book are really hard but they are explained in such a way that even beginners can understand. It appears to be out of stock (as of Aug, 2016), but you can reserve one on their official website.★★☆Computational Geometry: Algorithms and Applications, by Mark de Berg, Otfried Cheong, Marc van Kreveld, Mark OvermarsThis is a well-written book which covers a broad range of computational geometry problems.★☆☆The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Programming Contests, by Nite NimajnebThis book is free for download (pdf). This book covers various topics relevant to competitive programming.★★★プログラミングコンテストチャレンジブック (Japanese), by 秋葉拓哉, 岩田陽一, 北川宜稔An absolutely phenomenal book. The contents, organized in a very coherent manner, are nothing short of amazing. ... 培養與鍛鍊程式設計的邏輯腦：世界級程式設計大賽的知識、心得與解題分享 (Chinese Traditional)★★☆算法竞赛入门经典 (Chinese), by 刘汝佳The Art of Algorithms and Programming Contests (English), 打下好基礎：程式設計與演算法競賽入門經典 (Chinese Traditional)★★☆算法竞赛入门经典——训练指南 (Chinese), by 刘汝佳, 陈锋提升程式設計的解題思考力─國際演算法程式設計競賽訓練指南 (Chinese Traditional)★★★算法艺术与信息学竞赛 (Chinese), by 刘汝佳, 黄亮An old-time classic. It's old but the contents in this book are still considered to be very difficult by today's standards.Books for Algorithms☆NameDescription★★★Introduction to Algorithms, by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest and Clifford SteinAlso known as CLRS (taken from name initials), this book is often referred to as the "bible" for algorithms and data structures. It's one of the most popular textbooks for university algorithm courses. This book covered various algorithms and data structures in great detail. The writing is more rigorous and can be difficult to some.★★☆Algorithm Design, by Jon Kleinberg and Éva TardosThis book revolves around techniques for designing algorithms. It's well-organized and written in a clear, understandable language. Each chapter is backed with practical examples and helpful exercises. The chapter on network flow is highly praised by lots. ... The lecture slides that accompany the textbook are available on its official website.★★☆The Algorithm Design Manual, by Steven S. SkienaThe book is written in more readable text. Some find it comprehensive than other books. You can also find some good resources (including the author's own video lectures) on its official website.★★★Algorithms, by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin WayneThis book is neatly categorized, coupled with elaborate explanations and fantastic illustrations. It is used in some IOI training camps as a textbook.Books for Mathematics☆NameDescription★★☆Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, by Kenneth H. RosenDiscrete Mathematics is closely relevant to competitive programming. This book provides comprehensive materials on a wide range of topics including: Logics and Proofs, Sets, Functions, Sequences, Matrices, Number Theory, Recursion, Counting, Probablity, Graphs, Trees and Boolean Alegra to name but a few.★★☆Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science, by Ronald L. Graham, Donald E. Knuth, Oren PatashnikThe book offers a deeper insight into Discrete Mathematics with more emphases on number-related topics.★★☆Linear Algebra and Its Applications, by David C. Lay, Steven R. Lay, Judi J. McDonaldThe book does a brilliant job at bridging the gap between a physical system (for scientists and engineers) and an abstract system (for mathematicians).★★☆Introduction to Probability, by Charles M. Grinstead, J. Laurie SnellThis is a well-written introductory probabilities book. ... It's free for download (pdf) (released under GNU Free Documentation License).★★☆How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method, by G. PolyaAn old-time classic. In this book, the author provides a systematic way to solve problems creatively.Sites for PracticeGood online judge systems / contest platforms to practice.☆NameDescription★★★CodeforcesCodeforces is one of, if not, the most popular contest platforms out there. Currently maintained by Saratov State University, it features regular contests and countless awesome original problems. Additionally, every contest provides immediate helpful tutorials (usually) written by the authors themselves. Codeforces also houses a strong and engaging community. All in all, one would indeed learn and improve tremendously here.★★★TopcoderTopcoder has been around since 2001. Rich in history, It's considered to be one of the most prestigious organizations when it comes to technology competitions. Hundreds of SRMs gave birth to an abundant problemset. Problems here are typically more challenging than others and Topcoder therefore appeals to many elite programmers. The annual Topcoder Open (TCO) is also a widely-discussed event.★★★Google Code JamGoogle Code Jam is certainly one of the most highly-esteemed programming competitions. The competition consists of unique programming challenges which must be solved in a fixed amount of time. Competitors may use any programming language and development environment to obtain their solutions.★★☆CodeChefCodeChef is a non-profit educational initiative of Directi. It's a global competitive programming platform and has a large community of programmers that helps students and professionals test and improve their coding skills. Its objective is to provide a platform for practice, competition and improvement for both students and professional software developers. Apart from this, it aims to reach out to students while they are young and inculcate a culture of programming in India.★★★SPOJThe SPOJ platform is centered around an online judge system. It holds a staggering amount of problems prepared by its community of problem setters or taken from previous programming contests, some of which are great problems for practice (refer to the Problem classifiers section). SPOJ also allows advanced users to organize contests under their own rules.★★☆TimusTimus Online Judge is the largest Russian archive of programming problems with automatic judging system. Problems are mostly collected from contests held at the Ural Federal University, Ural Championships, Ural ACM ICPC Subregional Contests, and Petrozavodsk Training Camps.★☆☆HDUHDU is an online judge maintained by Hangzhou Dianzi University. It's home to many classic problems from the Chinese IOI scene.★★★AtCoderAtCoder is a new but phenomenal contest platform created by a team of highly-rated Japanese competitive programmers.★★☆Aizu Online JudgeAizu online judge is a contest platform and problem archive hosted by The University of Aizu. It has a lot of great problems from programming competitions in Japan.★★☆UVaAn old-school problem archive / online judge with rich history. Thousands of problems, including many classic ones, are featured here. However, it is strongly advised that you practice with uHunt following its "Competitive Programming Exercise" section.★★☆HackerRankHackerRank is a company that focuses on competitive programming challenges for both consumers and businesses. HackerRank's programming challenges can be solved in a variety of programming languages and span multiple computer science domains.★★☆POJPOJ is an online judge with many great problems maintained by Peking University. Most Chinese competitive programmers began their journey here.★★☆Project EulerProject Euler features a stunning set of good math problems. It also hosts a forum where people can discuss.★☆☆HackerearthHackerEarth is a startup technology company based in Bangalore, India that provides recruitment solutions.★☆☆Caribbean Online JudgeCOJ is hosted by University of Informatics Sciences (UCI, by its acronym in Spanish), located in Cuba. Feature ACM ICPC and Progresive constest styles, mostly from Caribbean and Latin American problem setters, also has problem classifier and contest calendar.★★☆CS AcademyNew in the competitive programming scene, CS Academy is a growing online judge that hosts competitions once every two weeks. It supports live chat, interactive lessons and an integrated online editor (that actually works).★★☆Russian Code CupProgramming competitions powered by Mail.Ru: почта, поиск в интернете, новости, игры Group. Competition consists of 3 qualification, 1 elimination and 1 final rounds. For each round contestants are given 4-8 problems which must be solved in a fixed amount of time.★★☆CodeFightsCodeFights is a website for competitive programming practice and interview preparation. It features daily challenges of varying difficulty, an archive of problems and regular (every 15 minutes) mini-tournaments. Good for beginners.Problem ClassifiersSites classifying programming problems.Choose a category (eg. DP) of interest and practice problems on that topic.☆NameDescription★★★A2 Online JudgeMixed★★★Problem ClassifierSPOJ★★☆UVa Online JudgeCP Book★☆☆Codeforces TagsCF (DP)★★☆HackerRankHackerRank★★☆Juniors Training Sheet, by Mostafa Saad IbrahimSimple problems for newcomers★★☆Lucky貓的 UVA（ACM）園地 (Chinese)UVa★★☆Topcoder problem archiveList of problems with categories and complexity levelsContest CalendarsCalendars for impending programming contests.(Never miss another contest!)☆NameDescription★★★Programming Contest Calendar — HackerRankGoogle Calendar export available★★☆clist.byAPI available for use★★☆Coding Calendar (Android App)★★☆Coder's Calendar: Android App, Chrome Extension, Firefox Add-on★★★CodeHorizon: iOS App, Android AppSites for QuestionsThese are great sites to ask questions.Paste your codes at ideone, pastebin or other sites to avoid formatting issues.☆NameDescription★★★CodeforcesFor quick answers, Codeforces is definitely the go-to place to ask about anything competition-related.★★★Competitive Programming — QuoraYou would typically get more elaborate answers on Quora, but you might not have your questions answered straightaway.★★★Competitive Programming — CommonloungeMost questions get a response in < 30 minutes. Questions can range from beginner simple questions to in-depth questions.★★☆Theoretical Computer Science Stack ExchangeThis place is generally for the academics, so don't ask questions about contest problems here.★★☆Algorithmic Competitive Programming Stack Exchange (proposed)Competitive programming enthusiasts on Stack Exchange are discussing whether to create a new competitive programming Q&A site.ImplementationsAlgorithm & Data structure implementations.☆NameDescription★★★CodeLibrary, by Andrey Naumenko (indy256)CodeLibrary contains a large collection of implementations for algorithms and data structures in Java and C++. You may also visit his GitHub Repository.★★★spaghetti-source/algorithm, by Takanori MAEHARA (@tmaehara)High-quality implementations of many hard algorithms and data structures.★★★kth-competitive-programming/kactl, by Simon Lindholm (simonlindholm) et al.A phenomenally organized, documented and tested team notebook from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. One of the most well-crafted team notebooks (contest libraries) I've ever seen.★★☆jaehyunp/stanfordacmStanford's team notebook is well maintained and the codes within are of high-quality.★★☆ngthanhtrung23/ACM_Notebook_new, by team RR Watameda (I_love_Hoang_Yen, flashmt, nguyenhungtam) from National University of SingaporeRR Watameda represented National University of Singapore for the 2016 ACM-ICPC World Finals. The items in this notebook are pretty standard and well-organized.★★☆bobogei81123/bcw_codebook, by team bcw0x1bd2 (darkhh, bobogei81123, step5) from National Taiwan Universitybcw0x1bd2 represented National Taiwan University for the 2016 ACM-ICPC World Finals. This notebook contains robust implementations for advanced data structures and algorithms.★☆☆foreverbell/acm-icpc-cheat-sheet, by foreverbell (foreverbell)A notebook with some advanced data structures and algorithms including some from the China informatics scene.★☆☆igor's code archive, by Igor Naverniouk (Abednego)A good notebook by Igor Naverniouk who is currently a software engineer at Google and part of the Google Code Jam team.Language SpecificsLanguages and other miscellaneous knowledge.C/C++☆NameDescription★★☆Power up C++ with the Standard Template Library — Topcoder: Part 1, Part 2An introductory tutorial on basic C++ STLs.★★☆Yet again on C++ input/output — CodeforcesLearn more about C++ I/O optimizations.★★☆C++ Tricks — Codeforces ... What are some cool C++ tricks to use in a programming contest? — QuoraPlentiful C++ tricks for competitive programming. Note that some should be used with care.★★★C++ STL: Policy based data structures — Codeforces: Part 1, Part 2Detailed introduction to the extra data structures implemented in GNU C++. The official documentation can be found here.★☆☆C++11 FAQ (English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean)A list of FAQs regarding C++11 collected and written by Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++.Java☆NameDescription★★☆How to read input in Java — tutorial — CodeforcesLearn how to read input faster. This is a must-read for those who intend to use Java for competitive programming★★☆How to sort arrays in Java and avoid TLE — CodeforcesSome tips on how to avoid hitting the worst case of quick sort★★☆BigNum arithmetic in Java — Let's outperform BigInteger! — CodeforcesA basic but faster custom BigInteger class★★☆EZ Collections, EZ Life (new Java library for contests) — CodeforcesA Java library for contests written by Alexey Dergunov (dalex). ArrayList, ArrayDeque, Heap, Sort, HashSet, HashMap, TreeSet, TreeMap, TreeList and pair classes are implementedMiscellaneous☆NameDescription★★★Bit Twiddling HacksA huge compiled list of bit manipulation tricks.★★★Comparing Floating Point Numbers, 2012 Edition — Random ASCIIEverything you need to know about floating point numbers. A must read especially for geometry topics.★★☆Object-Oriented C Style Languages: C++, Objective-C, Java, C# — a side-by-side reference sheetA detailed side-by-side reference sheet for common syntaxes.ToolsAwesome tools that will make your life easier.IDEs☆NamePlatformDescription★★★VimCLI / Cross-PlatformVim is one of the most popular text editors among advanced programmers. It allows text-editing to be done very efficiently with solely keystrokes. Vim is also highly configurable, extensible and integrates with shells (command lines) really well. The only setback about Vim is that it has a high learning curve for beginners.★★★EmacsCLI / Cross-PlatformEmacs is another popular text editor (or development environment to be more precise). The debate on "Vim vs. Emacs" is constantly brought up due to their popularity. Basically Emacs is more than just a text editor. It has plugins like file managers, web browsers, mail clients and news clients that allows users to performs these tasks directly inside Emacs. Emacs is "heavier" because of this, but it arguably has a relatively easier learning curve for beginners.★★★Far ManagerHybrid / WindowsFar Manager is the most widely-used editor in the RU/CIS competitive programming community. It's actually a file manager in its bare bones, but you can install FarColorer — a syntax highlighter plugin to program on it. Properly configured, Far Manager allows you to navigate between files very efficiently while writing your codes.★★★Code::BlocksGUI / Cross-PlatformCode::Blocks is the go-to IDE for C/C++. It's a full-fledged, versatile IDE with numerous great features. Code::Blocks is usually provided along with Vim in programming contests.★★★IntelliJ IDEAGUI / Cross-PlatformIntelliJ IDEA is certainly one of the best IDEs for Java. It's used by most competitive programmers who use Java as their main language. Be sure to check out CHelper, a very handy plugin written for programming contests.★★☆Sublime TextGUI / Cross-PlatformSublime Text is an extraordinary text editor. Packed with powerful and innovative features like Multiple Carets, Minimaps and Command Palletes, it attracts a strong and engaging community. Sublime Text is highly extensible, so be sure to have Package Control installed and explore perhaps one of the largest catalogue of plugins!★★☆EclipseGUI / Cross-PlatformEclipse is another good IDE for Java. It's an okay alternative to Intellij IDEA (A tad inferior to IDEA by today's standards). Sometimes contests only provide Eclipse for some reason, so this might be a good incentive to try and use Eclipse.★★☆CLionGUI / Cross-PlatformCLion, produced by JetBrains — the same company who made Intellij IDEA, is a powerful IDE for C++. Free educational licenses are available OR you can try out their EAP (Early Access Program)which is still free as of Aug, 2016. You may want to turn off its code inspection feature as it will cause quite a bit of lag.★☆☆Other IDEsMixedVisual Studio is the IDE to use in case you want to code in C#, but beware that it will be a 7GB installation. ... Both Atom and Visual Studio Code are built with Electron (written in JavaScript) and therefore somewhat resource-hogging. ... CodeLite is a newly rising IDE. Beware that the load-up and project-creation times can be extraordinary.Personal use☆NameDescription★★★VisuAlgoA website featuring a large collection of visualization tools for algorithms and data structures.★★★General Practice Helpers: ... CHelper(IntelliJ IDEA) (manual) ... caide (Visual Studio, CodeLite) ... JHelper (AppCode, CLion)Great tools that parse contests, inline library codes and provide testing frameworks. They save you from spending your precious time on switching windows and copy-pasting back and forth.★★☆Codeforces Parsers: ... Codeforces Parser... GoCF ... cfparser (emacs)These tools parse Codeforces contest problems and help run sample tests.★★★The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS)A stunning encyclopedia with a database of countless integer sequences. It also features a powerful search engine. Sometimes a seemingly difficult combinatorics problem could be equivalent to a simple or studied integer sequence.★★☆Syntax Highlighters: ... tohtml.com ... markup.su ... hilite.meVery handy for creating slides or team notebooks with pretty, formatted code snippets. Just copy the highlighted code snippets and paste them in your favorite WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor!★★☆Code Sharing: ... Ideone.com ... Pastebin.com ... Ubuntu PastebinThese tools generate semi-permanent pages for code sharing. Very useful especially when you're trying to get someone else to look into your code.★★☆IneffableA simple command-line grader for local grading.★★☆uDebugA platform that provides expected outputs for user-specified inputs to problems on the UVa Online Judge. Some problems also provide additional test cases for debugging.Contest Preparation☆NameDescription★★★polygonpolygon provides a platform and a rich set of tools for professional contest preparation. ... An example: Validators with testlib.h — Codeforces★★☆Graph EditorA fantasic tool to create and visualize graphs.★★☆tcframeA C++ framework for generating test cases of competitive programming problems.★★★Virtual Judge (vjudge)Virtual Judge (vjudge) allows users to create virtual contests with problems from notable problem archives.★★☆BNU Online JudgeBNU Online Judge also allows users to create virtual contests.★★☆KattisKattis assists in contest preparation (E-mail them for assistance).CommunityMeet the god-like competitive programmers!Learn helpful tips, tutorials and insights from these people :)BlogsName (Handle)Blog NameCodeforces blogsPetr Mitrichev (Petr)Algorithms WeeklyMakoto Soejima (rng_58)rng_58's blogBruce Merry (bmerry)Entropy always increasesPrzemysław Dębiak (SomeGuyTookMyHandle)Psyho's blogAnudeep Nekkanti (anudeep2011)Namespace Anudeep ;)vexorian (vexorian)vexorian's blogAshar Fuadi (fushar)Fushar's blogLiJie Chen (WJMZBMR)WJMZBMR (Chinese)Huang I-Wen (doreamon, dreamoon)小月的耍廢日誌 (Chinese)Shiang-Yun Yang (morris1028)Morris' Blog (Chinese)Yuhao Du (TooDifficuIt, TooSimple, xudyh)xudyh (Chinese)Youtube and LivestreamsName (Handle)LinkPetr Mitrichev (Petr)YoutubeEgor Kulikov (Egor)YoutubeAdam Bardashevich (subscriber)YoutubeBohdan Pryshchenko (I_love_Tanya_Romanova)Twitch, YoutubeVladimir Smykalov (enot.1.10)Twitch, YoutubeAleksandar Abas (Alex7)YoutubeMostafa Saad Ibrahim (mostafa.saad.fci)Competitive Programming Youtube (Arabic Speech-English Text)Tushar RoyYoutube, with many tutorial videos.QuoraVisit Competitive Programming — Quora (Top 10 Most Viewed Writers).Important Community FiguresDescriptionBill PoucherExecutive Director of ACM-ICPC. CS Professor at Baylor University.Michal Forišek (misof)Organizer of IPSC and IOI. CS Teacher at Comenius University in Slovakia. Algorithm and CS Education Researcher. Former highly-rated competitive programmer.Ahmed Aly (ahmed_aly)Founder of A2OJ. HackerRank Lead Software Engineer. Former member of the Google Code Jam team.Competitive ProgrammersThanh Trung Nguyen (I_love_Hoang_Yen)Brian Bi (bbi5291)Jonathan Paulson (jonathanpaulson)Miguel Oliveira (mogers)Egor Suvorov (yeputons)Michal Danilák (Mimino)Bohdan Pryshchenko (I_love_Tanya_Romanova)Vladimir Novakovski (vnovakovski)Nick Wu (xiaowuc1)Cosmin NegruseriLalit Kundu (darkshadows)Ashish Kedia (ashish1294)Johnny Ho (random.johnnyh)Joshua Pan (lonerz)Anudeep Nekkanti (anudeep2011)Steven Hao (stevenkplus)Raziman T.V. (razimantv)Other Awesome ResourcesArticlesInformative and helpful articlesSubjectOverview of Programming Contests, by Przemysław Dębiak (Psyho, SomeGuyTookMyHandle)The 'science' of training in competitive programming — Codeforces, by Thanh Trung Nguyen (I_love_Hoang_Yen)If you ask me how to improve your algorithm competition skill, I will give you the link of this blog. — Codeforces, by Huang I-Wen (dreamoon, doreamon)How to prepare for ACM — ICPC? — GeeksforGeeks, by Vishwesh ShrimaliComplete reference to competitive programming — HackerEarth, by Ravi OjhaGetting started with the sport of competitive programming — HackerEarth, by Triveni MahathaFAQsFine answers to frequently-asked questionsQuestionHow do I start competitive programming? — QuoraHow can I become good at competitive programming? — Quora ... What is the best strategy to improve my skills in competitive programming in 2-3 months? — Quora ... What is a good 6 month plan to start and progress through competitive programming? — QuoraHow is competitive programming different from real-life programming? — QuoraWhat have you gained from competitive programming? — QuoraAwesome ListsRelevant awesome listsNameLinkC++ BooksThe Definitive C++ Book Guide and List — Stack OverflowJava BooksWhat are the best books to learn Java? — QuoraAdvanced Java BooksWhat is the best book for advanced Java programming? — QuoraAlgorithmstayllan/awesome-algorithmsAlgorithm Visualizationenjalot/algovisMathrossant/awesome-mathC++fffaraz/awesome-cppJavaakullpp/awesome-javaCoursesprakhar1989/awesome-coursesFree Programming Booksvhf/free-programming-booksInterview QuestionsNameDescriptionCareerCupThe most popular website for software engineering interview preparation.InterviewBitFeatures intriguing and refreshing game-play designs which are designed to invoke one's interest in practicing.Awesome InterviewsA curated list of awesome interview questions

Since I was a2a, in my definition of adequate self-confidence, there is primarily a belief that that one has sufficient competence to perform under the normal circumstances of their life, and an ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Competence is based on education, training, experience, and proven productivity; in conjunction with self-awareness (knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses, and knowing when and how to seek external augmentation to address those weaknesses), willingness to invest time and effort at improving strengths and weaknesses, willingness to risk failure, and the ability to learn from failure. Confidence includes being able to question one’s perspectives based on continued research and newly acquired information. This is known as the concept of defensive pessimism, which should be employed to anticipate problems, and facilitate the use self-doubt to motivate effective action (Myers 2012).My advice is that one work on themselves intellectually and physically (physical fitness enhances personality and appearance, with plenty of guidance on exercise, eating, and sleeping right available online), set goals and succeed; over time you will recognize that you are competent and have no reason to think that you have some reason to believe you are in any way deficient.Pretty/handsome people are not always happy, successful, and socially attractive. Attitude plays a huge role in how attractive a person is. One's attitude may be self-defeating or self-reinforcing, the psychological concept of the self-fulfilling prophesy indicates that our expectations subconsciously affect our behavior, either by their positive effects (from a positive attitude) or negative effects (from a negative attitude). And, it has been empirically proven that acting as if one is happy can be a method of being more positive in their life. And, a happy person is an attractive person. Moreover, there are avenues for females (and to a lesser degree males) to pursue (hair, makeup, fashion) that can enhance what nature provided. And, even if you don't want to hear it, you need to accept yourself as you are, then do what you can to develop your physical and emotional traits.How we act can come down to habit. Habits exist due to deeply entrenched neural connections formed through repetition of behavior or thought. Change your attitude and change your life; act as if you were what you want to be, and your brain will form new neural pathways that will help you be what you want to be. Establishing a habit to replace a habit that is the result of many years of practice is difficult. And, a habit that has become a character trait is even more resistant to change. If you start slow and gradually increase you will have a better chance of establishing a replacement habit. Of course, it will take from three to ten weeks or more to replace or eliminate a personal habit, and probably much longer to replace behavior that has become a character trait. During the process, you have to commit yourself to doing some things you don't really want to do.It has been proven that even fake laughter triggers a biochemical reaction in the brain that positively alters one’s perspective. Psych research in happiness indicates that achieving a goal seldom results in sustained happiness. Research also indicates that hope and optimism are key to success in life, and that genuine pride in success/accomplishments can evoke happiness. Dissatisfaction with life results from dwelling on past negative events, and insufficient appreciation and savoring of past positive events.Eagleman wrote that all of our brains hold simultaneous conflicting thoughts, which could result in opposing behaviors, depending on circumstances. He indicated that the human brain is “best understood as a team of rivals,” he labeled rational and emotional (p. 109). The rational system analyses and the emotional system “monitors internal state and worries whether things will be good or bad” (p. 111). Moreover, almost if not all human behavioral traits exist on a continuum ranging from little to obsessive, sociopathy included. And, even though much of our behavior is guided by subconscious thought, those subconscious thoughts are programmed by conscious thought. Once one realizes that their subconscious thought is leading them astray, the subconscious can be reprogrammed through conscious thought.“Brain development is use dependent: you use it or you lose it. …We also need to recognize that not all stress is bad, that children require challenges and risk as well as safety. It is natural to want to protect our children, but we need to ask ourselves when the desire for risk-free childhoods has gone too far. … Children’s brains are shaped by what they do slowly and repeatedly over time. If they don’t have the chance to practice coping with small risks and dealing with the consequences of those choices, they won’t be well prepared for making larger and far more consequential decisions. In today’s safety culture we seem to swing from strictly monitoring and guiding our children from infancy through high school, and then releasing them to the absolute freedom of college (though some parents are trying to encroach there as well). We have to remember that for most of human history adolescents took on adult roles earlier and rose admirably to the challenge. Many of the problems we have with teenagers result from failing to adequately challenge their growing brains. While we know that the brain’s decision-making areas aren’t completely wired until at least their early twenties, it is experience-making decisions that wires them, and it can’t be done without taking some risks. We need to allow children to try and fail. And when they do make the stupid, shortsighted decisions that come from inexperience, we need to let them suffer the results” (Perry & Szalavitz, 2006, pp. 239-240).And consistent with Eagleman, Perry also wrote that early trauma may predispose one to anti-social behavior based on physiological alteration of the brain; however, he also wrote that anti-social behavior is a choice; and, anti-social behavior is the cumulative result of relatively minor decisions/choices, such as, who we associate with and the behaviors we engage in or avoid.Thinking differently means making different connections between neurons in the brain, which will eventually weaken or disconnect the previous neural connections that caused the problem. Guided imagery is a common technique in improving athletic performance and in cancer treatment, among other things. It involves mentally picturing a specific image of perfect performance or achieving a goal and imagining oneself succeeding. Those with cancer are taught to imagine their bodies fighting cancer cells and athletes are taught to see themselves executing their sport with proper form. With a phobia, it could involve gradual desensitization; such as picturing the feared object from a safe distance under controlled circumstances and gradually moving closer mentally. Or, it could involve imagining the creation of new neural connections and weakening of old neural connections (or all of the above).Although the research behind the information provided in this TED Talk (“fake it until you make it”) has been disputed, positive thought processes can lead to positive results, as in the psych concept of self-fulfilling prophesy: http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are.htmlhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psychology-writers/201210/using-self-fulfilling-prophecies-your-advantageReferences:Eagleman, D. (2011). Incognito: The secret lives of the brain. New York: Pantheon. Dr. David Eagleman directed the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law, Baylor College of Medicine, and is a Guggenheim fellow, and heads the Eagleman Laboratory for Perception and Action at Stanford Univ.Myers, D. G. (2012). Social psychology (11th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz M. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook child psychiatrist's notebook--what traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, and healing. New York: Basic Books.The author is Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, the former Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital and former Vice-Chair for Research, Department of Psychiatry Baylor College of Medicine, as well as being a Senior Fellow at The Child Trauma Academy.Depression self-help for teens: http://www.helpguide.org/home-pages/depression.htmWebMD depression health check: Depression“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.” Groucho Marx (1895-1977)“People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln“The mind is its own place, and in itselfCan make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”John Milton, Paradise Lost, Chapter 1 (1667)“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180)“Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.” John W. Gardner (1912–2002)“A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks, he becomes.” Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” ShakespeareIf you compare yourself with others,you may become vain or bitter,for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. …You are a child of the universeno less than the trees and the stars;you have a right to be here.Max Ehrmann (1872-1945), “The Desiderata”“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.” Abraham Lincoln, who:Failed in business at age 21.Was defeated in a legislative race at age 22.Failed again in business at age 24.Overcame the death of his sweetheart at age 26.Had a nervous breakdown at age 27.Lost a congressional race at age 34.Lost a congressional race at age 36.Lost a senatorial race at age 45.Failed in an effort to become vice-president at age 47.Lost a senatorial race at age 47.Was elected PRESIDENT of the United States at age 52! (http://www.championshipcoachesnetwork.com/public/426.cfm)“Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.” Franklin D. Roosevelt“Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That's exactly what the majority of men do.” Napoleon Hill“All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” Walt Disney“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Ralph Waldo Emerson“This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.” Gen. Omar Bradley“If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.” George S. Patton“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.” Winston Churchill“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.” Colin Powell“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” Maya Angelou (childhood sexual assault victim, unwed mother at 16, Grammy winner, best-selling author, and presidential inaugural speaker)“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” c. 500 BCE.

I was very arrogant about my health until recently.At 59, I had never been sick, I’m very fit, and look quite a bit younger than my age. My father is 90 and lives the same lifestyle now as 30 years ago, living in his own home in the Texas Hill Country.I’m a physician and have almost daily occasions to offer health advice, and I have a healthy, thriving practice.I am a fan of Nortin Hadler, MD, who writes extensively on intelligent, informed healthcare, offering facts and studies a healthcare consumer should be aware of before giving or refusing consent to commonly recommended medical screenings and treatments for conditions such as high cholesterol, blood pressure, or glucose; colonoscopy; mammography; PSA screening and more. Lest you think he’s fringy, he’s Professor Emeritus of Medicine at UNC School of Medicine at Chapel Hill, and Harvard and Yale educated. You can see his brilliance and relevance in this PBS interview.For 20 years or so, I’ve seen a wonderful internist yearly, but, would abdicate responsibility for this behavior, saying. “The only reason I have a doctor is I have a wife.”Thank goodness I have a wife.September, the year before last, 2018, I had previsit labs for my annual visit with Rick Earnest, who was Chief Resident during his internal medicine residency at Emory, he’s top notch.My white count was low. Rick’s nurse called and said he wanted another CBC and a folate. White count low; folate normal.Then, I saw Rick in his office and we chatted dispassionately about the neutropenia… WBC was around 2, with 4–12 being normal.He told me he had talked to a local heme/onc that morning and then, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Looks like you need to see a hematologist…” I agreed.About a month later, I had extensive labs at the local oncology center; met the delightful hematologist, Kavita Nirmal, who recommended a bone marrow biopsy.I knew this was coming and, once again, being very healthy and having no signs or symptoms, I thought serial CBC’s would do.However, after my consult with Kavita, I had no urge to refuse the bone marrow biopsy, and it was done that day.Things moved quickly from there.The next day, Kavita called and said I needed to see a specialist at Baylor. Five minutes later, she called back and said, “You could also go to MD Anderson.”Baylor is two hours, MD Anderson is four.Initially, I balked at accepting an MD Anderson referral, as this meant, in my mind, saying, “This is serious.”Over the next 24–48 hours, I had the strong intuition I should go to MD Anderson.I responded to Kavita’s phone call about my treatment choice in a way I found funny/odd… I said, “I owe it to my family to go to MD Anderson.” I thought, “Wow, Dude, you can’t even take responsibility for your choice to go to MD Anderson.” (It wasn’t a big deal… but, interesting.)My records and actual marrow specimen were Fedexed to MDA; I went there for labs and another bone marrow biopsy; and met with a national leader in leukemia, Naveen Pemmaraju.All this occurred in a very compressed period of time and in a context of general surreality, punctuated by briefs periods of extreme surreality.I had accepted there was something wrong with my bone marrow. I had actually been aware I was neutropenic as far back as August 2016; but, again, arrogant invincibility had me ignore it.In Longview, I was told, based on microscopic evaluation of my marrow, and an estimated 13% blast count, I had myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), something I was familiar with when a fellow staff psychiatrist told me he had it. It was a significant health scare for him, but that was in the 90’s and he and I were in touch for at least 10 years after that, and to my knowledge, he’s still fine today… (we both moved on from that mental health center years ago).Then, as I was going through the process leading up to seeing Dr. Pemmaraju, a nurse who was checking me in and reviewing my chart, was reading out loud to herself… as I listened, it was all quite routine to me as a health care provider, until the letters “AML” came out of her mouth.They weren’t intended for me; she was just one of those people who reads out loud when they read. Perhaps she thought I knew. Perhaps she didn’t know she was reading out loud. It is a cancer center…I can’t think of an adequate adjective to put in front of “stunned” and “frozen” to adequately express that instant as the biggest WTF! of my life rang out in my mind…“It’s leukemia?! I have leukemia?!!!” My mind was reeling with that shock…It was quite a mental shift, in an instant, unsuspecting, unprepared, from MDS to AML.I suppose it was helpful to have the time to be past that initial reaction later, as I sat in one of Dr. Pemmaraju’s exam rooms, waiting to see him. He burst into the room almost as enthusiastically as Kramer on Seinfeld. He was young, energetic, positive and extremely enthusiastic.There I was, sitting face to face with one of the finest allopathic physicians… a hematologist/oncologist who only treats two types of leukemia and MDS.It was a briefly challenging/confronting situation on a philosophical level.You see, I’ve been writing, Power Without Pills: A Curious Psychiatrist’s Guide to Healing and Growth in the Modern World since Googling John Sarno, MD in February 2006. And, I have talked some trash about modern medicine. Not irresponsibly or inappropriately… but, trash talking nonetheless.I was challenged with substantial, in-my-face cognitive dissonance.I resolved it for myself quickly.I had been throwing the baby out with the bath water.I had been all “mindbody medicine is where it’s at!” and, then and there, I realized I had been going to an extreme.I once heard a man say, “You’re just as half-assed no matter which cheek you got.”So, I decided, “Alright... I like this guy... I trust this guy... I’m going to roll with this, and I’ll handle the mindbody part... and he’ll handle the traditional medicine part…”Both cheeks were suddenly firmly in place.He told me they have a clinical trial, using the CLIA protocol, where they’re getting upwards of 90% complete remission rates in frontline AML.All three drugs are FDA-approved for AML, but no one is using all three together. “We are gonna rock this thing! We are going to crush it together!”, he said, beaming.He told me I’d need some preliminary tests, like an echocardiogram, to qualify for the study... a formality.Then, I would be admitted, given five days of chemo, be in isolation, and have a total of around 28 days inpatient before being discharged to outpatient treatment where I would receive five consolidation rounds of the same three chemotherapy drugs every 28 days.He said I’d be in complete remission by Day 28.That conversation was on the Friday before Thanksgiving. He told me to go home and spend time with family... my wife was there in that initial consult and throughout, but I hadn’t seen my father in Austin in a while... it was a wonderful, deeply meaningful break/visit with close family before I went inpatient… ostensibly 28 days, in isolation.On the eve of Thanksgiving Day, I was admitted to the Leukemia Specialty Care Unit at MDA, at around 7 pm, and began chemotherapy that night.How I’ll be bathing in isolation for the next 3–4 weeks…My wife and father-in-law visit me in the square bubble…This woke me up in the middle of the night, tickling my nose…Going…Gone. My hair didn’t survive.It went exactly as he said; except I had a Day 21 bone marrow biopsy in the hospital. The next day, the attending on the service strode briskly into my room, smiling, and said, “Go home. You don’t need to be here any more.”My blast count had gone from 30% to 4%, complete remission, in 21 days.I said, “Uh… I’m not ready.” (My wife was four hours away and expecting me to be discharged in about a week).I went home the next day, six days early, for good biological behavior.I was in complete remission.There was suspense though. I was told through some magic called flow cytometry, they could give a measure of prognostication, MRD, Measurable Residual Disease. With MRD, they could find traces of leukemia, the presence of abnormal blasts, “down to levels of 1:10,000 to 1:1,000,000 white blood cells (WBCs), compared with 1:20 in morphology-based assessments.”[1]A few nervous days later, at my first outpatient follow up, I was given the news, “You are MRD negative.”A Senior Coordinator of Clinical Studies, Department of Leukemia, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Rabiul Islam, who’s worked there since 2003, gave me that wonderful news, and he added, “I have never seen an MRD negative patient at Day 21.”As I have said, I highly value and practice mindbody medicine; parts of that are a positive mental attitude and faith in the healing propensity of the body and the intelligence of life.And my positivity and faith had been rewarded at every turn (even developing leukemia, which I would not have consciously asked for); but it was never the kind of faith and positivity that produced a reaction to, “You are MRD negative,” of, “Well, of course, I’m MRD negative.”I cried when he told me and it brings tears to my eyes now as I write this. I am deeply grateful.And, along those lines, I have taught mindbody medicine concepts for over 20 years and was pleased to find nothing changed with being diagnosed with an illness that has a 25% five-year survival rate. I found, not surprisingly, I walked the talk. Yet, you don’t know how solidly your ship is moored until there’s a storm.As interesting foreshadowing, for years, as one approach to mindbody medicine, I would discuss the hypothetical situation in which someone was diagnosed with a type of cancer that had their physician say, “The 5-year survival rate is 5%.” I would then say, “I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, no! Those are terrible odds!’ I would say, ‘What did the 5% do?’’’ (My apologies for the complex, and possibly incorrect sentence structure.)I have had many profound blessings in the powerful life lesson leukemia brought to me.To address the question:The leukemia was caught on a yearly routine blood test before I was symptomatic.I am young and healthy, with no comorbid illnesses, and I really stood out on the Leukemia Specialty Care Unit because of my youth, fitness, and lack of comorbid illness.I got the best cancer treatment in the world, I assert.I’ve had an excellent attitude throughout.I never fought the leukemia. I was never inclined to. At the local cancer center, the narrative was everywhere about fighting cancer; even the wifi password had that rhetoric… yet, I could not abide by that narrative.I’m not suggesting that people not adopt that narrative; it’s fine with me if they do; it’s just not for me. I’m not going to start a “Fight Fighting Cancer!” campaign.I do want people to know there’s more than one narrative to adopt in the face of cancer. Pick according to your gut.I’ve said thousands of times: “What you resist persists.” I would not fight. I would listen.I viewed the leukemia as a messenger, and my job was/is to get the message.I have enjoyed Louise Hay’s work, and was aware of the fact she gave meaning to particular illnesses.I thought, “Leukemia is a childhood disease…” Hmmmmmmm…I had started guided journaling at What is Self Authoring? many months earlier, and had started with the Past module (there are also two for the present and one for the future… starting with the past made the most sense to me…) but, I quickly fell into procrastination…One obvious message was, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you…”, meaning, I got one message as, “Don’t keep putting off deep work.”Now, acute myeloid leukemia is relatively rare with about 20,000 newly diagnosed cases a year. That’s an incidence of 0.006%. It’s rare.But, things would likely be much darker (which sounds weird to write, because I can’t say they’re dark (though I can admit if one looks at the five year survival rate for AML, one would be inclined to say they’re dark… but, that’s a statistic, and part of good mindbody medicine is not being negatively influenced by stats…)) if I hadn’t been getting yearly routine labs.TLDR:Get yearly routine labs like a CBC and complete metabolic panel.The risk/benefit ratio argues for it.Think of it as insurance… you definitely want to have it, even though you don’t want to use it.Extra credit edit:So as to exclude as few readers as possible, I am adding an important point…I have used the word, “blessing” more than once, and said that there is meaning in this life challenge/lesson, thereby asserting/strongly implying it’s not random; we don’t live in a strictly mechanical Universe, in which we humans are machines that break and consequently go to doctors that intervene on our behalf and restore us to health.I was ultimately convinced of that mechanistic worldview until the age of 23. I no longer believe in or inhabit that worldview… but no matter…I’m working on a reply to the gentleman’s comment in which it’s asked what I think caused the leukemia.My reply involves logic I learned from my mother, an adept at logic. She changed her worldview late in life with logic.She told me one day, she had done a thought experiment in which she made a matrix of cells… the particulars will be in the reply when I post it.It is the particular thought exercise that’s relevant here:Let’s say you can’t abide by the notion of an actual blessing, or the idea there’s meaning to be mined in a disease, especially a life-threatening one like leukemia, you can still potentially get the value of that system/belief through this exercise:Let’s construct a matrix of four cells: 2 rows, 2 columns…I’m blessed really/I’m not actually blessedI believe I’m blessed/I reject the possibilityThen stand in each cell and look out at the world as if those conditions are so… what do you see? Is that possibility empowering?You see, it isn’t the truth that I was blessed and it isn’t the truth there is meaning, not randomness, in the leukemia… it’s a powerful place to stand.For the strictly “If I can’t see it in a lab, it doesn’t exist,” Do you want to be empowered, or do you want to be right? Or, if your health isn’t good, do you want to be healthy, or do you want to be right?Consider everyone is a house with four rooms: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.In the modern world, you risk falling prey to the paradigm, the physical level of reality is all there is… It’s all matter and energy… if you can’t see in the lab it doesn’t exist.That worldview may be true, and obviously, it may not be.If you hold yourself as a house with only one room, physical, which gives rise to the illusion of the other three rooms and that’s not the case, there may be a dear price to pay.EDIT (April 16,2019):I can’t say I’m about to add materially to my answer of the question; however, I can see how the reader might be curious as to what’s up as of today… I don’t remember when I wrote this; I see my last update was February 16th.There have been three excitements and one very sad loss since I last updated. I’ll end with the loss.About six weeks ago, after receiving a unit of red blood cells, an infusion which took about two hours, I drove home and sat on the couch. I started to feel cold and hot at the same time. Cold won out and I got underneath an electric blanket and turned it on. Very shortly I was having hard chills.My instructions from MDA since my December discharge were, “Go to the ER if your temperature hits 101 or more.” I didn’t have to take my temperature. My wife drove me to the ER. It was a Friday afternoon and the ER was packed. Getting into the ER was fun; because I have staff privileges there, but the staff up front and the triage nurse don’t know me from Adam. So, I went in the back doors of the large ER, bald, with an overnight bag slung over my shoulder and said, “I’m Dr. Murphy. I’m in treatment for leukemia and I have a fever.” Most of the dozen or so doctors, nurses, technicians and unit clerks behind the counter stopped what they were doing to stare at me. I stared back at them. Eventually, a nurse broke the deadlock. “17 is open,” she said stepping out to escort me.I was deathly ill. All the routine things… blood cultures, chest xrays, etc. were done, looking for a possible source of infection.For the next three days I lay in the dark, sleeping as much as I could. They left me alone, which I thought was odd, but appreciated. At MDA I don’t think they would have let me lay in the bed 24/7, and didn’t even when I had RSV (another story).Monday rolled around; nothing had grown in the blood cultures; and, I had started to feel better. About 11 am, having enjoyed a great rapport and relationship with everyone there, I said politely to the nurse, “Um, I’m going to be discharged. I just need to know whether it will be AMA or not.” 10 minutes later I was signing routine discharge orders, and I went home. I felt like crap.In retrospect, the most likely explanation was a non-hemolytic transfusion reaction, something that occurs in about 1 out of every 1,000 RBC infusions. This can occur if WBC’s stow away in a batch of inadequately washed RBCs. They cause a cytokine reaction, the kind of thing that makes you feel awful when you have the flu.Gradually, over the next few days, my energy came back.The second excitement was going back to MDA on a Friday, my chemo rounds always start on Friday, and had labs in the morning to prep to see Dr. P, who would then order the 3-day round of chemo.My WBC was below 1,000, even though, due to circumstances, I was on Day 35 of a cycle. Being in a clinical trial at MDA, there are protocols and guidelines and chemo was off; it couldn’t proceed.Once again, Dr. P predicted the future. He said, “We’ll do a bone marrow biopsy; you’ll still be in remission. You’ll go home. Have a great weekend. Come back Monday morning. We’ll do labs and give you a shot of Neupogen Monday and Tuesday mornings, and we’ll restart your chemo on Wednesday.”That was an exciting weekend; because, while the blast count was likely ready Friday afternoon, no one was there to read it. And, while I mentioned a couple of potentially arrogant sounding behaviors around febrile neutropenia hospitalization; I’m not the type to be inclined to try and get the results before Monday.I was able to think positively throughout most of the weekend. I did allow my mind to think about a recurrence, but not to dwell on that possibility. I wasn’t in denial; I knew the results of the biopsy could be bad news staying alive-wise. But again, I mainly stayed in positivity and continued to visualize my 90th birthday party (my father, Stu’s 90th birthday party is next month) and to affirm, “I am so happy and grateful now that I’ve released the patterns that gave rise to the leukemia.”Monday morning, after having had my labs, I was sitting and waiting in the 8th floor leukemia waiting area, waiting to be called back for an injection of Neupogen, my cell phone rang. It was Dr. Islam. “Your blast count is 2%.”I cried with joy, once again, as I did when he told me, “Your MRD is negative. I have never seen an MRD negative patient at Day 21,” months before.To be continued… fatherhood calls at the moment…there’s more coming… and… 95% of what I write on Quora is via iPhone… somewhat constraining…My two older sisters and I with our father at his 90th birthday party last month, May 2019. He’s a huge inspiration, and not just because that’s his house we’re visiting and he’s had CLL for ten years and has only accepted monitoring of it.I’m coming up on 6 months complete remission. There’s much more to write; and, my commitment is that what I write make a difference for you.And, as promised above, there’s more to the story and I will flesh out what I believe made the difference in the face of a potentially terrifying disease…Today, my hair, like springtime blossoms, is sprouting again… a sign of the life force, irrepressible, pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk…Here’s to New Life……and again, more to come…Edit: July 4th, 2019Today, the 4th of July, enjoying Life. I’m 60 now… my hair’s sprouting… the sprouting started this Spring after the chemo was finished… I gave that timing meaning… Springtime… new life…I intend to share more about this experience, and yet, I’m not sure this is the place to do that given the original question.So far, it has been a pleasure to have this forum to share my experiences with leukemia and everything related. If you have a suggestion as to a better forum/platform to share my knowledge, experience and hope with regard to leukemia, let me know.EDIT Saturday, July 27, 2019:I had surgery Thursday to have a myringotomy and tympanostomy tube placed in my left ear. It went perfectly.Fluid filled my left middle ear during my last hospitalization (for febrile neutropenia) in April. There were two complications from that hospitalization, I presume from high dose IV vancomycin and cefipime… a sudden and persistent left ear effusion and neuropathy of my distal feet bilaterally.The tube has all but resolved the effusion (it’s present in the morning, but drains within and hour or two). And the neuropathy, which consists mainly of the sensation my socks, no matter what their fabric, are filled with sand in the toes, and there is pain at times, increased initially with hard shoes and jogging. However, the jogging actually seems now to be a force for its resolution.I set a goal of running a 10K by September 29th, a goal RunKeeper helped me to decide on. Thanks to my varsity tennis playing son, Elliot, for that app tip.I had preop labs Tuesday, and coincidentally, two month followup labs for my heme/onc, Kavita Nirmal, on Wednesday. Not surprisingly, they were both very close…WBC 4.1Hgb 16Platelets 157,000It’s all good.EDIT Thursday, September 12, 2019:Reporting in for the curious…My post above starts with the yearly routine labs I had done September of last year, 2018. That’s cool, and relevant to the question.I’ve had two haircuts since my nuked hair decided it was OK to start growing again. Gone is the childhood fear of the barber or stylist getting it too short.I’ve run 5 days a week since July 21st, and I am registered in Texas Oncology’s Celebrate Life Survivor’s 5K on the 28th.There are two big benefits of running 5 days a week.One is the health and fitness benefit which is enough on its own.The other is, who I am for myself today is larger than who I was when I was saying, “I need to start running again,” for SEVEN years. (I was shocked about 4 months ago, in a moment of self-clarity, I caught myself running that line of bullshit past myself, and I stopped and asked myself, “When was the last time I exercised regularly?” …2012. Damn, Dude. You’ve been saying that to yourself for SEVEN years.)About 3 months ago, I started making the bed if I were the last one out. I’d heard Dr. Jordan Peterson recommend this one before solving any of the world’s problems. “Make your bed.”About a month later, during breakfast with my varsity tennis playing son, I downloaded an app, RunKeeper, he’s using to log his many runs.It started pressuring me to run a 10K in a month. I reacted, “I’m 60 years old. I’m not running a 10K in a month… I’ll run one in two months,” and on July 21st, I started running 5 days a week.Another recent shift in who I’m being in the world is manifested by the fact that I’m writing again.UPDATE: September 30, 2019I beat my oncologist in a 5K this weekend! Sorry, Dr. Nirmal. Good run!Not that long ago, my hemoglobin was 7 and I got winded climbing a flight of stairs. Now it’s 17 and I can run a 5 kilometers!UPDATE: October 25, 2019:It just occurred to me it is getting close to the one year mark that I went to MD Anderson for the first time and I don’t think I’ve adequately acknowledged them.To me, and probably by objective measures, MD Anderson is the best cancer treatment center in the world. It must be one of the largest with over 20,000 employees and over 15,000,000 sq ft of space. Yet, it is one of the best run organizations I’ve ever seen of any size. That’s important. But, not as important as the care and concern I saw everywhere. The ethos there is healthy, upbeat, nourishing and inspiring.In particular, I want to acknowledge and thank to a depth appropriate to one given to someone who participates in literally saving a life. Naveen Pemmaraju, thank you for saving my life. I am the father of a now 3-year-old, precious boy. I am also the father of two other boys, 19 and 17, who shouldn’t lose their father, either; yet, the biggest save was saving the life of the father of this precious 2-year-old boy.December 13, 2018 - Just discharged from MD Anderson’s Leukemia Specialty Care UnitThis is what I’m talking about, Naveen. This is such a huge gift. Words aren’t adequate to express the depth of my gratitude. Thank you.Rabiul Islam, thank you for your relentless close support and encouragement. You repeatedly went above and beyond calling me on my cell and keeping me informed. And, the moment you told me I was MRD negative is one of the happiest moments of my life. You didn’t have to add, “I have never seen an MRD negative patient at Day 21.” But, you did and that made a deep, profound positive impact. It has been some of the best medicine mentally and emotionally, and probably physically and spiritually. All boats rise with the tide. What a profound gift. Thank you.Michael Andreeff, thank you for who you are personally and professionally. You were my first inpatient physician contact, and it was, interestingly, on Thanksgiving Day. You walked into my room with an entourage of residents and fellows and said, “Who are you, and vot are you efen doing here?” (Sorry, that’s my recollection of your delightful German accent.) I loved our banter. When I told you I was a psychiatrist, you told me, “I vanted to be a psychiatrist, but I vound up being this.” You were part of the development of flow cytometry in the early days in Heidelberg. Flow cytometry told me the leukemia was gone down to a resolution of 1:1,000,000 WBC’s compared to 1:20 resolution possible with a microscope alone. Thank you for the quintessential physician that you are; and, thank you for having me look forward to witty banter every morning at morning rounds. What a delight.Zeev Estrov, thank you for who you are. Two memories stand out. You came into my room the morning after my Day 21 bone marrow biopsy and said, “Go home. You don’t need to be here anymore.” And, after I started to recover from the seeming near death experience from RSV, I perked up for your morning rounds; and, you and your entourage of residents and fellows came in. I had finally had a good night’s sleep and told you so. You turned to your students and said, “That! will tell you more than any lab test.” To me, such a brilliant moment of teaching. In medical school, I remember the lesson of one of my professors, “You treat the patient, not the labs.” You are another star in the MD Anderson firmament.To the staff of the 12th floor Leukemia Specialty Care Unit and to the nurses who inserted my PICC line, I cannot say enough to thank you and express the gratitude I have for my treatment there. It is a difficult thing to be a young man, otherwise healthy, diagnosed with a life threatening disease and facing an uncertain future, knowing it included, at the least, chemotherapy and weeks of isolation. I don’t think I’ve told anyone this because it sounds weird. When Dr. Estrov told me to go home on Day 22, I was disappointed. That’s partly your fault. Good job. I’d say, “Keep it up,” but that would be silly. It’s who you are.To the 8th floor Leukemia Clinic and staff, thank you for always being friendly, upbeat, professional but not dry or stiff, and always being a well-oiled machine. Wow. You and your clinic and lab are part of the reason that the thought occurred to me, “This is the best run organization I’ve ever seen of any size.” Amazing. Thank you.To my individual nurses, inpatient, outpatient and chemo, because all of you were so extraordinary in skill, compassion and presence, I got to be right every time about how great MD Anderson is, every time. Every contact. Thank you.To the nurse who put in my PICC line, when I was the most alone and scared, Wednesday night, alone before Thanksgiving Day, thank you for your flawless insertion of a central line, your calming bedside manner, and thank you for telling me you had multiple myeloma years before and remain disease free. (The only thing that could have made the whole experience better, for the next patient, consider leaving out the part about your PICC line getting infected. :) ) Thank you.There are so many people to thank. Right now I am acknowledging you, MD Anderson. Thank each and every one of you. I am weeping now in gratitude as I get in touch with the magnitude of the gift and how you gave it. Jackson just turned 3. He will thank you one day. For now, I thank you on his behalf.Oh my! There are so many people to thank!To be continued…EDIT: January 7, 2020An interesting “problem” is arising here… the longer I live, the less appropriate the word “recently” in the opening line of this answer is… in December, less than a month ago, I went back to MD Anderson for my first checkup since July. All is well and my MRD continues to be negative over a year after entering remission. Thank you, Dr. Pemmaraju and all of you at MD Anderson.And, as I mentioned above, there are many more to thank. I will address two of you now:To Nortin Hadler, MD, of UNCSOM. Nortin, your startlingly deep compassion and ability to read between the lines of what I was saying moved me to tears. You heard me asking things I didn’t know I was asking. Your clinical acumen and profound compassion were so intense at times it was hard to be with. You encouraged me at a deep level. Not long before I was diagnosed with AML, I wrote you to thank you and tell you how much your work has meant to me as a physician and reader. I didn’t expect a reply, let alone one of such thoughtfulness. Then, during my struggles with leukemia, you shined as a lighthouse of steadfast personal and clinical wisdom. Thank you for hearing what I didn’t even know I was expressing and addressing it.To Steve Derdak, DO. My sister, one of the finest physician’s I know, refers to you as the smartest physician she knows. That’s quite an endorsement. I still remember visiting you when you were in medical school and thumbing through your Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine to find it thoroughly highlighted. Years later as an intensivist at Brooke Army Medical Center you brought your vast clinical experience to me personally in a very frightening and challenging time. Thank you for being there. And thank you for your sweet, personal bedside care of Marty at our home during her final days.And thank you Quorans for your views and upvotes. I deeply appreciate it!More to come.Edit: June 21, 2020Went back to MD Anderson a couple weeks ago for a routine followup. Results were all good except MRD.CBC great. Bone marrow aspirate showed 1% blasts (normal is < 5%). All very exciting. 6 days out a notification popped up on my phone that Dr. Pemmaraju wanted a telephone appointment with me.That was not welcome news, and I couldn’t wait until the next day to find out why. I called his PA, Rodney, and learned the news. My Measurable Residual Disease is now positive. I am in morphological remission, but not at the level of resolution provided by amazing technology.Dr. Pemmaraju’s recommendation is 3 rounds of venetoclax and azacitidine (VEN/AZA). Mild chemo… he used the analogy that the previous chemo is like a bomb and the VEN/AZA is like a Predator drone strike.He said my MRD will turn negative again. And he referred me back to the Stem Cell team.No problem seeing the Stem Cell team again for a consult but I was dead set against it.My thinking was why would I sacrifice feeling great for the devastation SCT is?And I’ve already created this narrative of how powerful mind/body medicine can be…It wasn’t an easy choice at all. And at one point in the last 16 days of wrestling with my circumstances I decided to do SCT but from a place of fear. (There’s a powerful distinction between choosing and deciding worth taking a look at.) Then I decided against it.At some point I looked at the scientific research and statistics on it; then I watched some inspirational videos by successful recipients and using the rhetoric from one of those people, switched to viewing SCT as an investment in my future. And I went back to my matrix of 4 cells and considered each possibility it boiled down to which mistake I would rather make…Have a stem cell transplant when I could’ve done well using mind over matter after allorNot have a stem cell transplant when in fact I needed one to prevent death by AML progression?Decision is derived from the root word “cide” or to kill off. In a decision the circumstances and considerations determine the selection… you have a pro list and a con list and the selection is based on which list is longer. The alternative is killed off by the considerations.Choice: To select freely and after consideration.Initially I decided no. Then I decided yes. All of that occurred in a field of fear and suffering.At some point I chose SCT and a feeling of peace came over me.I am at peace with the choice and the outcome.Once again, I think I will fare exceptionally well and I know that isn’t a given.I realize one outcome is death by overwhelming infection, organ failure or graft vs host disease.That is out of my hands. I accept my fate. I choose it.And I am happy to share the journey ahead.Edit: August 3, 2020Day 1 Cycle 2 of venetoclax and azacitidine. Mild chemo. The first cycle of this had few side effects and no hair loss. It was surprisingly hard on my kidneys… the cycle is Monday through Friday every 28 days (if possible) and my creatinine spiked to 1.5 on that Friday. It returned to normal and a nephrology consult concluded it was a reaction to the venetoclax. Dr. P concluded it was an idiosyncratic reaction and doesn’t think it’ll happen again.Edit: November 3, 2020Getting Busulfan at MD Anderson this morning in preparation for a stem cell transplant.I am quite well and continue in morphological remission. My MRD turned positive in June for the first time since December 2018. I’ve accepted MD Anderson’s recommendation for a SCT. It’s been their recommendation all along, but until June insurance wouldn’t pay for it and I didn’t want it. However, confronting a dead canary down here in the mine, two thoughts persuaded me.I have three boys, the youngest is four. In that context I look at this as an investment in the future; and, I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it… I met a wonderful man in his early 70’s, John, in an infusion room last year. Delightful. I got to talk to him at length twice. Delightful man. He looked well to me. However, his chemo had never gotten him into remission and he died very quickly. His death hurt deeply. I grieved his death and I could feel the pain of it much more acutely than my mother’s 8 years ago, something I think odd. Perhaps it was the reminder of my vulnerability.I remain optimistic and grounded in my choice and commitments.Today is the first day the thought, “I am a writer” occurred so consonantly. Perhaps the dawning of the reality of death, not necessarily of its immanence, but of its ultimate reality, shifted my audience from what others think to what I think. I’ve a story to tell. It’s for me and that others may benefit.“The ill person who turns illness into story transforms fate into experience…” —Arthur Frank, from The Wounded StorytellerFootnotes[1] Minimal/measurable residual disease in AML: a consensus document from the European LeukemiaNet MRD Working Party