4 years.

Today, I start my senior year in college.

I'm a senior.

In college.

2007



2008



2009



2010

If you had described the person I am today to the person I was four years ago, I think I would have laughed in your face.



During a preseason pool practice, we had to go around and introduce ourselves to one of the trainers. We had to say our name, our year, and one word to describe ourselves.

Do you know how hard that is? ONE WORD.

It turned into each person saying her name, her year, and then the rest of the team shouting words that describe that person. It was eye-opening to see how we each saw each other.

"I'm Lydia. I'm a senior. And I'm..."

"Motivational!"

"Laugh-aholic!"

"Friendly"

And then my friend Blair says, "She's never met a stranger."



What she said stuck with me for the next few hours. We were walking back from dinner that night and I turned to her and said, "What you said about me at the pool has been in my head all day."

"Really? Well, I meant it."

"Thanks. I think that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me."

"Aww. I'm glad you came out for the team, Lydia."

"So am I. This year is all about doing new things and trying things that I would have been too scared to do before. "


I'm a senior in college, but a rookie on the field hockey team. It's my fourth year at St. Mary's, but my first year single. I've made incredible friends, but there are even more people out there for me to meet.





I look at this upcoming year with wide eyes and tons of hope. It's going to be a great one, and I look forward to telling you all about it.

"Lidia's".

I know it's spelled wrong, but what's a girl to do?

I'm in Pittsburgh for MathFest, and last night I was lucky enough to go to a great dinner with some of my professors from St. Mary's. They found this restaurant and just had to take me. "You have to go to Lidia's with a Lydia!!"

It was fantastic. I felt at home. I'm here in Pittsburgh on another trip in this crazy summer, and I felt at home.



The past 8 months I haven't been at home, in Bowie, for more than 5 days in a row. From leaving for Budapest in January, to flying home from Budapest, driving up to Potsdam, driving over to Vermont, driving home to Maryland, driving up to Pittsburgh...and there's even more to come!

But here I am, sitting at a table with people who have influenced not only my academic life, but my life in general; people I haven't really seen since December, and I just couldn't help but sit back and smile. Smile. That's what I always seem to do when I'm with these people.

Dave, a professor who I get to TA for this fall (and am super duper really excited for it), looks over at me and says, "It feels like home, doesn't it?"


He couldn't have been more right.

Me, Dave, Casey, & Alex

It doesn't matter where you are, what state you're in, if you're driving, flying, drifting: it's about who you are with that makes a place home.


Today I gave a talk with two other people on the research we did this summer. We had a little hiccup in the beginning, but I think we recovered well. Our talk was packed: standing room only. That was exciting :)



This is just the beginning. The next few months are going to be jammed pack with life's events. Math. Field Hockey. New life. Math. Grad School. Math. GRE. Math.


Wait...did I mention math?!

8 Weeks Ago...

I was getting ready to drive up to middle-of-no-where-upstate New York to spend 2 months engrossed in the wonders of Topological Graph Theory.

I was starting the summer before my senior year at the River.

Can you believe that it's over? Cause I can't.



For 8 weeks I have been studying and working with pretty pictures and beautiful graphs. Now I have a crazy month ahead of me!

Tentative schedule:

July 30th-August 3rd: HOME!
August 4th-August 7th: MathFest in Pittsburgh
August 8th-August 10th: Blair's!!! (with Megan) ♥
August 11th-August 16th: North Carolina with Mom to visit the Sister :)
August 17th: Home
August 18th: Move into St. Mary's for Field Hockey preseason and the start of my senior year!!!!!


Eek!!!!


Senior year: prepared to be rocked.

Mission Nosepossible

Sometimes I make poor choices.


Like last night.


I said to myself, "Hmm...I wonder if I can get my nose ring out..."

And then I did.


AND I COULDN'T GET IT BACK IN!!!!


And thus, the debacle started.

I spent two hours trying to force the sucker back in. The only result: bruising my nose and my ego.


So today I was on a dedicated mission to get it back in my nose.

Apparently normal business hours for a tattoo and piercing place in Potsdam, NY is 3-9 pm on Tuesdays-Saturdays. This presented a problem.

I went to Walmart to see if I could buy a different style piercing...one that wasn't a corkscrew bottom and the bane of my existence. I got a straight one and thought I had won.

Wrong: it was waaaay too short. It didn't even pop through the other end of the hole.

My friend Sarah and I ended up calling one of the piercing places and asked if the owner wouldn't mind coming into work for a piercing emergency.

She was already there!! Apparently she had an appointment to pierce someone's nipples (uhh...), so I was more than happy to come in after that!

She was a life saver. She straightened out the corkscrew, clipped the end off, and put that sucker back in...now it just needs to heal again. It seems that I pretty much destroyed my nose when I was trying to get it back in myself.

However: It's back in!

Mission accomplished!!

Lesson learned: Don't mess with my nose piercing unless it's during regular business hours. Or ever.



I finished off my day doing sprints, abs, and butt exercises. Nothing like destressifying your day like working out until you want to pass out!!!


I hope you all had a much better Monday than me!

"You can't always get what you want...

...but if you try sometimes, you might find,
you get what you need"

This picture, along with my friends and family, has gotten me through the past few weeks.

Rough doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Three of my great friends (including my cousin, Joseph) drove 20 hours, round trip, to spend 30 hours with me.

Are they insane? Of course.

Are they amazing? Yes. Without a single doubt.

Their trip meant more to me than they will ever know. Having them here with me, having a piece of home in solid, human form was just what I needed to lift my spirits. Having people to talk to, in person, who know my past--who know me--was perfect.

I’ve been trying to deal with a lot of stuff mostly on my own, and I’m not ashamed to say that I just can’t handle it anymore.

It seems that certain things that I thought I had conquered in Budapest, and so hoped and prayed that they would stay that way, have come back to bite me in the butt…or leg…or arm…or foot…you choose.

But that’s ok. Because I’m ok.

Seeing this picture, remembering how incredibly happy I was: it gives me hope.

Budapest was thousands of miles away from home. It was flooded with fantastic people who became a part of my family. It was dripping with beautiful, wonderful mathematics. It was overflowing with optimism and thoughts of what my future might be. I’m realizing that traveling those thousands of miles back home shouldn’t change all of those things.

Because I’m Lydia. And that means something.

I still have fantastic people in my life. In fact, not only do I have my family and friends from before Budapest, but now I have people spread throughout the country; people who I will love for the rest of my life.

My life is still dripping with beautiful, wonderful mathematics.

And my heart wants, so badly, to be overflowing with optimism and thoughts of my future.

Self-pity is not attractive, and neither is being depressed all the time: at least it doesn’t look good (or feel good) on me.

So I’ve been praying for peace. I’ve been running longer and harder. I’ve been talking to friends and family. I’ve been dancing alone in my room and with friends on tables. And I’m becoming happy again…day by day.


Hey, you know, some things just take time. Time for wounds to heal; time for forgiving yourself to sink in; time for life to make sense; and time for you to realize just how incredibly lucky you are to take a breath every morning.


And no one ever said that there had to be a time limit…

Impatience.

It's something I seem to have a lot of this week.

I don't know if it's just because I'm not having a good week, because I'm emotionally drained, or because of a reason that is far beyond my scope of understanding. Whatever the reason may be, I need to have more patience.

In fact, I have been so agitated and impatient this week that I snapped three times on Tuesday. Three. I haven't snapped at anyone in a long time. I've been so proud of the person that I am becoming: debating things and dealing with people in a mature and patient way; dealing with certain situations that the old Lydia would have dealt with it in such a negative way.

I feel like I'm moving backwards.

And I think it's because I'm drifting from my happiness. A month and a half ago I was happier than I had been in my whole entire life. I don't have that feeling anymore: something has changed.

When it comes to happiness, I've learned that you have to take it day by day. If you don't, then you start to lose focus.

A ridiculously wise person in my life, someone who I look up to a lot, told me to memorize this verse from the Bible, and repeat it to myself daily:

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:34

I'm so worried that I'm not going to be happy tomorrow, next week, or in 4 years, that I keep forgetting that I should be focusing on the now--on today.

Even though I'm not in Budapest anymore; even though I can't take a 5 minute drive to see Reen and the twins; even though I'm not laying on the docks at the River--I'm still alive. I'm alive and I should be enjoying my life as much as I can.

I'm not going to go into detail about how ridiculously lucky I am to have all that I do (that will be another blog for another day), but I need to start remembering this more. I need to start refocusing on life, day by day.

Who knows, maybe while I'm trying to find happiness, it will smack me in the face....