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carnation 10-08-2017 04:11 PM

Those Bonding Moments in Greek Life
 
Lately, we've been telling new GC members that a lot of the true bonding moments in Greek life occur away from ritual--when you're just hanging out together. My husband and I just witnessed a good example.

We're visiting a college town right now and the wind and rain are formidable. A bunch of AXiDs just came tearing out of a gas station and jumped into their car and somehow one of them accidentally rolled up her window with her hair hanging out. We could hear hysterical laughter as she got it back in. My husband remarked that they'll be talking about that at reunions 50 years from now.

All the way back to the college, I was thinking about random wild and crazy moments with my sorority that we still talk about to this day...

NYCMS 10-08-2017 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carnation (Post 2444272)
Lately, we've been telling new GC members that a lot of the true bonding moments in Greek life occur away from ritual--when you're just hanging out together. My husband and I just witnessed a good example.

We're visiting a college town right now and the wind and rain are formidable. A bunch of AXiDs just came tearing out of a gas station and jumped into their car and somehow one of them accidentally rolled up her window with her hair hanging out. We could hear hysterical laughter as she got it back in. My husband remarked that they'll be talking about that at reunions 50 years from now.

All the way back to the college, I was thinking about random wild and crazy moments with my sorority that we still talk about to this day...

What a fun example! Made me think of some of my own...

1) During rush every room had M&M's in them (this was for house tours where rushees saw our own rooms). Every rush my roommates and I would eat them up before that party round and run out at the last minute to get more, like a couple of hours before the parties started. Common among every room, we'd drain the local grocery store's stash.
2) Packing my car up one semester, a sister helped me load things in and put my hot rollers (remember how they came in a plastic "heating" case?) on the top of the car. I drove off without noticing and they crashed onto the street. Neither of us have ever forgotten that.
3) Every Christmas the campus theater showed the movie "Black Christmas" about a group of sorority sisters stalked on their campus...Olivia Hussey was the star. Of course a bunch of us would go see it and then be afraid to go into the house basement to get our luggage for traveling home.
4) How everyone in the house wore Lanz nightgowns (remember them? Late 70's) but we wore them backwards. Have no idea how that started, but I have a fond memory of that for some reason.
5) And one of my very favorite - related to ritual - was whenever we'd have a candle-lighting ceremony and the heightened anticipation when it would go around for a 2nd time. THAT was special!

carnation 10-08-2017 07:33 PM

Candlelights, for sure!

And others, like stuffing 8 people into my car and going to the drive-in...wiring the bedroom doors shut in a fraternity house so they would have to jump out the windows onto the patio...too many practical jokes to remember...cookie shines...watching TV together in the TV room...the rush workshop that the Fijis invaded...

clemsongirl 10-08-2017 07:47 PM

Hmm, I'm thinking of my own to add, because they feel so far away even though they're comparatively not:
1) A bunch of us on the sorority hall last-minute deciding to go to a pajama-themed mixer with another sorority and then wandering into the Jimmy Johns downtown in our pajamas to eat there on a Tuesday night.
2) Formal my junior year where one sister decided to wear all the sashes at once for all the superlative winners who didn't get theirs-she was wearing multiple white satin sashes at once that said all sorts of things like "candlelight here we come", "most likely to be found at a fraternity house", "pledge class mom", etc. and running around screaming "I'm a winner!"
3) On a more serious note, I don't think I ever bonded as much with my sisters as when the younger biological sister of a senior chapter sister suddenly got sick and passed away while she was participating in recruitment. It was absolutely heartbreaking, but the way we honored her, supported each other and loved on the chapter sister truly showed me the meaning of our open motto, We Live For Each Other.

And of course there was the time my mom surprised me during ritual, but that one is during ritual...still my favorite happy memory from ADPi:) I think it was Sciencewoman who guessed correctly that she was coming to surprise me when I posted about it back in the day.

aephi alum 10-08-2017 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carnation (Post 2444298)
Candlelights, for sure!

LOL. I announced my engagement to my chapter via a candlelight. The trouble was that I was the chapter's ritualist at the time, so the candle pass started with me - and my sisters were very confused as to whether I was engaged or pregnant!

My husband and I picked out the ring together, but it had to be resized. For weeks, I was accosted at chapter - "Where's the ring? Let's see the ring!"

As for those bonding moments :) one of my sisters introduced me to my husband. She was my maid of honor.

BraveMaroon 10-08-2017 08:57 PM

One evening after a day full of rush parties, they gave us a two hour dinner break before Membership Selection. All we had eaten all day were breath mints and diet soda and everyone was starving. I was a sophomore, and these two really fun, popular seniors told me to come with them. The driver opened her sunroof and we sang some of the dirty sorority songs you learn off the record all the way to dinner, and I remember thinking. "I will remember this day forever." The same two girls dragged me to a lot of different things that year. I was kind of going through a period of depression, and they made me leave my room. I'm glad they did.

Sciencewoman 10-08-2017 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clemsongirl (Post 2444303)
On a more serious note, I don't think I ever bonded as much with my sisters as when the younger biological sister of a senior chapter sister suddenly got sick and passed away while she was participating in recruitment. It was absolutely heartbreaking, but the way we honored her, supported each other and loved on the chapter sister truly showed me the meaning of our open motto, We Live For Each Other.

And of course there was the time my mom surprised me during ritual, but that one is during ritual...still my favorite happy memory from ADPi:) I think it was Sciencewoman who guessed correctly that she was coming to surprise me when I posted about it back in the day.

This is what sisterhood is all about. :)

I have to think of mine, and I'll come back to share....

Titchou 10-08-2017 10:22 PM

When I was a junior or so -about 1965 - I wore my hair long and straight. This was at Alabama in the early days of hippies. My conservative sisters took offense and chased me around the house one Saturday night with scissors to cut it off! One girl in the pledge class below mine came to my defense with a baseball bat and fended them off! We still talk about how she saved my hair that night! It was all good natured and we all rolled on the floor laughing about it -but I owe her!

TLLK 10-09-2017 01:34 AM

Quote:

How everyone in the house wore Lanz nightgowns (remember them? Late 70's) but we wore them backwards. Have no idea how that started, but I have a fond memory of that for some reason.
Yes I remember those Lanz nightgowns and we wore them backwards too! At least three of us worked at the Lanz store in Long Beach. We usually wore them on a weeknight for a late night Naugles run to be followed by the latest episode of Dynasty. Pile as many sisters as possible into a VW Rabbit or Bug and off you go!:)

Just interested 10-09-2017 03:15 AM

Back in the 60's there was a soap opera called "Dark Shadows" It was totally a nutty concept about Vampires.
We use to rush home from classes during the day to gather around our console TV in the chapter room before we headed back to our classes.(No, everyone didn't have a TV in their dorm room in 1967)
One particular event that truly bonded the pledge class below me but almost cost them their membership was a prank they pulled the week before initiation It was a tradition in our chapter to pull harmless pranks on the pledge trainer just before initiation. This group "kidnapped" and blind folded her and took her to Dallas from Ft.Worth where they handcuffed her to a light pole outside a popular radio station that had big windows looking out on to the street. Well, the radio station disc jockey started talking about it on the radio and then a photographer from the Dallas Morning News came and took a picture which appeared on the front page of the paper. Unfortunately, a member our National Council lived in Dallas at the time and the girls were caught. There punishment was they had to remain a pledge until the next Fall when they could be initiated. I guess she forgave the chapter because her daughter pledged our house several years later.

FSUZeta 10-09-2017 06:14 AM

The Vermony Country Store still seems Lanz nightgowns, pjs, robes, and flannel sheets. Google them.

KSUViolet06 10-09-2017 01:16 PM

So many of these:

*My Big coming up to my apartment to show me her engagement ring with my Twin and Triplet and us being all omggggggg111111111!!!!!!!! at 2 am.

*Keeping that secret from the chapter up until her candlelight. So hard!

*Mexican food dates with my Little were a tradition from the time she pledged up until she moved to NC in 2012.

*My sorority BFF met her boyfriend while we were living together in the house. She went on her first date with him one night and we all stayed up to see how it went. They're married now and that is a really fun memory.

*All the ladies night Thursdays. The crushes. The OMG there he isss.

*Studying that was actually not really studying in the library late nights.

*The "hey who wants to go to SBux?!" runs.

*That time we took the mattresses off of our beds and surfed down the front staircase on them. Totally sober.

*Formals. All the formals.

*All the Halloweens. Man.


ASTalumna06 10-09-2017 02:12 PM

We were at a mixer one night, and there were a bunch of sisters and some fraternity members gathered around talking. We somehow got on the topic of chickens and roosters, and knowing my little is a Seinfeld fan, I recited a quote from the show: "You've got the hen, the chicken, and the rooster. The rooster goes with the chicken. So, who's having sex with the hen?"

Everyone thought it was a serious question at first and started laughing. I tried to explain myself, but it was too late. I'm still not sure I've lived it down. And that year at our annual formal, my "Most Likely" award was "The sister most likely to not know the "difference" between a chicken and a hen" ..........

:rolleyes: :p

LaneSig 10-09-2017 02:32 PM

I shared this story on GC a long time ago, but one of my best bonding moments was a road trip that I went on with three brothers to visit another chapter.

I was never a big drinker, and would rarely drink anything at all during parties and socials. On our first night there, the chapter had a party. A member of the other chapter started getting a little aggressive about me not drinking alcohol during the party. Two of my chapter brothers were close by and stepped in. They basically told the other member that I didn't drink, I didn't make a big deal out of it (wasn't judgmental on other guys drinking), and it was my choice and our chapter members respected and supported me. Simply: back off.

This was probably one of the first times that I really felt close to my brothers for letting me be me.

Funny enough, the next day (a Saturday), we were at a bar with a lot of the other chapter guys when a different chapter brother noticed I wasn't drinking and started saying something about it. The brother from the previous night (who had started bugging me about not drinking) stepped in this time and said "He doesn't drink. It's cool." Nice to get support from another brother in another chapter.

phoenix16 10-09-2017 02:44 PM

The week after I accepted my bid, my chapter did a progressive dinner at sisters' houses. It was a ton of fun and I loved getting to know everyone. At the last house, I was struck with this feeling that I had found "my people" and that I was going to love this sorority more than I already did. I had no idea how much support my sisters would provide me through personal and family illness and just through the difficulties of being so far from home. My sisters became my home and I will forever be grateful for them.


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