[OldOleMiss]

Okay I have half been goading into this (you know who I am looking at ☺) As the title states this is a RETRO story so a lot of the practices have changed. I pulled out my old journal I kept freshman year in college to aid my memory ☺ This is also rather long- I typed it out first and tried to keep it short- but it was impossible- therefore I will post it over the next two or three days. (sorry!)—so here it goes….

I was a freshman at Ole Miss in 1990. My father had been in a GLO at a large Southern School, however my mother had gone to an all girls college so I knew very little about rush, let alone competitive SEC rush going into it. Thank goodness or I may not have gone through!!☺ At the time Ole Miss had 11 NPC sororities:

ADPi
AOPi
Chi-O
DG
Tri Delt
KD
KKG
Theta
Phi Mu
Pi Phi
ZTA

For my story I will use large department stores (hey I like to shop ☺) so in no particular order we had

Barneys
Bergdorf Goodman
Bloomingdales
Neiman Marcus
Saks Fifth Avenue
JC Penny’s
Macy’s
Marshalls
Nordstroms
Sears
TJ Maxx

The first day of rush (it was rush back at this time, not recruitment) we all gathered and met our RC’s. We were divided into groups by last name and each group had 2 RC’s. I was really happy because a girl I had met and really liked at orientation during the summer was in my group! Yay I knew someone!!! KYrushee was equally as happy to see me as I was to see her!!! She confided in me she was nervous. I was way too dumb to be nervous. I had recs for all of the houses except Macy’s and Nordstroms, which I had never really heard of and didn’t know any alum. I had two cousins who had been GLO- one had been a Marshalls and one a TJ Maxx, but not at this school so I didn’t figure that would help me too much.

My first house of the day was Macy’s. I was in no way at all prepared for them all to run out of the house singing and clapping at the top of their lungs. WTF!? I have to admit it scared me a little. After their performance the actives started calling out names and grabbing rushees from the group. This scared me even worse than singing!!! My heart nearly stopped when I heard my name called and this GORGEOUS—I mean the most beautiful person in the world that I have ever seen gorgeous- came jumping up to me grabbing me and talking 90 miles a minute. Her name was uber-peppy sorority girl and she was VERY EXCITED to meet me! I was honestly too stunned to speak. I don’t know what I had thought rush was going to be like, but honestly it wasn’t this! Uber-peppy yanked me into the house and held my hand THE ENTIRE PARTY. (nearly 24 years later this still skeeves me out a bit)- She explained that this party was where she took me around to meet as many of the sisters as she could in the allotted time period. Uber peppy was VERY GOOD at this. We set off like a tornado as she flung me in front of girl after girl. It was all very chaotic as the other sisters were trying to get face time for their rushees as well. In the course of the party she let it slip that she had been in Miss America the year before and she was so happy to be done with all of that. YIKES! Seriously she was gorgeous . I felt so overwhelmed and so seriously out of place (I’m cute, but I was seriously out of my league). I don’t think I said 5 words the entire party I was THAT shell-shocked!!! I also don’t think I breathed the entire time because I remember taking the biggest gulp of air ever when I was finally released and let back go into the wild. She had been super sweet but OMG I felt out of place.

Next up was Nordstroms. When I had come for my campus visit senior year, I stayed with a girl who was in Nordstroms. I was relieved when she was the one who came out and grabbed me. Again, like Macy’s we were taken around and introduced to as many girls as possible, It was chaotic but at least I felt more prepared.

After Nordstroms I began to relax. I was no longer shocked by the door songs and was in the groove of saying my name over and over again. All of the houses went by in a blur with the notable exception of Bergdorf where the girl rushing me didn’t take me around to nearly the number of people that the other houses had and asked me if the ruby ring I was wearing was real…. ICK!!!
After the last house our RC’s told us that unless we were contacted between midnight and 6am then we were to show up at official rush hall to pick up our invites and if applicable decide on which ones to accept. We could go back to a max of 9 houses for the next round. I should add here that my roommate did not participate in Rush and had not moved in yet…

In the middle of the night I was awoken (not that I slept that great) by a knock on the door. Seriously!!!??? My heart dropped. I wondered if it would all go away if I just didn’t answer the door. I had been cut by everyone???!!! What was wrong with me??? I almost started crying before I answered the door but I didn’t. I answered to door and there stood a RC I had not seen before. She looked oddly at me and asked if I was Suzie Rushee. I WAS NOT!!! I WAS NOT!!! I WAS NOT!!!! Suzie Rushee lived next door!!!!!! I had NOT been cut. But wait crap.. not only had Suzie been cut from everything round one, which is bad enough, I was awake to witness her humiliation. That made me feel really bad… and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Suzie. I liked her, she was super cute and seemed to be so much fun. I think I may have been as devastated as she was going to be. I went back into my room and heard her crying, and heard her roommate trying to comfort her. The next morning getting ready in the shower room things were not as happy and upbeat as the morning before. Apparently 7 girls on our hall had been released. Wow I was not prepared for that, I kept my midnight visit to myself as I got ready to go to official rush hall.

more to come later.... [/SIZE]