What does Kappa mean to me?
Wow Casey, that's a big question. Have you got half an hour to read my response?
As an active, Kappa meant FUN! Fun girls and fun events--whether they were planned or spontaneous. I loved living in the house with so many different women (I am an only child, and it was GREAT to suddenly have 120 sisters!). I loved doing Rush (from the inside :P). I loved sitting around the TV and watching ER every Thursday night and then hitting the town with my sisters after that. Even then I knew that my experiences at Kappa were teaching me things like respect for others, tolerance of different personality styles, and unity through diversity.
I couldn't see then, though, what Kappa would mean to me AFTER I graduated... I never wanted to be one of those ladies with the fleur-de-lis earrings and pocketbooks. I thought that was what being an alumnae meant, and I wanted no part of that! :P
Well, I'm still not one of those ladies with the fleur-de-lis earrings (Hey, I'm still in my 20s!!!)... though they were selling those earrings in the boutique at Province Meeting....
Now I know that being a Kappa means being a Kappa for a lifetime, and it's such a wonderful feeling that I can't even begin to describe. Since I graduated, I have lived in three different states, and the Kappas in each place have embraced me as their own. I've been an advisor at two different chapters (one in Iowa, and one in Boston), and I never cease to be amazed at the wonderful groups of active women in the chapters, and the wonderful groups of alumnae women who advise the chapters, who serve on alumnae groups, or who just get together to have fun as sisters.
When I was an active, I thought my chapter was the best chapter out there--and it is a great chapter, but it wouldn't be great without the thousands of other women and hundreds of other chapters that make KAPPA great. Together we make each other great; we raise each other's standards, and the fraternity's standards as a whole. As the founders of my beloved Delta chapter so eloquently stated when they wrote the first ritual, "Our characters will the be the criteria of hers." It's the character of the women that make Kappa's critera so high. And I couldn't be prouder.
Passing the paddle.... and as we used to say at our chapter meetings when we were done speaking, "Proud to be a Kappa."
--Kristen
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Oh, Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma,
I'm so happy that I am a
Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma,
Nobody knows . . . how
happy I am!
