Hi all! I'm back in action. Sorry for the delay!
Quote:
Originally Posted by kchaptergphib
*cringing* Terrible idea! I think you'll go Haley, anyway. And I think it's hilarious that roommate ended up marrying a brother of Violently Drunk.
|
Well, I later ended dating a member of Violently Drunk for 2 years. So go figure. I had the sense to get out though.
So... rush week starts! I could barely concentrate on the first week of classes! But I should mention one more thing that I believe I should have included in my first post. Sometime before the first night of rush, but after the dinner with the Girls from Across the Street, I found out that my University Big, the Peyton, would not be on campus for recruitment. She had come down with mono over Christmas break and was going to miss the whole first week of school and also recruitment week. This made me a bit nervous because it was basically like my biggest champion in Peyton would not be there during recruitment week... but I thought it would probably be ok. Right? Right??
SOOOOOOO.... night 1 of recruitment. Philanthropy night!
The dress for Philanthropy Night was a pair of casual pants or nice jeans along with a nice but casual top. The idea was that it would be something you'd wear to class, only what people wore to class at my school was usually more dressy that that. Hm. So basically what happened (and this is consistent with what happened when I went through on the other side too), all the PNMs come in wearing nice khakis (almost to a fault), and the sororities wear jeans because Panhel dictates they have to in order to be "casual." As far as tops most girls probably wore a nice dressy sweater because it was so cold that year. I wore a nice pair of khakis (no doubt) with a striped wool mock turtleneck sweater. I still have and love that sweater. It had horizontal stripes of gray, deep purple, and orange. It might sound a little weird but it works well with my coloring. The only thing that was upsetting was that it had snowed over Christmas break and indeed snowed again before the first night of recruitment (the night I went out with the Girls from Across the Street), so Panhel made a decree that everyone HAD to wear sneakers, when before the dictate had been "sneakers or casual flats." (Again, Panhel always forces actives to wear sneakers, but the PNMs usually sneak and wear casual flats, unless it's snowed and Panhel makes the sneaker decree.) I really did not like wearing sneakers with my outfit and felt like my sneakers did not go or match my outfit.
So.... the parties! The first night of recruitment we stuck with our Rho Chi groups, which were basically our halls, which was nice because Roommate and Hallmate came with me everywhere.
1. Peyton. I was so excited to go to Peyton! We entered and the girls were all singing and clapping and going crazy and they led us up the stairs to their dining room. They had removed all the tables and put down clear tarp on the floor. We were making... What the hell were we making? I think we were making quilt squares. This is sad because I know from the rest of my college career that Peyton changed their philanthropy craft every year and I think I'm thinking that they one they did my sophomore year was the one we did for some reason. ACK! I'm getting old. Anyway, we made quilt squares. I was picked up by someone I didn't know, a senior. She was extremely blond and didn't make particularly good conversation. I found that Peyton had a really awkward, obvious method of bumping. They had all the PNMs sitting in circle groups making the craft with their rushers, and then they would flash the lights and all the Peytons would jump up and move to another circle. It was really extremely obvious and particularly awkward since it was my first party of recruitment. On the other hand, I quickly realized that recruitment was a bit of an assembly line, which I think is a good thing to realize early on. I talked to probably 3-4 people. I don't remember how many. I thought it went fairly well.
2. The second party of the night was Nathan. I was picked up here by a girl who was a junior or senior. I quickly realized how intense the Nathans were. They were so proud to be Nathans! They clearly really and truly thought Nathan was the best place to be, period. They were going crazy! I don't even remember how we had time to make a craft because it seemed like all that was happened was the Nathans going crazy and chanting about how much they loved Nathan. I must have met 7-8 people, which at my school is pretty unusual for one night of recruitment. The craft was stamping designs onto baby caps and onesies (aw! I liked this). One thing happened that I didn't know what to make of, was that my rusher introduced me to the president of the chapter. I think somehow we were talking about hometowns and the rusher decided I just HAD to talk to the president of the chapter (who despite being from my town and our grandmothers being friends, I had never met... her family had gone up in the world I think! LOL). The president was really sweet to me and was wearing HUGE Nathan lavaliere earrings. I mean seriously huge; I haven't seen anything like them before or since, she must have special ordered them. I left Nathan feeling really good and overwhelmed by how much the Nathans loved their chapter. I wondered if it was some kind of good thing to be introduced to the President.
3. Next was Lucas. I was REALLY curious to see if Host Lucas (who I still liked) might pick me up. She did not, nor did the Lucas I knew from French class. I got another girl who was probably the most laid back person I had during all of recruitment. She had a sort of snorty laugh. Unlike the first two parties at Peyton and Nathan, the Lucases left their dining room tables out and we made the crafts on the tables. As a PNM, this was probably a slightly more pleasant experience, but it didn't allow the sisters to run around and go crazy like they had at Nathan or to a lesser extent Peyton (well, with Peyton, it was mostly them running between PNM circles). I won't say what the craft was at Lucas because it's a really common craft that's done nationally by Lucas chapters. I did think it was a really cool craft though and I had probably the best results with it of any craft project of the night. I just didn't know what to make of my rusher though. I didn't get much of a vibe from her at all! In retrospect, I'd say she seemed like a bit of a stoner or something. I do remember thinking that the Lucases had the best outfits of the night - a simple polo in their colors. Chapters at my school tended to wear either tshirts or polos in their colors (with the Panhel mandated jeans and sneakers) and I think overall from the PNM perspective the polo chapters looked more put-together than the tshirt chapters. So I left Lucas feeling somewhat bored.
4. Haley. I was getting tired but felt like I would at least see people I knew here. So I was extremely disappointed when I was picked up by someone I didn't know. Similar to Lucas, Haley left out their tables to do the craft project on and you only spoke to one rusher the entire night (although floating people might come and greet you, this happened at both Lucas and Haley). I won't say what Haley's craft was either (it's not a national one but it might be a give-away), but it involved a LOT of painting and was kind of messy, which was problematic. I was speaking to a junior who seemed sort of boring to me. From our conversation, I quickly realized that she was friends with a lot of the Haley members I danced with, yet I had NEVER met her. Didn't she socialize at all or go to fraternity parties? I pondered this in my head. On the other hand, this Haley was going to be the new member educator so she was able to talk about a lot of the events that Haley would be doing with their pledge class. That was pretty cool. Haley also wore polos which was a good thing. I remember looking around here and feeling like some of the other PNMs weren't as bored. From my perspective, I had been to two really high energy parties and then two much lower energy parties, and I was starting to feel drained.
5. Brooke. Again, I had the most negative idea of Brooke going in. I had a junior pick me up here. (In retrospect, I think it's interesting that juniors and seniors picked me up at every house the first night - I hate to say it, but at my school I think you can read a lot from that.) I really hit it off with this junior, though. I felt like of all the conversations I had that night it was the most normalized and just "getting to know you" type of conversation. Looking around at the Brookes though, I was not really sure I wanted to be a part of them. The Brooke craft is a nationally common one too so I'll remain mum on that. The Brookes had removed their tables, but their party still wasn't as high energy as Nathan's had been, or even maybe Peyton's. I mean, they didn't do the awkward bumping thing like Peyton. I think I must have talked to several different people but for some reason I only remember talking to the one girl who picked me up. I really did like her.
We went back to the dorms to discuss and rehash! The next afternoon we would find out where we were invited back; for skit night we could return to a maximum of 4 parties. I would say that my top two after the first night were Nathan (based on how awesome the party was) and Peyton (based on knowing all the girls I knew in Peyton). Then I would have chosen Haley and it would probably have been a tossup between Lucas and Brooke for the bottom places...
