A Colorful, Dramatic Recruitment!

[IndianaSigKap]

Ah...the crescent moon!

[AOII Angel]

AzTheta's gonna be so disappointed that the Thetas didn't carve little Thetas out of cucumber slices. nice placement of your , though.

[gee_ess]

LOL at the cucumber dilemma!

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by sugarberry

Ok... what does a cucumber slice look like when you take a bite out of it?

Boo. Boo (like the old woman in The Princess Bride when Buttercup is going to get married to the Evil Prince).

I am ignoring AOII Angel. She is in the corner.

Now, back to the story, please. And please tell me that they didn't actually BITE the slices, right? (okay enough silliness).

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

Boo. Boo (like the old woman in The Princess Bride when Buttercup is going to get married to the Evil Prince).

I am ignoring AOII Angel. She is in the corner.

Now, back to the story, please. And please tell me that they didn't actually BITE the slices, right? (okay enough silliness).

Good movie reference.

[sugarberry]

Round 3:
I found it funny that recruitment events were called “parties” because they were so structured and formal. I guess “recruitment interviews” doesn’t sound as good. For Round 3 we could go to up to 6 houses.

My rho chi handed me my schedule and asked me how I felt about it. I looked down to see that I had been invited back to 5 parties – another nearly-full schedule! I felt very fortunate to have so many houses left still. Some of the girls in my group were down to 2 or 3 parties already.

I was asked back to these houses:
Purple
Black
Pink
Turquoise
Blue

I was very excited to be asked back to Blue and Purple. Lots of girls really liked these 2 houses, and they wanted me! My other three houses were the three I had ranked as alternates. I was a bit discouraged that I hadn’t been invited back to Green and Crimson, but I was excited to get to know more girls in Turquoise, Pink, and Black. If they wanted me back, then they must have seen something in me that I hadn’t seen yet in them.

My rho chi was happy that I was pleased with my schedule – I was an easy PNM for her!


I went to the parties, and here are my thoughts.

Pink: Pink’s skit was super polished and their decorations were fantastic. The dancer in me was very impressed. Unfortunately, I still didn’t feel I was connecting to girls here. I had several awkward conversations and it seemed like the girls were very nervous.

Black: I still couldn’t get the “we don’t emphasize sisterhood” comment from last night from out of my head. For this reason, it was tough for me to focus on this party. The girls were sweet, though.

Purple: This house had a cute skit and I had some more great conversations here. I didn’t realize how much I liked this house until tonight.

Turquoise: Turquoise’s skit was good, but I just didn’t feel a connection here. I was tired by this point in the night and I think it showed.
Blue: Blue’s skit was INCREDIBLE and I was matched with girls who said they had heard great things about me from their sisters. This made me happy – they remembered me!

Not surprisingly, I ranked these two houses as my bottom.
Black
Pink

[chi-o_cat]

Originally Posted by sugarberry

Black: I still couldn’t get the “we don’t emphasize sisterhood” comment from last night from out of my head. For this reason, it was tough for me to focus on this party. The girls were sweet, though.

Yes, that does sound strange. But could there be some explanation, like this was her first time as an active doing recruitment, and she was kind of nervous, so what she meant to say come out totally wrong? For example, she was trying to say something like, the members are committed to academics and they don't emphasize the sorority over classwork? If you heard it from more than one member, then definitely a red flag, but just one girl saying it could be an unfortunate mis-step, or maybe even some personal issue she has with the chapter- if that's the case she shouldn't have said it, but it still could be something more reflecting on her than the chapter as whole.

Looking forward to hearing the rest of the story!

[sugarberry]

Round 4:
It was finally the last night of recruitment, and I was excited but ready for it to be over! My voice was gone, I was behind on homework, and if I had to say my major one more time I thought I might scream! But I enjoyed getting to know so many girls, and my Rho Chi group had gotten very close. We memorized all the house door songs and sang them to each other. Weird, but they WERE catchy! I still get them stuck in my head to this day.

My rho chi handed me this schedule. We could go to up to 3 houses.
Blue
Pink
Turquoise

Seriously?! The same houses I had ranked in the bottom each time kept inviting me back, and now it was preference night and I was down to 1 house that I absolutely loved. I had heard several girls talking about how they planned to be rude at houses they disliked or tell the girls at those houses that they liked other houses better. I thought this was super mean and ridiculous – the girls in these houses COULD SEE YOU AS SISTERS and you’re going to treat them like cr@p?!? This got me angry… but I didn’t have much time to be frustrated with other people because my parties were starting soon and I had a full schedule!

Blue: The ceremony was beautiful, and I felt a true connection here. I was paired with the girl I met during Round 2, and she told me how happy she was that I was there. I knew in my heart that this was where I was meant to be.
Pink: The ceremony was nice but not as formal as Blue’s. I had never met the girl I was paired with, and there were lots of awkward silences in our conversation. This hour party felt very slow, and I did not feel at home here.
Turquoise: Again, I didn’t know the girl I was paired with. The ceremony was nice and the girl I spoke to was cool, but I did not feel was welcomed here as I did at Blue.

I was instructed to rank all my houses to have the best chance of getting a bid. I knew my rankings and I got my ranks over with quickly. I went to bed right after I got back to my dorm – I was tired!
1. Blue
2. Turquoise
3. Pink

[ErinHope]

Oh I hope it's Blue! I lol'd at the cucumber thing, too.

[Sciencewoman]

Lol at the crescent-shaped cucumbers and cucumber water.

At the chapter I help advise, alumnae were helping decorate for Bid Day, while members were at the bid opening, and we could not figure out what smelled really bad. Turns out it was the day-old cucumber water from Pref., which had been left in the serving dispenser. I'm just warning anyone who might be thinking of serving this...don't let that stuff sit!

I am also rooting for Blue, but the fact that sugarberry waited a long time to post, and thought about it before posting, makes me think it's probably Turquoise or Pink.

[sugarberry]

Hahaha, the cucumber slices were not bit out of. I think they used a cookie cutter to cut out a section of each slice. Here is more of the story!


Bid Night!
It was FINALLY Bid Night! I excitedly got ready and headed to the big auditorium where all the PNMs would receive our bids. We sat through a long lecture (I don’t even remember it!) and then had to sit on our bids. On the count of 3, we opened them, and I ripped open mine. I had gotten a bid from…






























































































Turquoise.

Wait. What?! This was not my house. I immediately broke into tears as the girls around me screamed and squealed happily. What had I done wrong? Why didn’t Blue want me? I was crushed. Thankfully my Rho Chi was there for me, and she let me cry and talk it out for a while. She encouraged me to go to Turquoise’s Bid Night festivities, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. Those girls shouldn’t need to see me red-faced and sad at their fun night. It wasn’t fair to them. I walked home sad and crushed. I was meant to be in a sorority. All my friends were now in sororities. Where was I supposed to be now? I took some Nyquil (bad, I know) and quickly went to sleep. I didn’t want to deal with people at that time.


The story is not over!!!

[sugarberry]

The Next Day:

I woke up feeling a little better, but I soon felt sad again when I saw all the door decorations all over my hallway. On my desk, however, were several notes that had not been there the night before. The notes were from girls in Turquoise. It turns out several girls had come to my dorm last night while I was asleep and my roommate had let them in. The notes were encouraging and kind and made me cry, but this time it was tears of joy. I had sisters, whether I liked it or not, and I owed it to those sisters, to those two girls who came to my dorm late at night, to give Turquoise another chance. The notes invited me to a cupcake party that night for all the new members to meet more active sisters. I decided to go.

When I arrived I saw several girls I had spoken to during recruitment. They were very welcoming and sweet, and the girls in my pledge class were ones I did not know, but that I had seen around campus. Everyone had the same sarcastic sense of humor as I did, which I adored. After the cupcake party, we all went to one senior sister’s off-campus house. It was there that I met the sister who would soon be my Big. She took me under her wing and we were best friends immediately. It was as though we had known each other forever. She was actually the one who I had met at Pref Night: the girls in Turquoise matched her to me because they thought we would be friends. And outside of the formal, uncomfortable atmosphere of recruitment, we were!

The girls in Turquoise knew me more than I knew myself, and on that night, in that tiny apartment, I knew I had found my home. I came home that night crying again, but this time it was tears of joy again. The girls in Turquoise were my sisters. They had been all along. I just needed some more time outside of recruitment to realize it.

[Venusloves11]

At least you didn't do what some people did one year at my university. There was one sorority without a house because of the lottery that the school had on their very small Greek Village and therefore people thought that they were "lower" than the others. On bid day some of the girls that received bids from them actually ripped up the bids IN FRONT of the sisters because they weren't their first choice and didn't want them.

Glad that the story isn't over yet.

[FSUZeta]

THANK GOODNESS!!! I am so glad that you had a 2nd chance and that you took it. Imagine what you would have missed out on otherwise!

[LouisaMay]

Beautifully said!!!!! I teared up! I'm so happy that you opened your heart to let these girls in.