Yay! I have an audience. Thanks everyone!
That's exciting....and a bit scary. I've never had my own thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by James
I suppose its like watching a TV show where you know the formula and how it has to end but you enjoy the process.
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Exactly. I've been watching Law & Order and its various franchises for, what is it, at least a decade now. It's alway predictable but I still love to watch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by honeychile
Yes, please spill it! I'd love to hear about a UMD Recruitment!
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Well, okay. I didn't want to interupt your story though. I'll just post my intro for now.
*WARNING*
I tend to be
very wordy when I write so if I’m blabbing on and on about something and boring you all to tears don’t hesitate to say, “Hey Leslie! Get to the point already!” I won’t take offense.
Here we go:
For those of you who read JessSigKap’s wonderful story, we’ll be heading back to the University of Maryland but we’ll be going 20 years further back in time to….
(this is where you see the hands of a clock running furiously counter-clockwise)
1984!
Madonna was the newest, biggest thing on the scene. The Cosby Show made its debut. Michael Jackson still looked human. John McEnroe was throwing tantrums and winning Wimbledon. Elton John was still pretending to be straight and married a woman. Reagan was in office. AIDS was discovered in France. Carl Lewis won 4 Olympic gold medals. The Soviet Union still existed. Prince’s “Purple Rain” was topping the charts. Jesse Jackson called New York “Hymietown.” And Bruce Springsteen released “Born in the USA.”
(Not exactly as concise and meaningful as “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” but at least it sets the stage.)
There were 18 sororities at the University of Maryland at the time. (Since the time of my story five have left and one has arrived on the scene.)
They were:
Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Delta Pi
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Phi
Alpha Xi Delta
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Delta Phi Epsilon
Gamma Phi Beta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Delta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Phi Sigma Sigma
Pi Beta Phi
Sigma Delta Tau
Sigma Kappa
A not-so-brief bit of background on me… (I tried to be brief, but it didn’t work.)
I grew up in Los Angeles. I was a bit of an odd ball in high school. I was in the dance department and rarely showed up for my academic classes. I went to school for the period when I worked in the counselor’s office and for dance rehearsals which often went long into the night. That was just about it. (I honestly don’t know how I managed to graduate!)
Although I had taken my SATs (and done surprisingly well, considering), I hadn’t given any serious thought to going to college. Neither of my parents had gone to college nor had my older brother or sister.
My family is heavily into the arts; both fine arts and performing arts. We had always traveled a lot and saw just about every theatre production possible. So, what I really wanted to do was to move to New York and become a dancer. I had already had a bit of a chance to apprentice with a dance company in California, but a lack of parental guidance left me floundering and the opportunity passed. I also didn’t have vocal training which pretty much ruled out my dream life in Broadway musical comedies. So, what to do?
Well, there was a guy (isn’t there always?) He was the love of my life and we had been dating on and off through high school. He was going to be a sophomore at Princeton. I suddenly began to think that he would never marry me if I wasn’t educated so I decided that I
had to give up dancing and go to college. My requirements were:
1) The college obviously had to be fairly easy to get into, considering my GPA (Maryland fit the bill at the time, it wouldn’t now.)
2) It had to be far from Los Angeles. (I desperately needed a change of scenery.)
and
3) If I was going back East, I had to be close to Princeton.
**Here I’ll have to explain a bit about how I plan to tell my story. There are
a lot of “characters” involved and
a lot of sororities so I’m going to rely heavily on visuals. I love vintage advertising, illustrators, and Alberto Vargas. So all my “characters” will be Vargas Pinup Girls (all fully clothed
) and the sororities….well, let’s say that I’m breaking from the norm. They have code names but they’re based on my first impressions. They’ll also have graphics. Woohoo!
So, here’s me:
Yeah, I know (I wish!). Just play along.
Some friends of my family had a daughter who was going to be a sophomore at the University of Maryland. I talked to her about it, looked into it, it filled all my requirements, I applied, got accepted, and I was ready to go. The daughter became a friend of mine. I’ll call her “Social Butterfly Suzanne”.
I was thrilled to be leaving Los Angeles. The only down side was that I would miss my family and my best friend, Iris, who would be going to UCLA.
So, about a week before Freshman Orientation my mom and I flew out to New York and went on a shopping spree at Bloomingdale’s. I was excited about all the new clothes for my “new life.” Unfortunately, looking back I bought all the wrong things.
The clothes were better suited for clubbing in L.A. not going to college on the East coast. I
had a copy of the Preppy Handbook. Why didn’t I look at it?!
From New York we took a train down to Maryland and we arrived at the university to find that because I had applied late I didn’t have housing. Wonderful!
They were working on it but meanwhile my mom and I stayed in a Motel.
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Freshman Orientation is coming up. I promise I'll get to the actual Rush story soon.