Racists are everywhere. Texas is no excuse.

Signed,
Someone who has only ever lived in the south

Perhaps Saint DD3 can step down from her pedestal and share some kind, warm-hearted guidance with her insensitive cousin. She could count it toward her self-imposed "50 hours of community service per semester" goal.

You know...maybe it would be nice to let TriDDDeltgirl tell this story instead of piling on criticism. I've really enjoyed the items she has been willing to share, and aside from the comedy one of the best things about them is her honesty in sharing unflattering behavior/thoughts. Remember that even though they are legally adults 18 year old women (girls?) are rarely mature enough to navigate recruitment well. It's easy to be critical from our positions 10, 15, 20, 30 years past this time in our own lives.

TriDDDeltGirl is a talented writer and since it's her story to share she could have easily edited things to show her niece in a more flattering light if she wanted to. I'm looking forward to the next installments.

^^^^This^^^^

I may be the only one, but I did not interpret the pnm’s remark as racist. I interpreted it as a young woman trying to find a home where she feels comfortable. Every year we see pnms dismiss the “Jewish” house because they aren’t Jewish, we see very few African American women join “white” sororities, and almost no white women join NPHC groups. Why? Because this is not where they feel like they belong. She may have said she didn’t like the house because there were too many girls of Asian descent, but what I interpreted was she did not feel like she belonged in this house.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled program.

I agree... critics have stifled so many recruitment stories because they think the stories are not politically correct or they strike a sore spot in the critic (ie you think you're too good for sorority X). In a recent recruitment story, the poster said that she was glad that she was invited back to a sorority even though she had heard that they only took a certain group. She was extremely careful NOT to say which group. Was the group tall blondes? or a religious affiliation? or ????
And no one piled criticism on her.

Maybe I should post a fictional story where the PNM is perfect and joins a fictional sorority. She will have no opinions, no biases, no preferences, will have been raised in an all-inclusive public school, have an 8.0 GPA, Miss America candidate, honor scholar, top athlete and she will reject any sorority that does not have equal representation by every ethnic and religious group.

Please let the poster tell the story of her niece. She's telling it like it was for her young niece, NOT like it should have been. I appreciate her honesty.

You’ve got it all wrong. It has nothing to do with being “politically correct.”

People used to post their rush stories with real school names and real sorority names. They were a lot more fun to read. But guess what? Some of the girls posting stories in real time found that their rush was effected. Some girls, after they received a bid, were told by their new sororities to delete their posts as this or that might reflect badly on the chapter.

And I wouldn’t call it politically correct but...more like panhellenically considerate. We ALL have chapters that are not doing well. If a PNM (or anyone) googles “Alpha Sigma Alpha University of Oregon” and finds a story portraying that chapter in a negative light, even if it is ONLY that poster’s opinion, it’s not going to help the chapter at all, especially during rush.

This is people’s real lives. It’s not just for your entertainment.

PINK SEQUINED PANTYHOSE! :D

That. Will. Never. Get. Old.
:D

https://i.etsystatic.com/15018666/r/...00652_q0ae.jpg

Oh My Goodness...I just want to see the end of this story...

I think this is a good thing for people to see. It's a very real problem at many schools on the west coast. Even at Cal Berkeley, that bastion of liberalism and political correctness, sororities become "undesirable" when they become "too Asian." The truth hurts, but we need to own it.

This.

It’s huge, I helped out at a west coast chapter of my sorority and I had a friend of mine who had a daughter rushing call me and ask if there was racial diversity I responded that yes, the chapter composed of a lot of different diverse girls and she responded “it’s west coast, I want to know if the chapter is all Asian.”

I helped out at a SMU and I went to visit a friend of mine who is in a different sorority and her daughter, I didn’t see one woman of color at that house.

Niece’s high a chool had an EXTREME problem with racism and most of the girls there had awful attitudes when it came to rushing sororities that weren’t what they’d been in the 70s and 80s when their mothers were members and in the 50s and 60s when their grandmothers were members.

I just was looking at a canadian university’s chapter of a sorority and I did not see one woman of color at all. At some schools, there’s still the token woman of color in a chapter, I’ve written Rec letters for women who are extremely qualified but have still been dropped and I don’t think that it’s because of skin tone, but when I see an all white chapter with maybe 3 Asian women and that’s all the diversity they have, I have to wonder.

So yes, even though I hate to be that person who causes controversy, diversity is still an issue in sororities. I’m sure that all of us saw the Alabama sorority scandal headlines, we’ve seen the recruitment videos, it’s an issue and until we have a solution to that issue, we have a problem.

(I hate to be political. I’m sorry, this is my personal opinion, not the opinion of my sorority)

She attended a private school where the racism was extreme, I won’t go into detail but some of the things that were said and the words that were used to describe other people were disgusting.

I think you commented before about how DD4 is not as loved or as special as DD3. Let me say this now and let me say this clearly. My children aren’t people to be pitted against one another or compared, DD3 has gone through a lot of bad things in her life and she takes a philosophical approach to things, DD4 has always gone in with guns blazing. They’re both the same in my heart, they’re both loved just as much. Niece and DD3 do not speak due to some comments niece has made in the past about “saint” DD3. DD3’s 50 hours of community service are what she feels like she has to do to give back to her community, she was extremely ill when she was younger, she had women from a local sorority chapter volunteer at the hospital she was in and DD3 saw the difference it made. If you have a problem with her volunteering, feel free to take it up with me :) if not, please refrain from backhanded comments, it’s unkind.

Also, I’m sure that she reads these threads and I don’t want her or her sister exposed to people comparing them or assuming how much they’re loved by me or who is the favorite. Neither of my daughters need to be subjected to subtle microaggressions from fellow Panhellenic women.

^^^^ Yes! As another multiples Mom, I am with you. You have been beyond generous with your insight and recap throughout all of these stories. Thank you for sharing. Please don't let anyone dissuade you from finishing your journey. There are many of us that appreciate your candor without casting judgement on a young women's perception of chapters (no matter how different they may be from what we "older" women might see.)

I know we're all saying these things because we're hoping that PNMs are not judging our sisters, panhellenic or otherwise, by their race, but we also have to admit that there are PNMs and actives who hold prejudiced and ignorant beliefs about race, even among our own organizations. Hopefully TriDDDeltgirl's niece learns the error in her notions either through recruitment or through her college experiences, and those PNMs and actives who come across this story and see themselves in TriDDDeltgirl's niece realize the error as well.

Either way, we asked TriDDDeltgirl to post her niece's story. She never promised niece would be a sweet, polite PNM. Out of fairness to her and not comparing her children/niece, the stories for DD3 and DD4 show that you can raise two children at the same time in the same manner and still end up with vastly different individuals, so there's no sense in bringing her parenting into this. All children (hopefully) learn their lessons when they're ready to and no amount of parenting will force a child to learn if they're not ready and willing to have the lesson - I say this as someone still learning new things every day myself. Clearly TriDDDeltgirl isn't teaching prejudice in her home. Let's all just enjoy the story!

Round Two


The houses:
Seattle
Ferry
Puget Sound
Music Scene
Black Eyeliner
Art Studios
Coffee
Cherry Blossoms
Native American Art

Niece was furious. She’d taken hard cuts and didn’t know why. She had some of the houses back that she thought she liked but she wouldn’t tell us why she had gotten dropped by so many houses. She told DD4 though and DD4 told us. Niece had gone into Nirvana and told the ladies there that she didn’t like their sorority and that she didn’t plan on joining, when they attempted to talk with her, she continued to say rude things. She also did this at Birkenstocks.

I wasn’t too mad, her actions didn’t reflect on anyone but herself, she’d been dropped from Birkenstocks and Nirvana, true colors had been shown and they hadn’t been appreciated. Grandma was furious. I’d never seen her so angry before, she paced back and forth, ranting in a heavy Texan accent, after around an hour of this I finally had to say “Listen, honey, I can’t understand you.” and move the subject on.

Seattle:
She thought that the girls were evasive when she asked questions, she also thought that the girls were attractive and, apparently, they didn’t seem very interested in further explaining their philanthropy.

Ferry:
According to PNM gossip, Ferry hazes, Grandma and I tried to tell Niece that there’s a 0% chance that Ferry actually hazes but she wouldn’t listen to us at all. She still liked them though but didn’t like their philanthropy.

Puget Sound:
Apparently this house is unpopular at Bama but they’re very popular at Washington so Niece was split on whether she liked them or not, she liked their physical beauty but was t too interested in the fact that they’re considered a “new row” house at Alabama.

Music Scene:
She was a big fan of Music Scene this time around. She connected with the girls first and then their philanthropy. She also liked that their house had some sort of a farmhouse chic vibe and there was some nice stained glass that she really enjoyed seeing.

Black Eyeliner:
She gave them some thought. Did she like them? No. Did she see herself fitting in? No. Did she give them a fair chance and look at the sisters and withhold her judgement until she’d left the house? Kind of. And honestly, that’s what counts.

Art Studios:
She liked them because they’re very popular at Bama and they’re more of a low key house at Washington. She thought that they had a lot of appeal to a certain group of girls and the girls who rushed her seemed very laidback as opposed to some of the other sororities she’d seen on the row.

Coffee:
Her negative opinion of coffee had barely changed, she didn’t like their letters but she did think that the girls were kind and made sure that all of her questions were answered. She did reflect on them at a later point in the day and admit that the girls were really very nice. They’re a highly ranked house at Bama as per the other Greek site and apparently they’re very Christian, Niece did see the aspect of religion at the UW chapter and she did enjoy it immensely.

Cherry Blossoms:
She loved them, thought they were slightly morbid but she still loved them. She mentioned that she liked them at Bama as well and that the chapter at UW was really nice but she’d have to see how she felt about them at the end of the day.

Native American Art:
The letters still didn’t fall into a perfectly straight line and the girls still seemed lower tier but you know what? She liked them and she made it work for herself, she wouldn’t admit to having a good time but she said she had a decent time and that everyone was nice.

My Sister-in-Law is a very holistic woman, she doesn’t believe in vaccinations and many forms of modern day medicine. Niece wasn’t vaccinated as a result. Niece called me early in the morning crying really hard and trying to tell me that her feet and legs were cramping, she couldn’t move anything below her waist, and that she was in extreme pain and felt very feverish, I didn’t stop to think, I just sat straight up in bed and blurted into the phone “Oh my dear God, you have polio!” and started to figure out what to do. Grandma took the phone at this point and established that all Niece needed was some of that “Shaquille O’Neill gel” and we went on an expedition to find this mystical gel, The stores open didn’t carry any of the Icy Hot gel and so we ended up heating Vick’s vaporub and rubbing it into her legs and feet, the pain was due to wearing a 4-in heel every day for 9 days in preparation for rush, not polio. Grandma gave me a lecture about inciting panic and polio.

Round 3

The houses:
Ferry
Puget Sound
Coffee
Art Studios
Music Scene


Ferry:
She liked them again as always, she didn’t really feel for their philanthropy and she didn’t like their house but she clicked with the girls and had a nice time again. She mention many times how the physical house didn’t have that pizazz to it, it wasn’t fancy enough.

Puget Sound:
She liked the girls, hated the house because some of the siding on it was “tacky” and the doors weren’t cute and didn’t have that classic sorority home sparkle. She didn’t really like anything about the sorority except for the fact that the girls were pretty and nice.

Coffee:
She liked more things about coffee this time around, she thought that she really clicked with them and when she got home to her dorm and looked up Coffee online, to her surprise the letters DID line up, their colors were super cute, the girls were pretty at this chapter and nationwide, they support a cool philanthropy, and wow! Look at how cute their crest and badge are!

Art Studios:
She liked them but thought that their house was trying to hard to be a “rustic brick home” with “heavy wooden doors, wrought iron, and a serious atmosphere with stained glass and other elements”, the girls, however, were nice and she liked the chapter here and at Bama.

Music Scene:
She thought that they were just keeping her around because she was a legacy and through every conversation that she had, that feeling persisted. She decided that even though she wasn’t comfortable, she’d take the house for the name.

At this point, I received a call from DD4, I hadn’t heard from her in days when I’m used to hearing from her every 20 minutes, I answered the phone with glee only to hear complete quiet. “Mommy, I need to tell you something.” DD4 said “I’m pregnant, I’m having a baby.”, I think at this point, I collapsed into my chair and my soul just left me and began its ascent, I just sat there for a moment. “A baby, baby? Like you were when I had you? A baby?” I asked, I didn’t know what to do, battle my baby fever or just open my mouth and screech. “Yes, a baby baby. I’ve also decided to marry the father, he’s a fifth year senior in Theta Chi.” She responded. “Child, if you marry that man then you’ve got another thing coming, I swear on the good Lord’s name that I will fly on down to Alabama like a bat out of heck and I’ll show him just who he’s dealing with.” I responded just as quickly, “Mommy,” DD4 replied “I’m not actually pregnant and this was just something that I had to do for psychology class! Thanks for helping me! It was an opening lines of communication with parents project!” and hung up, leaving me to recuperate and finish going through my stages of grief.

Another tiny note: for those that would accuse racism on my niece’s part, her father is white, her mother is not. Unless you magically know exactly which race her mother is, refrain from making accusations :) thank you so much!

I am dying! OMG!!!

I think I might still fly down to UA and give DD4 a swift kick in the arse for stopping your heart, class assignment or NOT!

Wow, a paradigm shift!
Niece’s attitude has changed from “very picky” to “let’s find the good in the remaining choices”.

Lawdy, I was glad I was seated when I read what DD4 called about! I think the professor deserves the swift kick.

More! I’m having the best time trying to guess these chapters.

In defense of your niece...I think recruitment is so overwhelming and all the chapters at big schools like UW are all so impressive that you’ve got to pick something to rank them? And I recall at 18 thinking some of the letters just “didn’t look right” on sweatshirts. Because that’s IMPORTANT ������*♀️

LOL. Back in my day I remember some PNM's were influenced by how good a house's skit was (round 3 at my school)...the costumes, food, if the skit was actually funny or if was, God forbid, flat or corny. I knew girls who would dislike a house - to some degree - if they didn't find the house attractive enough. Never knew anyone who judged a sorority based on how the letters look, but I can get that. Oh, the ways an 18-year-old can think at times.

And I'm looking forward to the rest of this story...I feel like I'm right there just as I did with DD3's and DD4's rushes.

At my college, we had four NPC chapters, three of them with two-letter names, and one with three letters. This was back in the day when Greeks wore a lot of twill letters - on hoodies, on football jerseys and across the rear end of their sweats. I never thought about it during rush, but afterwards I was glad my sorority had only two Greek letters, because having three large twill letters plastered across one's rear end had a tendency to make the area look considerably wider.

OMG I want the rest of the story! This is freaking fantastic!

IMO, the best thing NPC has done in the last 20 years beside implementing RFM was doing away with skit day. As a chapter adviser and national officer in the membership department, I grew to hate the hours and hours of skit practice that chapter members spent rather than having time to practice conversation or the preference ceremony.

As a Panhellenic adviser, I have seen dozens and dozens of reaaaalllyy baaad skits.

As with many things, I think something good - 10 minutes of a goofy takeoff on the Wizard of Oz during which rushees could sit and relax, not worry about conversation, and have a breather and a few laughs - morphed into Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque proportions and the original point was completely forgotten amongst all the competition. It’s easier to stress about whether your Tin Man costume was authentic enough than it is to stress about why the rushee you loved and thought loved you back dropped your chapter out of the blue.

I’m writing the last installation, my sister in law turned up at the last moment uninvited and I’m trying to decide whether I should leave a gaping whole or just fill y’all in with all the drama. Niece’s mother was a music scene and Niece’s sister was a black eyeliner and the truth came out abruptly about why niece didn’t return to BE. SIL turning up was also the reason why most of us fled Seattle early. I’ll post the rest as soon as I can.

Also, I once was unfortunately subjected to seeing a Splash themed skit, Splash mixed with that ABC family show, Greek, the concept was horrible but the execution was flawless!

All the drama!

Can't wait. This may be more exciting than the networks' season premiers that are rolling out right now...

I’m definitely interested in the whole story.

Pref:

The houses:

Coffee
Ferry

I expected Niece to be in an absolute fury but she wasn’t. Grandma and I expected to cower when we were exposed to the full wrath of Niece but she had no wrath. She left for the day and updated us on her houses, Grandma and I started to cook and everyone else started to get ready for the day when a knock came from the door. We answered and it was my Sister in Law.

I don’t think that anyone in my family has a good relationship with my sister in law so when we opened the door, smiles fell all around. It’s not that she’s a bad person, it’s that where she goes, drama follows, she also has a habit of choosing the wrong time to say things.

SIL enters the apartment and it goes silent, dead quiet. SIL is only my sister in law by name, she and my BIL have been separated for the longest time, SIL fights with everyone and so Niece made the decision to not invite her mother to bid day and to not tell her mother the houses she was going back to.

“Aren’t you all going to welcome me?” SIL asked, Grandma was standing with her mouth open, pouring even more coffee into her already overflowing cup, my husband had taken his brother out of the apartment through the fire escape, I was holding the door open, my son had dropped his biscotti, and breakfast was burning.

The first thing SIL wants to know are Niece’s houses, we’ve been sworn to secrecy and although niece is a Music Scene legacy and a black eyeliner legacy, she didn’t like the girls and the house aren’t on her schedule. We don’t know how to gently let down SIL and she’s adamant upon knowing the houses.

Grandma and I knew that SIL would pitch a fit when she heard that neither house was on Niece’s pref schedule and neither one of us wanted to clean up that mess so we kept pushing back telling her and texted Niece what we could to tell her of the sudden development.

Another problem is that Niece isn’t BIL’s biological daughter. Niece was born in Kyoto and is kind of BIL’s adopted daughter as SIL and BIL got together, when SIL flew the coop, she didn’t return until she wanted to drop Niece with BIL, she left both her daughters with BIL and after a few years went by (when the girls were 8 and 13) BIL went ahead and started dating an amazing woman. When Niece’s mother abandoned her and didn’t come back, Niece decided that she didn’t want a stranger stopping in on her life whenever she wanted when she’d had everyone in her family but her mother helping raise her.

The last problem is that SIL came onto the family scene the same time that I did. My husband’s first wife had just died and within 2 weeks of her death, he and I were dating and on the fast track to being engaged once again. No one in his family cared that he and I were together again because apparently the fact that we’d broken up in the first place was “absolutely disgraceful”, so BIL and SIL has started dating and as soon as SIL heard that my husband and I were dating, she immediately accused me of murdering his former wife to get my hands on her husband and children. Did I? Obviously not. I wasn’t in town and I believe that if you love someone enough, eventually they’ll come back to you.

She didn’t like that I’d appeared in the Texas heat in all my trashy glory to snatch away her thunder, she didn’t like how I teased my hair and wore gaudy makeup and nail polish, she didn’t like that I wore high heels to the supermarket, and she didn’t like me. I’ve always liked everyone and so I went ahead and kept on with my life because I wasn’t about to let some woman interrupt my life just because she was threatened by me or because she hated the neon blue eyeshadow that I wore for casual occasions.

I became pregnant with my first child a few weeks after my husband’s wife had passed, it was unexpected but a ring was on my finger and so no one batted an eye, I got my big Texas wedding and I fit into a hideous huge wedding dress. I collapsed and gave birth to a stillborn a few months later, I was alone at home and so my first instinct had been to call SIL since she lived close by before calling my husband since he was far and I didn’t want him to worry, but when I called her, she told me that it was normal to bleed and that I was a first time mother so I didn’t know better than her, and then she put the phone down. She then called Grandma to tell her that I was being dramatic and to complain about me, Grandma and my other sisters in law, Mary and May, ran over and found me mostly gone and the baby completely gone. SIL said that this was my punishment for having murdered my husband’s former wife and that I’d deserved to lose the baby.

My best friends and other sisters in law, Mary and May, decided to take me out East the second I got out of the hospital, I was expecting bright lights and going out every night but I ended up staying with May’s Quaker family, I’ve never been more grateful in my entire life though because if I’d been exposed to the absolute cacophony of NYC, I would’ve had a mental breakdown and being in a place with nothing but cross stitch patterns with unlimited thread and books really put me in the mental state where I was safe and healthy with myself once again.

When I got back to Texas, I settled back into regular life and I was at peace with myself. SIL and BIL’s relationship was falling apart at the seams, her life was deteriorating, I was pregnant again with my first son, and my life was perfect. BIL decided to get some testing done on his daughter because he wanted full custody, the DNA test came back showing that there was no way in heaven or heck that the daughter was his because she was full Japanese, and then I got the call from SIL.

They’d apparently gotten into another one of their legendary fights over this revelation and SIL called me screaming that BIL was going to kill her, I was standing at the window and I could see BIL sitting on my driveway crying with my husband so there was no way anyone was attacking SIL, I turned my attention back to the landline and SIL kept screaming for me to call the police because BIL was attacking her, she was throwing around plates and screaming and throwing herself into things. I stood there on the phone watching as BIL walked into the house for a glass of lemonade with my husband. There was no doubt that it was him. “I am not my sister’s keeper. Please do not call me again unless it is a legitimate emergency.” was my response and as soon as I’d said this, the other end of the phone went deadly quiet and she said “Is this your revenge?” and hung up. She left after that, only returning to drop another baby off to BIL, he waited for a while and started dating a lovely girl when both his girls became older.

Anyway, SIL was on the warpath at our door in real time demanding to know Niece’s houses. I hadn’t seen her for around 20 years and I wasn’t too keen on all of a sudden divulging all of Niece’s personal information. “So, you’re not going to tell me the houses she has? I bet you’re still angry about that baby.” SIL said to me, “Now wait just a moment,” Grandpa cut in, having returned from the farmers market, “This isn’t about some baby, it’s about the fact that you’re returning now when there were so many times you were needed. Graduations, recitals, hospital visits, school plays, field trips. But as soon as you think that your daughter may become a member of your sorority, you magically appear. The worst thing is that she needed you back then but she’s not interested in you at all now.” and SIL promptly turned, slammed the door, and walked off.

Back to the houses!

Coffee:
She was pretty much set on Coffee, she decided that since it had come down to Coffee and Ferry, Coffee was the better choice and she had really thought about the caliber of girls that she’d seen at Ferry compared to Coffee and she decided that there was more to Coffee than met the eye. She also felt more comfortable around the girls at Coffee because they made mistakes, they messed up on part of their pref ceremony but it wasn’t a big deal because they didn’t act like it was the end of the world, they kept it going, the conversations also flowed naturally at Coffee and so Niece felt like she was in the right place and was at peace with her decision to rank Coffee over Ferry.

Ferry:
Ferry had felt mechanical from the beginning, Niece had heard rumors from so many people about Ferry that she didn’t exactly know what to think about the house. She liked the girls but she didn’t feel comfortable around them, she was hearing a lot of talk, and she didn’t like how everything about the house was eerily perfect. She also got weird vibes before the pref ceremony and after the pref ceremony and so she left Ferry thinking that she’d do better as a Coffee.

Bid Day:

SIL was who knows where, the family was headed to the row, and there was uneasiness coming from everyone. We were all trying to keep the fact that there was a possibility that SIL could just turn up on the row and find Niece buried at the back of our minds, everyone was tired, I was freezing cold for some reason, and BIL had flown down to Portland with my husband and father in law since he couldn’t deal with seeing SIL.

Niece was opening her bid and Grandma and I were slowly walking from Starbucks to the row. We assumed that Niece would be a Coffee and so we loitered close by just in case SIL turned up.

When Niece finally arrived at Coffee, bid card in hand, she was in absolute tears. She’d gotten a piece of glitter jammed under her eyelid and so Grandma and I were expected to do some sort of surgery. Niece has mono lids and so getting this piece of glitter out was going to be no easy feat, her eye wasn’t going to cooperate and so we ended up draping her body over some bushes while I held her head steady and Grandma used eye drops to flush her eye out and tried to keep the bushes from collapsing under her. It didn’t work. I turned my head briefly away and I saw SIL strolling up the row and I felt absolute panic in my heart, we were going to have to move the surgery into the house. We told Niece what was happening and she stood up, rolled her eyes at the sudden inconvenience, and the huge chunk of star shaped glitter flew out of her eye and onto her cheek and as soon as we saw this, we shooed her into the arms of her new sisterhood...KAPPA DELTA!

My sister in law’s cousin’s daughter is at pref today at Ole Miss! We are slightly disappointed not to have another Kappa, DG, or Tri Delt in the family but we’re looking forward to welcoming yet another sorority into our family. I’ve been getting updates all week and I think I have a clue which sorority she’ll end up running home to. I’ve got 9 nieces going through winter rush and my wayward nephew-son is rushing in the winter as well. I am enjoying the relative peace of fall before Thanksgiving and my home being filled with dozens of people who all are in need of my attention.

I’m in the middle of nowhere but I’ve already started to fill out rec letter forms because I like having my hands busy. I’ll have girls rushing at SMU, USC, Syracuse, Boston U, and Northwestern. I’m wildly excited but my hands are cramping.

Gotta say, I don’t blame Niece one bit for not wanting SIL around. SIL may be her bio-mom, but it takes more than blood to be a parent, as BIL has apparently shown.

Congrats to Niece on KD!

Wow! SIL is a piece of work! Yay for niece and KD!

NORTHWESTERN!!!! Please, please, please post that story. My alma mater. :) And feel free to have your niece PM me for any advice, although I went through ages ago.

Congrats to Niece and KD!

Wow! How in the world did SIL, who hasn't been seen for 10 years, find out where you were staying?

My capacity for suspending disbelief has officially reached its limit.