Awesome!

Also, the Lambda Rho chapter of SAI was installed recently! My chapter president said it was in Virginia, but I don't know the specific school/city.

Pre-Initiation tonight and Initiation tomorrow! Can't wait to see the new girls become initiated and get to wear letters!

I've been asked to speak about alumnae life at an SAI recruitment event for a local chapter.

It's Wednesday night. Yippee!! I'm giddy with excitement! I've missed my collegiate days.

Oh, and the current chapter President and I sang in Chorale together in HS. Lots of us from the elite group become SAI.

That's really exciting, AlwaysSAI!

I made a 93 on my Music History I paper and an 83 on my Music History III test! Now I just have to worry about the final exams...

That's great, miladyrose! Music history is my favorite part of the major requirements. What are you all studying right now?

I have a final for Basic Conducting on Thursday, and I'm scared to death to conduct my pieces. I have complete faith in my wonderful group, but I've never really conducted an ensemble in my life.

Ooh, good luck on your conducting final, clarinette! When I took conducting, we didn't have an ensemble to conduct for our final…but we did have to conduct our professor one-on-one, and it was Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb.

I'm waiting to hear about graduate school…I got a 433 on my MAT, which is good. :)

Crossing my fingers for you, unarose!

For this final, I had to pick 5 minutes worth of music to conduct; I'm doing "Mary Speaks" and "Christmas Dance of the Shepherds". I have to conduct Rejoice in the Lamb next semester for Intermediate Conducting.

I got a 29/30 on my conducting final! The whole class adds up to 100 points, so I have a 99 for the semester! :D

Now, if only my bronchitis would go away. I am so over being ill.

Yay on your conducting grade—and I hope your bronchitis goes away soon!

In my news…I got my grad school acceptance letter today! :D (Though technically now it's "yesterday" :cool:)

Congrats, unarose! I'm sure that's a weight off your shoulders!

Welp, I talked to my mom, and she casually said, "Well, your sister had the bronchitis for 3 weeks." You have got to be kidding me; I have to stay at school and sing in a concert with bronchitis. At least I only have 2 exams and a 3-page paper.

I'm applying to graduate school in the spring. Only one person has completed my letter of recommendation. I asked one in July and one in September and neither has done it yet. Ugh......

I keep telling myself it's fine. There is plenty of time. It's not due until March 1. (BUT IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!)

clarinette — You have my deepest sympathy for having to sing a concert with bronchitis; I have a community choir concert Tuesday evening, actually, so I'm very thankful that I haven't been sick this time like I was right before the one in October. I spent the Sunday before that one taking cough medicine like it was going out of style (every four hours all day), and had my voice doing good for Monday's 'dress' rehearsal/Tuesday's concert and then after the concert I don't think I sang for an entire week because I literally couldn't. :o

AlwaysSAI — Ooh, good luck with your application! If I may ask, where are you applying/what are you applying for? I think if I had people I had asked months ago to do recommendation letters, I'd be sending them an email every couple of weeks or so just checking in with them and "I don't want to be pushy, but I was just making sure you hadn't forgotten about…"—it's good that your application isn't due until March 1, though. (Just the week in between getting my MAT score and my acceptance drove me kind of crazy. Every day I was like "Has the mail came yet? Did I get anything?" :D)

^^^Well, I did ask 5 people. Only three letters are required but my mom suggested I have a couple "back-ups" just in case someone didn't follow through. And, I thought it was better to ask further in advance. I asked one of my administrators who is in charge of testing (huge job), so I wanted to give her plenty of time.

I'm applying to NC State.

ETA: Two of the recommendations have been submitted!!!! So, I only need one more! I just have two more things to figure out: How to upload two separate documents as one document. And, if everything is submitted online, why are they requesting that I have ETS send them my GRE scores?

:) Yay for only needing one more! As for them requesting to have ETS send your GRE score…the only thing I can think is they want an official verification? I just know when I took the MAT, before the test started I selected where I wanted them to send my scores—and I could have done up to three total, if I had been considering any others.

On a totally new subject, I helped my mom put our Christmas tree up this evening, and then I decided to get the plain glass ball ornaments that I've had for ages and paint an ornament or two—and I thought I'd share one of them with you guys, since it's very fitting. The 'front' is the one with the letters, the 'back' is the other one. I'm thinking about getting my mom to bake it in the oven after she paints her own ornaments.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7142/6...b072c9d3_m.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7033/6...bfe85310_m.jpg

That's cute, unarose! Very nice.
I hope your application goofiness resolves itself, AlwaysSAI. That's never fun to deal with.

I have so many wills. I was typing up the stuff I got this semester (because we're expected to give the histories with the stuff we will to the younger sisters), and

A) I realized I'm a junior, and I only have 2 more wills at most before I'm up there.
B) I have so many wonderful nice things. Like the Mickey mouse letters that I got freshman year that I'll have to will on. :(

Now I gotta go give my stats final a roundhouse kick to the chest. Wish me luck.

So, I really shouldn't have left the silver thingy in last night…I tried to take it out a little bit ago and the ornament broke. I'm doing another one in white (mainly because I don't have enough red paint left), but I had another red one I started last night also, so it'll be fine. And at least I got some nice pictures of it. :)

The wills thing sounds awesome, clarinette—has that been a tradition as long as the chapter has been around?

I don't really know. I know it's been around at least 15 years, because there are wills that old. We don't normally do pictures at wills, so they wouldn't be in scrapbooks.

Basically, the idea is that all the graduating seniors will away everything but their favorite letters things that they made to the rest of the chapter, so we still have memories of them, and it's a way to connect the chapter.

Some seniors have a lot of stuff, like 2 huge Rubbermaid containers worth. It's always exciting to see who gets what.

^^^Wills sounds very similar to senior pass-downs, which some chapters do, as well.

My chapter didn't do either, but I wish we had. It would be an awesome way to say goodbye.

I disappeared for far too long. Finals, the most wonderful time of the year?

@Clarinette: I'm so glad another person likes music history so much! My friends think I am insane (except for another few history minded people). We've only gotten through 1600 so far, but I love it. Next semester we take a break for an overview of ethnomusicology.

These wills sound really interesting. Our high school did a will idea of sorts within the band (my brother joked about passing down his plans for world domination... trumpets). But for something between a sisterhood it sounds amazing!

I have some amazing news I found out yesterday. I was accepted into my school's Fall 2012 Italy Program. I will be studying in Arezzo, Italy for about 90 days! Just practicing my trumpet and more. All three trumpet players that applied got accepted! 2 sisters, and one PMA guy! Now to get the passport and everything else in order. They almost didn't accept me because I have had major ankle problems this year. I'm having reconstructive ankle surgery next Wednesday, but that leaves 8 months to heal! This also means I won't go to the National Convention even though it is in my hometown. Europe is expensive... But it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to study over there with 13 other people from my class!

@unarose: That ornament is such a great idea and really pretty. Better handwriting painting wise then I know I could have ever managed.

Today is Incorporation Day! I hope your days today were musical and at least passable, if not great!

Today was the day we had rush 3 and handed out bids. 12 wonderful girls have made it through. Now to wait and see if they accept. If they do and all of them finish the process, then they will be the size of my class.

We hand out bids tonight. If all goes well, we'll have 11 girls, which is the size of my original pledge class (one of the girls graduated 2 years before the rest of us). We definitely need a lot of new girls, though; I'll be graduating with 14 other girls in my chapter next year.

Can't wait till Induction!

My SAI group is submitting our petition for review at the next NEB meeting. Whoop! Of course, there is no guarantee, but just the submission is a long time coming (almost 3 years...)

The local collegiate chapter pledged 22 girls last night. Another yay!

I hope y'all get full acceptance on bids, SAITrump and clarinette!

Congrats on your alumnae group submitting your petition, AlwaysSAI! (And 22 MITs—that's huge.)

And in my neck of the woods…when we were installed in November, we were surprised to find out that we get to have a new class of girls this semester—we've already had one interest meeting (which I had to miss because it conflicted with my one graduate education class) and the next one is next week on a Monday afternoon. I hope we get some new faces in addition to the ladies we already knew were interested. :)

We gave out 11 bids tonight, but we won't know who will be pledging till Friday.

I don't wanna wait!

Our first recruitment will be next month. Meep.

Good luck, SAIchica!

SAIchica, I have every bit of confidence that y'all will have an amazing recruitment. Good luck!

I got the name of my little, so I think all of our bids are in. =) I actually got a friend's marching band little! I wonder who will get mine, the sweetest girl ever. Offered to help me however possible because I came back to school this semester after having ankle reconstruction surgery. First doctor's words, "See what marching band does to you!"

To all a good rush/education season! And to many happy faces, friendly faces, and... as I said last night... To poster board, markers, paint, and glitter! Let the crafting... commence!

I get to have another secret little, yay! I just bought a bunch of stuff for my first clue for her.

I can't wait until Monday. Once these girls are initiated in March/April, we'll have 45 actives! We need our chapter to grow, because we have 5 sisters graduating this semester, and then, including me, 12 graduating next year. Our wills and senior words of wisdom will take forever next year.

That's enough about next year; we've still got this semester. What are y'all's favorite (not secret) chapter traditions for MIT's/new girls?

I'll start; each MIT gets a big and a secret big, they perform (voluntarily, we wouldn't make them do this) in a musicale and write a pledge class song, and we have Pre-I, which is when we give them many, many sets of letters to choose from to wear the next night when we go to Steak-N-Shake after initiation.

During I-week, we had BCHWY week. On Monday, when sisters saw MiTs we would say, "Happy B Day!" and they'd say, "It's not my birthday." and we'd just say it again and smile. Tuesday, was "Happy C Day" and so on. The PMA boys nicknamed it "B*tchy Week", but it was always so much fun.

The year I pledged, we also started a prank war with PMA. We pranked them during Black weekend and they would prank us during MiT retreat. Those nights were the greatest!

We always gathered around after a sister's recital and sang them the Chorale. We also presented them with a bouquet of roses-red or white-after their recital.

We always do the MIT retreat with a portion of the sisterhood. Last semester it was a sleepover in the music building. We also got some time to work on our recital. This year, because of how tight the schedule is, we will be paying for their meal at a restaurant and only membership will be with them. Just so happened we have a concert or major rehearsal every weekend. Opera year and showcase year...

I loved the recital last year though. Of course we all went to the PM recital about 2 weeks before ours. We made signs and cheered them on as they made fun of us and their bigs. Two weeks later, they came to ours as initiated PMAs. We had written an "Ode to PMA" to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Then we also had a birthday celebration at the end, because about 5 or 6 brothers/sisters had had birthdays in a 4 day span. Did I mention we also rewrote the Kappa Rap? It became an SAI/MIT/Chapter rap.

But really... the best part... Meeting in the "dungeon" about two times a night with my fellow class. The dungeon is a room under the stage normally used for practicing. We were secretive and pretended we were actually planning things. Really, it was just a time to get to know everyone and talk about everything. Sometimes meetings ran 9 to midnight... but we had a lot of fun. Apparently each class had done this. Each has met in the dungeon. And to be honest, I realized how much I missed this when I was crafting at a sister's apartment last night. We all agreed we need to get back to this.

I forgot that we also do an MIT retreat! The sisters don't spend much time there, because the VP Mem's place isn't always very large, and we don't want to spend money renting somewhere for a night when there's free places we can stay. It's the night before the test. They'll play a game to help with test questions, then we'll have snacks, they'll make pledge class letters, then usually there's movie watching/sleeping/cramming for the test.

Lambda Pi gave out bids tonight to 3 awesome girls! They'll be MITs on Friday!

That's wonderful, SAIchica! :)

Yay, Lambda Pi chapter!

Speaking of MITs, we have four lovely ones at Lambda Psi. :)

Also, Rho A/B province day is this weekend, and I'm super excited.

That sounds like fun, unarose! My chapter is hosting Province Day for Beta A/B this year, and we're busy with preparations for that.

So, we just finished up elections, and I am one of my chapter's co-editors this next year! What a great way to spend my senior year!