Ah, Memories... A Retro Recruitment Thread
 

Hello, everyone! Seeing people getting ready for this fall's recruitment brought back a lot of memories from when I went through. Looking back on it, things definitely didn't turn out how I'd expected, but really - since when do things turn out the way one expects them to? Since I had it on my mind, I figured I might as well share my story with you. I hope you enjoy it!

My university - a relatively small one - had six chapters. I don't really feel comfortable naming them all right off the bat, so since I'm taking a trip down memory lane anyway, I'll name them after something right out of my childhood: Pokémon. (Yes, I am a huge nerd. :3)

Bulbasaur
Charmander
Eevee
Meowth
Pikachu
Squirtle

I'm going to give a bit of background information in the next post, and then I'll move right on in to the good stuff. I guess it's kind of story-style and I do tend to get a little wordy, so please bear with me. Well... let's get started!

I grew up in Southern California, just about an hour or so north of Los Angeles in what is, in my opinion, one of the nicest cities in the world (though I'm sure everyone will say that about where they feel most at home). My mom was a teacher at two private religious schools - I attended each of them while she was working at them, until about halfway through eighth grade when I transferred into the public school system for certain reasons.

When I started high school, my friends and I were convinced that we had everything all planned out. Forget what people said about it being difficult to stay friends with people all through high school, we were the best friends ever and we were all going to graduate together and then go to the same college and maybe even move in together after we finished school. We definitely had a very "Well, maybe it doesn't work for other people but it'll work for us" mindset at the time.

And for awhile, it actually looked like things were going according to plan. We were friends all through freshman year and sophomore year. Junior year, however, brought some changes: My mother, who had stopped teaching the summer after I switched schools, was quitting the job she'd gotten at a pharmaceutical company and was taking another job, in an entirely different state. What's more, she wanted my brother and I to come with her. She was in the middle of a feud with my grandfather and disagreed with the way my aunt and uncle were raising my cousins, so staying with them was definitely out. My best friend in the entire world - we're still friends to this day, actually - told her parents that I would be moving and they actually approached my mom and told her that they thought of me as their second daughter and that they would be more than glad to have me live with them so I didn't have to get used to a new high school midway through my junior year and so I could graduate with my friends.

However, my mom wanted to keep my brother and I with her, so a month before my seventeenth birthday we packed up our things and left sunny California behind to move to what can essentially be described as a college town, as the university (along with one or two other nearby things) was really what kept the city going. (I'm not going to get in to exactly how disappointed I was to be leaving - looking back on it now, I know it ended up being a good thing, but I was really rather bitter about it then.)

My intention was to graduate as soon as I could and move back to California to go to college with my friends. The college we would have attended together - CSUCI - doesn't actually have a Greek Life program, though according to their website they're now in the process of establishing the foundations for it. Back then, I was completely to oblivious to Greek Life except for the little I'd seen in movies, so I didn't actually know or care that they didn't have sororities or fraternities at CSUCI. I just wanted to be with my friends. I was terrified that if I was gone for too long, we'd lose touch and they'd forget about me - which hasn't happened, but such are the insecurities of a sixteen-year-old girl.

That plan didn't actually work out, though. The half of junior year and the senior year I spent at my new high school opened me up to so many different opportunities - one of them being a scholarship that I would have had much more competition for if I'd gone for an equivalent scholarship in California. The catch was that it was only applicable to either the university that was located in the city I'd moved to, or another state school a few hours up north. I agonized for weeks over what to do, but in the end I decided to stay where I was. It was much more cost-effective, and it would have been a lie to say that the programs offered at the university weren't more interesting to me than what I had been planning to study at CSUCI.

My family lived about thirty minutes out of town, as my mom had gotten remarried and we'd moved into my stepfather's house, so I decided to live on campus in the dorms. I'm not going to lie - I was excited about the dorm experience, which probably wasn't something I would have done in California as my friends and I had planned to pool our money and get an apartment together after graduation. To my surprise, my roommate turned out to be a girl who I'd had a few classes with in our senior year. I didn't know her well, but the few times I'd spoken with her in class she seemed okay. Very quiet and a little standoffish towards the more rambunctious members of our class, but not a horrible person.

Our move-in day was about a week before classes started, to give everyone a chance to adjust. My roommate - let's call her Milan (not her real name, but it's what she always called her character in video games) - and I moved in, organized our room, and got settled down as we waited for classes to start. Most of the friends I'd made in high school had either gone out of state for college or hadn't graduated yet, so I didn't have many people over, but Milan was a different story. She'd lived in the city her whole life, so she knew a lot of people who were always coming over to hang out. Two of them came over regularly even after classes started: Tessa, who lived in one of the other dorms on campus, and Amanda, who was going to the community college for her first couple of years.

Anyway, back to the week before classes started. Tessa's roommate was... how can I put this diplomatically?... a bad influence, to say the least. She was still seventeen - her eighteenth birthday was a few weeks after classes began - but she had a fake ID and a lot of older friends who kept coming over to her room with alcohol. Three days in, they spiked Tessa's orange juice with something - to this day we're still not sure what. Now let me make this clear: Tessa is tiny, and she'd never had alcohol before in her life. Whatever they'd put in her drink was so strong that it made her really sick. She ended up going to the hospital with alcohol poisoning and we didn't see her until a few days after classes had started, when she asked us if she could stay with us until she and her parents worked out what to do about her roommate situation, because she sure as heck wasn't going back there. Of course, we agreed.

While Tessa was with us, a mutual friend of hers and Milan's - who, as it turned out, was dating one of the friends I'd made in high school (big coincidence!) - came over to see how she was holding up. While she was there, she let it slip that she was an Eevee, and asked all three of us if we were planning on going through recruitment in a few weeks. Milan said no pretty much right away and proceeded to tune the rest of us out while reading a book, but Tessa and I admitted that we hadn't really thought about it and the Eevee encouraged us to give it a try.

She came back a few times in the weeks leading up to the beginning of recruitment to see if we'd registered yet. Tessa registered after her third visit, but I just wasn't sure if I should do it or not. Like I said earlier, I'd never exactly thought about Greek Life at all until then - but after passing a few of the recruitment tables around campus, I figured it couldn't hurt. I registered with a 3.8 high school GPA and no recs (yes, I know, for shame, for shame - but the Eevee and the Greek Life Office had assured both Tessa and I that we didn't need them, since we're a very noncompetitive school). When I look back on it now, I really wonder how different things would have been if I'd thought to get them, and I sort of wish I had.

The Eevee friend, Tessa, and I all tried to get Milan to at least give recruitment a chance, but she was adamant that she didn't want to do it, so we eventually dropped it. A few days before the informational session when we'd be meeting our Rho Chi groups, Tessa moved out of our room, and the night before the session she and I met up to talk about how nervous and excited we were for this.

Whether we were ready or not, recruitment was about to begin.

I'm excited to read your story. I love the Pokemon code names! I am rooting for Eevee, because she's my favorite :D

Haha, thank you, Victoriana! C: Eevee is adorable, isn't she? When I was little, my brother and his friends would play the games with me, and they never wanted theirs - so I always caught dud Pokémon and traded for them. XD;

Orientation
 

Our orientation was on a Thursday at 6:00, which gave most PNMs the chance to return from classes, grab a bite to eat, and get changed if they wanted to; since my last class that day had ended at 4:00, I ended up with a few hours on my hands. Tessa's last class ran until 5:30, so she'd made plans with me to grab some food after the orientation.

I remember being really nervous, even though it was just the orientation. Milan swears up and down that I kept fiddling with anything I could get my hands on... headphones, books, folders, pencils. I don't really remember it, but I do know I like to keep my hands busy when I'm nervous, so I guess I was doing it. Tessa showed up at about 5:45 and we walked to the auditorium together. On the advice of our Eevee friend, we'd both brought notepads and pencils in case we wanted to jot down anything while we were listening.

I'd done some research about Greek Life and the sororities on campus, but a lot of what I found seemed to be really basic and I was sort of hoping that the orientation would explain more. Tessa and I took a pair of open seats near three other girls, and we ended up chatting for a few minutes until the orientation started. I was starting to feel a little more relaxed - I can sometimes be pretty nervous around strangers, but the other girls seemed about as nervous as I was. I guess it's a little strange that seeing other people being nervous helped calm me down, but it was what made me realize that it was okay to be unsure about this, if that makes any sense. And since we were all in recruitment together, I figured it wouldn't really help to be afraid of the other girls. We all had similar goals, after all.

I don't remember the specifics of the presentation - a lot of it was pretty similar to what I'd already read about, but there were some other things that they went over that I wasn't too familiar with - but I remember being impressed with how smoothly it went and how completely at ease the speakers were. Then they introduced the Rho Chis.

The Rho Chis were so energetic! It was obvious that they were happy to be there and they seemed genuinely excited to get to know all of us. The groups were divided up by last name, so Tessa and I had to split up. There were seven other girls in my group. One of the girls was extremely outgoing and one of them was really, really quiet - quieter than I was. She didn't seem to want to meet anyone's eyes and I remember hearing one of the other girls whisper to her friend about how she wondered why the girl was even there, which struck me as kind of mean.

Our Rho Chi introduced herself as Amber and had us sit down in a circle. We played a pretty simple get-to-know-you game: The first girl would say her name and something she liked, and the girl next to her would repeat it before saying her name and something she liked. The girl next to that girl would repeat both of theirs, and so on, until we'd gone all the way around the circle. Amber was last, and she had an incredible memory - she got all of us right on her first try! One thing that did surprise me, though, was that the very quiet girl turned out to be Tessa's ex-roommate, Julie. She didn't fit my mental image of what I'd imagined her to look like at all - as I got to know her, though, I did find that she was a little difficult to get along with. For me, anyway. That may have been because I was friends with Tessa and I wasn't 100% willing to take everything Julie had to say at face value. I mean, I know I should have been more open-minded, but I just couldn't get over the fact that this was the girl who had allegedly put a friend of mine in the hospital.

After we finished learning each others' names, Amber talked a little bit about how we should all do our best to support each other. She did have good points - for all we knew, these were the girls who would become our sisters once Recruitment was over. And we wouldn't really gain anything by being nasty, either. I resolved to do my best to try to make nice with Julie if we ended up talking, but I wasn't going to actively seek her out, either. I know that was a really bad attitude to take, but... *shrugs*

We hung out for a little bit more, talking about classes and what we'd done the summer before. Amber suggested that we continue our talk over ice cream, at which point Julie and the outgoing girl - I don't remember her name now, but I guess they were friends - said they had to go. The rest of us ended up getting ice cream from one of the on-campus restaurants, and overall the orientation ended on a very pleasant note.

When Tessa and I met up after spending time with our Rho Chi groups, we were both excited for the next round. Open House was going to be Saturday morning, so we still had to get through an entire day of classes before we'd visit the each of the houses in our groups. For the two of us, Saturday just couldn't come quickly enough!

EDIT: Well, I'm about midway through my next post but I just got called in for an early shift at work tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep. I'll finish it up tomorrow, sorry everyone!

Open House, part one!
 

Sorry for the wait! The early shift turned into an all-day shift when one of my coworkers called in sick. I guess they couldn't handle the heatwave. OTL Anyway, moving on!

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, about an hour before I'd set my alarm to go off. Milan wasn't there - she had a Saturday morning PE class - so I figured I might as well use the time to get a head start on getting ready. Believe me when I say that getting ready is a chore for me. My hair is decidedly odd - when I just leave it alone, it dries straight in some places, wavy in others, and curly in others. It's a pain in the butt, but as long as I keep up with taking care of it, it's not too bad. At the time I was growing it out to donate it and it was about midway between my bust and my waist. Looking back on it - yikes! There were some long hairstyles that looked okay on me, but they were all ones that I didn't exactly have the know-how to do myself. It was long enough to donate by then, so I really should have gotten a haircut that suited me better. I know it sounds vain, but Recruitment is a lot like a job interview - you don't want to let looking sloppy keep you from any opportunities. I really wish I'd realized that a lot sooner than I did.

At any rate, I grabbed my stuff from a shelf in the closet Milan and I were sharing and headed in to use the shower. At my school, most of the dorms have a suite system - you share a bathroom with the room next door to you, and they're always really really careful that people of the same gender are matched up that way (though there was some drama about a boy with a unisex name that's more often used as a girl's name, who didn't have a roommate, being roomed next door to a pair of girls on move-in day - yiiiiikes!). I hadn't really gotten to know either of my suitemates yet, but as luck would have it, one of them was out for an early-morning workout and the other one, Amy, was just coming in to use the bathroom as I walked in from the other side. Awkward! But we both kind of tried to laugh it off and went about our business.

I finished showering and went back to wrestle with my hair. To my surprise, once Amy heard the water turn off, she followed me into my room! I was kind of like "Um...?" and she asked what I was up to that morning, since... well.. apparently I have this habit of rolling around in my sleep, and I usually keep hitting the wall - and it turns out her bed's right on the other side. So she wasn't used to the thumping stopping so early in the morning. I told her I was getting ready for sorority recruitment and she was kind of quiet for a few seconds before she looked at my hair dryer, looked at me, and told me to come into her room so she could help me with my hair. I found out later that Amy wanted to go to cosmetology school, so I guess she thought that I was using was just not good enough. I took her up on her offer, and wow - she was just amazing. She tried out a couple of different styles once she'd blow-dryed my hair, and finally settled on one we both liked. By the time she was done, my alarm was going off in the other room, so I scampered back over to get dressed. We were told to wear things that we would be comfortable walking around in for Open House, since it's very casual - and extremely hot out that time of year.

I'm not going to lie; I gave more thought to my hair that day than I did to my outfit. A grey T-shirt with a butterfly design on one side a pair of loose-fitting jeans with tennis shoes probably didn't make the best impression. (Amy told me later that she was so tempted to throw out the shoes once she saw them, and actually tried to sneak into my room to do it!) I did have a necklace I was really proud of, though - my biological dad, who I'd always been pretty close to even though I hadn't seen him face-to-face in years, had sent me an antique key on a chain for my fourteenth birthday. Apparently the key used to belong to my grandma on his side, and that had belonged to her mom, and so on... she'd given it to my aunt, who'd held onto it in case she had any daughters, but she's only had two sons - so she gave it to my dad to give to me. I'm kind of surprised she didn't give it to my other uncle, who had two daughters, but they'd both been getting jewelry from the other side of their family for years, so maybe that was why. All I knew was I loved it. (And as an aside: It makes me so happy these days when I see key-necklaces. I love love love them. I have quite the collection now. XD)

With a little more time to spare than I thought I'd have, I went down to the cafeteria to have a nice, relaxed breakfast instead of the sit-down-for-ten-minutes-and-eat-quickly one I'd been planning on originally. Tessa was at her mom's house and was going to be eating there, so we didn't expect to see each other until the end of the day. Finally, it was almost 11:00... I cleared up and headed upstairs to one of the university meeting rooms to meet my Rho Chi group, excited and nervous all at once. I was the third girl from my group to get there, other than Amber of course, and we made small talk while we waited for everyone to arrive so we could get started. Once our entire group arrived, Amber gave us little gift bags - they were full of things like breath mints, mini-notepads, hard candies (she wanted to do chocolate, but was afraid that it would melt), and a pack of inexpensive bracelets for each of us. There was also a stack of notecards, on which we were to write our names and decorate them any way we wanted - we'd be handing these to the Rho Chis before entering each house so that they could give them to the actives, which I guess was our way of signing at each house we stopped at. I have this habit of doodling when I'm nervous, too, so I drew my face next to my name, which Amber said was really cute when she noticed. A few of the girls sitting next to me asked me to do them, too, while we were waiting, and I did.

Finally, finally, everyone was ready to go. Amber led us out with two other Rho Chi groups and their counselors, and they explained as we were walking that half of the sororities (Squirtle, Eevee, and Meowth) were on one side of the campus, facing out to the main road - these were the sororities with more "traditional" houses, meaning that they actually looked like houses instead of dorms. The other three (Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and Charmander) would be on the other side of campus, on the actual Greek Row and near some of the fraternity houses. A lot of the houses over in that area had been converted from ROTC housing awhile back - I don't remember exactly when. I remember being kind of surprised at that, and I remember not really being sure what to expect. Everything seemed like an adventure and I couldn't wait to get started. Neither could most of the girls in my group and in the other two groups. Even Julie, who was so quiet the day before, was chatting animatedly with some girls she knew from the other groups. I still think that it might have been possible, just maybe, to literally taste the excitement in the air.

Before we knew it, we were outside of our first house. Amber and the other two Rho Chis explained that we couldn't take our purses inside, so we should freshen up while we were waiting and drink some of the water that was set up in coolers - it was very, very hot out. We did so and ended up milling about outside the house for a few minutes until they instructed us to hand them our cards and line up in alphabetical order by last name. My last name starts with one of the first few letters, so I was close to the front but not the first one to go in. We lined up, the Rho Chis went up to the door, waited... and finally, at 11:30 on the dot, they knocked and immediately stepped back. The doors swung open, and we were ushered inside to...

Oh, yikes, this post is getting really long. I'm going to post this up now, type up my experiences at the other five, and then move the bit about the Eeevee Open House to the top of the next post once I get it up. Sorry for rambling so much!

EDIT: Ok, I've moved Eevee to the next post, along with the others.

I always thought it was very interesting to put a CalState campus so close to UCSB. *shrug*

AzTheta, huh?

I don't know my West Coast stuff enough to get what you might be hinting at with the comment along with all the quotes.

CSUCI = Cal State University Channel Islands in Camarillo CA, just south of Santa Barbara. Not a huge population base in that area of CA.

QFP - because someone will complain if it isn't and then something disappears for one reason or another. I can always go back later and edit it out, right? ;)

I guess they figured they'd be able to pull enough students, especially from Camarillo. To my knowledge, a large number of Adolfo Camarillo High School grads end up at CSUCI just because it's so close, and since Cam High's a larger high school they seem to do okay.

You wouldn't believe some of the attitudes towards UCSB in Camarillo, though. I was there last month for a visit, and it can get kind of scary when you ask where people are considering going! I never thought I'd hear "CSUCI, where else is there?" before last month.

EDIT: Then again, many of the people I talked to about it had grown up in Camarillo, so there was a high amount of pressure on them to attend CSUCI. Many of the Cam High students who had moved in partway through high school ended up going to other schools in the state or even other states entirely.

I grew up in Southern California, and more than a few of my graduating class ended up at Channel Island. It is one of the smaller CSUs, isn't it?

Yes, that's right. I'll admit it - I was so convinced that I was going to CSUCI with my friends that I didn't really consider many of the other CSUs, but my parents and grandparents have told me that most of the others are bigger.

My cousin, who's just starting his senior year of high school this year, has his sights set on CSUCI. I'm hoping it'll grow, but with the budget cuts and the program cuts they're going through, I'm not too sure.

OK, as a UCSB alum... I have to say that I've heard just about everything there is to hear about UCSB and I must say that I got an incredible undergraduate education there. I'm grateful for the University of California system and what it provided me, because I couldn't afford a private school anywhere. now back to your story, damnit! Please!!!

You are just a firecracker today AzTheta! Between this and the rec letters thread, I'm thoroughly amused :)

Open House, part two!
 

Eevee
That's right, the first sorority house that I would walk into, ever, was the same house that the girl who'd convinced Tessa and I to go through recruitment belonged to! I remember thinking it was an incredible coincidence, and I was smiling about it as my rusher introduced herself. She, and her sisters, were all wearing jeans with matching T-shirts - they were in their colors, though, so I won't say what they were now. There were more actives than there were PNMs in our three combined groups, so those who hadn't been assigned to a PNM right away were singing softly in the background as each rusher took their PNM and started leading them through the house. It almost seemed magical, as cliché as that sounds.

My rusher, who we'll call Emily, was really, really sweet. She was a little shorter than I was and had these really light brown eyes that almost looked sort of like honey, and her hair was really dark and curly. I loved the contrast. (As an aside, at the time I had wheat-blonde hair - my natural color. It was originally golden-blonde, but I started dying my hair darker in seventh grade, and it changed under the dye. They're not kidding when they say you'll never see the color you started out with again once you start dying!)

Emily walked me down the hall, pointing out the multitude of pictures that they'd all put up. I remember being really confused when some of the girls' faces had black stickers over them, but I found out later from my Rho Chi that it was because some of their girls were serving as Rho Chis for that recruitment period. I guess it might have been a common sense thing, but I had so little experience with Greek Life before that it wasn't the first thing to come to mind. Still, it was amazing - she couldn't call her Rho Chi sister by name, but when she talked about her and her other sisters she sounded like she was so proud of their achievements. If I didn't know better, I would have thought they were all biological sisters - their bond was just that strong.

She showed me some of the other decorations that they had up, too. A lot of the stuff looked like it was professionally made, but they'd all worked on them together, from scratch, to decorate their house. The things they achieved together were absolutely amazing. When we got to the end of the hall, Emily asked if I had any questions. I don't remember exactly what I asked - but we ended up going off on a tangent after she explained and we were somehow talking about books we both liked by the end of it. I'm really not sure how we got on the subject. Emily started to lead me into their living room and we sat down on the couch together to keep talking about a plot twist that had been written into the most recent book of a series we were following. One of her sisters came over - now I know it was time to bump - but it really seemed like she didn't want to leave and sort of lingered for about a minute before her sister nudged her and she ran off. I feel kind of bad about it now. :c

The second girl, Jessica, asked me how I was liking the house and I told her - quite honestly - that it was really beautiful and it was amazing to see how well everyone seemed to get along together. I think she found that funny because she had to pause for a moment and it looked like she was trying not to laugh, but then she started talking about the sisterhood retreats that they went on. Not the details, of course - just the kind of thing that made me want to know more. And I figured that to know more, I'd probably have to become a sister...

Before I knew it, one of the girls - I think one of the sorority's officers - got everyone's attention and thanked us for coming, but it was time for us to go. I really, really didn't want to leave, but I got up with Jessica and she walked me out. Emily was a ways ahead of us, and she smiled and waved to me as she was walking back in after sending her girl out.

I left feeling really happy, really excited to see what was next - and really worried. I was liking Eevee so much already, and it was only the first house of the first day. What was I going to do if I liked all of the houses this much?

Luckily for my Rho Chi group, our next visit was to another of the houses that was on the same side of the campus as Eevee. One of the Rho Chi groups that had joined us for Eevee, though, was headed to the other side of campus - and one of the groups from that side of campus was joining us for our next house. I really admire the Rho Chis for being able to keep everything straight - it seems like it would have been really difficult, especially with all of the girls they needed to keep track of.

So we headed up the street a little to our next stop, which was...

Squirtle
This house was really pretty from the outside. Once again, we were instructed to freshen up if we wanted to, drink some water, and set our bags aside because we wouldn't be allowed to take them in. Since this happened at each of the houses - I'm just going to stop mentioning it from here on out. We were out there for maybe five minutes before the group from the other side of campus came to join us. While we were waiting, I actually ended up talking with Julie. She seemed really nervous about going in to Squirtle. I don't know if she was just cowed from the last visit, if the looks if this house were intimidating her, or if there was just some thing-- no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm kidding. No things here. By the time we were getting ready to line up, I was starting to think, "Oh, maybe she's not so bad," but then when we went to take our places she was like "You can just kind of tell that some people aren't really suited for this, so I don't know why they try!" and ran off. I was kind of thinking "Really... really, did you just say that??" I mean, maybe she was meaning herself. Maybe she was insecure and looking for encouragement. I don't know, and I'm not sure if I'll ever know because we don't exactly keep in touch. At the time, I was already really "mehhh" about her because of what I'd heard from Tessa, so I definitely didn't give her the benefit of the doubt. NOT the best thing to do, guys.

Anyway! Once everyone was lined up and we'd handed over our cards, our Rho Chis knocked. We walked in to meet the actives, who were also in line and were clapping and chanting - but not so loudly that we couldn't hear. The active at the front of the line broke off and stopped clapping and chanting as she took the PNM at the front of the line to lead her into the house, and this went on until every PNM was matched to an active. I think I may have seen some groups with two PNMs, but I know I had my rusher all to myself (I remember thinking this was a good sign, and whether it was or not, I probably won't ever know).

From the entrance we went a little ways in to the dining room, where they had a bunch of their composite photos on the walls - my rusher, let's call her Danielle, said something that was really sweet about how it felt like they were eating together with everyone who'd been in their chapter whenever they ate that room, so she really liked mealtimes here. I didn't know at the time, so I asked about how that worked, and she said that they had their own meal plan with a chef - separate from the ones people living on campus tended to take out with the school. To be honest, that sounded really great to me because maybe it had only been a few weeks since I'd moved into the dorms, but there's only so many times I can eat grilled cheese, pizza, or pasta from the school cafeteria. It didn't help that the breakfast I'd eaten not too long before seemed like it had been hours away. I swear to God, my stomach growled. It was so embarrassing.

We went into the room next to the dining room next - it was set up like a study lounge, with tables and comfy chairs and bookshelves. Danielle confirmed that it was where they did their studying, especially the new members who had study hours to turn in. I hadn't heard about mandatory study hours yet, so I was a little surprised and asked for more information. Danielle told me that the Squirtles had some of the highest GPAs on campus, and that they all worked together to make the best of their educations. I liked that a lot. People who knew me when I was little have described me as really bookish - I was that girl who'd sit in the back of the room with another book under my desk to read whenever I got ahead on reading silently in our textbooks (and oh man, my fourth grade teacher hated that so much, but that's another story entirely). I also liked the idea of a support system - my first few weeks of classes hadn't been horrendously challenging, but I had no idea how difficult things were going to get. Plus... I've never really had a sister to study with. I helped my brother study sometimes, but it wasn't quite the same thing. I guess the mental image of a bunch of girls sitting at those tables, pouring over their textbooks and helping each other through the hard stuff was just really nice.

From there the conversation flowed pretty naturally into classes. We talked a little about our majors and the intro classes we'd had so far, and she mentioned that she had a sister who was taking one of the same classes at me, just at a different time. We started walking as we were talking and ended up in their living room, which was a bit smaller than the one at the last house but really, really cozy. And you could tell it was used often - not in a bad way! I just mean that sometimes, when you go into a house, you'll feel like they cleaned up and are presenting it sort of "out of the box," but the living room at the Squirtle house was clean and organized, but it just felt like a home rather than a house. If... that makes sense.

They had a pretty extensive selection of movies by their TV, and I noticed that they had every Harry Potter movie that was out at the time. I asked and Danielle's face lit up - she and a lot of her sisters loved Harry Potter, and were planning on going to the next midnight premiere together. We started talking about the differences between the books and the movies, and one girl showing a PNM around ended up joining our conversation. The PNM, Melissa, jumped right in too - we were having a great time.

And then we heard them call, "Ladies, please come into the dining room!"

All four of us pretty much knew that it meant our visit was over, so we went in together while they thanked us for coming, and then we were shown out. Danielle gave me a hug as I was leaving, and so did Melissa's rusher - I thought that was a really good sign, and she seemed to think so too. We left the house smiling. Dang it, I was already loving this house, too. I think Melissa was thinking the same thing, because she turned to me and asked "How are we supposed to even choose at the end of this?" as we were picking up our purses. I can honestly say that I didn't have an answer for her.

Amber and the other two Rho Chis let us know that our next stop would be on the other side of campus. One or two of the girls from the group that had joined us outside of Squirtle groaned - I felt kind of bad, as they'd come all the way from there and were just now going back. But it was time to go, and according to the Rho Chis we were on a clock - so off we went!

Melissa and I walked together, just a few people behind our Rho Chis. She was one of the girls in the group that had just come from that side of campus, and her first visit of the day had been to Charmander. She didn't say a whole lot about it - her Rho Chi had drilled her with the mentality that discreetness was the best policy, which was a good way to discourage "tent talk" - but she said that they seemed nice enough and that she'd had a good conversation with the girls who had rushed her there. The topic of conversation changed to music and we found out we both liked some of the same songs from the same bands as we were walking. All in all, it wasn't bad at all. I'd enjoyed myself at the last two houses, Julie didn't seem to be as much of a psycho as Tessa had made her out to be, and Melissa seemed really, really nice. I wasn't sure yet if I was going to hope we'd end up in the same house - but I definitely wouldn't mind becoming friends with her. At orientation, the girls had emphasized that this was both a time to make bonds with potential sisters and to make new friends. That was definitely shaping up to be true.

Really, the walk across campus didn't take too long. It wasn't really across campus in the sense that the houses were at the very end of the opposite side from the first houses; rather, they were just a ways past the on-campus apartments and some of the sports fields. I think they were either baseball or softball fields - I've never really understood the difference, I'm sorry to say. My expertise lies with tennis and volleyball. If we were to go from, say... the football field to one of the other departments on campus, there's a much longer walk - honestly, it's at least twice as long. Soon enough, we came to our next stop, which was...

Bulbasaur
This was one of the houses that was in the university's Greek Row. We passed a few of the ROTC buildings that had been converted - but it looked like most of them were fraternities rather than sororities. The Bulbasaur house actually looked like there was more than one story, and they had a gate with a courtyard, which I thought was really interesting. It didn't look like what one might imagine a sorority house would look like from the outside, but it was nice.

While we were waiting to line up, Julie joined the conversation with Melissa and me. We'd moved on from music to movies - and we found that all three of us wanted to see the next Harry Potter movie. I hadn't pegged Julie for a Harry Potter fan, so it was actually a pleasant surprise. I was actually a little sad when our Rho Chis called for us all to line up, and this time when we broke off Julie didn't say anything else. I guess she'd had a good time at the last house - or maybe she was excited to go to Bulbasaur. I don't really know, but anything that kept me from getting more annoyed with her was A-OK with me!

About a minute or so before the Rho Chis were to knock, we heard singing from the other side of the gate. I'm pretty sure they'd synchronized their watches, because the moment that the Rho Chis knocked and the door opened was the moment they got to what I'm guessing was the chorus of their song, when they said their sorority's name for the first time. We filed in and there they were, lined up on either side of the walkway in the courtyard, and the girls at the end would break off to take the PNMs approaching the house. They led us into their dining room, where we were seated at tables with other rusher-and-PNM groups and we were given a quick presentation about the sorority's background. It was different from the first two - but I liked it. I guess it put me a little bit at ease because it felt like I was learning something along with others instead of in a one-on-one situation; I was already getting used to the university's lectures, so it felt a little bit like that. Which is definitely not to say it felt like a lecture - it was just a setting that I was more comfortable with.

After the talk, my rusher introduced herself as Anna - to my surprise, she had the same name as one of my cousins (on my dad's side, who my necklace would have gone to if not for her other relatives giving her jewelry). We talked a little bit about classes and majors before she asked me what my goals for the school year were. I said I was hoping to do well enough in my classes to be able to qualify for a study abroad later on in college - honestly, I'm not sure if this hurt me or not. At our school we have one-semester and full-year programs for study abroad, so for all I know it might have raised red flags: "Oh! She might just up and leave after only being here for a semester or two!" ... or something like that. But... honestly, studying abroad is something I've wanted to do since I was very young. I'd already spent a month abroad during high school and it was an absolutely amazing experience - I was so lucky that my teachers agreed to work with me on getting my assignments done in advance and helping me catch up so I could go. Travel is a part of me, and I thought the point of recruitment was to show them who you really were so that they could know if you were actually a good fit.

I'll admit that there are a good amount of things that you shouldn't broadcast during Recruitment. The standard boys/partying/your impressions of other chapters/etc... they're taboo for a reason. Talking about studying abroad might have hurt me. Being blunt about who you are and what you like might hurt you - it's important to be tactful whenever you're dealing with people, and not just sorority women. I mean, take the same thing: "You have a pimple on your nose." The way you deliver it is going to drastically change how people react to finding out about it. It's the same for anything else, too.

At any rate, Anna was willing to continue this conversation. She and I got up and she showed me a collection of pictures, pointing out one of her sisters in particular - she was actually studying abroad in Spain, which was one of the countries I really want to visit someday. She'd had a few other sisters who had studied abroad as well, and they absolutely loved it. She said she thought they might be around somewhere and we went to look for them while talking about sightseeing and different places we'd like to go. We eventually found one of them, who had been to the UK for her study abroad, and I was bumped off to her. The girl who had been to the UK was named Alexis and she was really, really sweet. When she asked if I'd ever been out of the US, I told her a little bit about my trip to Japan and how visiting the temples and shrines there had been seriously amazing, but that I couldn't get over the energy that I'd found in Nagoya, of all places. Tokyo had actually seemed really tame in comparison. She mentioned how she'd had a similar situation with London and another city that I can't remember the name of right now, but if I remember it I'll edit it back in.

She finally asked if I'd gotten a good look at the courtyard when we'd come in, and when I said now we went out to look around. She pointed out the way they'd decorated it with their sorority's symbols - some of which they'd actually made from hand, which was really impressive - and was about to take me to the part of the house that had two stories to show me around with a group of other PNMs and rushers when we were all called back inside to say goodbye. It just felt like everything was ending so fast! I can only imagine how it would have been if there were more chapters on our campus...

At any rate, Alexis walked me out and said she'd had fun talking with me. I said the same and we went our separate ways. I left really wanting to go back to Bulbasaur... I hadn't had such a good conversation with people about traveling since I'd moved, to be honest. It was really refreshing and Anna and Alexis had just seemed so nice.

Julie was in a good mood when we got out - but to my surprise, Melissa wasn't. She didn't really want to talk about how things had gone (and I never actually found out what had bothered her so much), and this time our Rho Chi group was splitting off from the larger group to go back to the other side of campus. Julie and I made small talk on the way back to the other side, but when we were about halfway there she made some comment about how she thought the girl who had walked me out of Bulbasaur had kind of a funny hairstyle. I said I didn't think so and the conversation kind of just... died... maybe I wasn't patient enough, but it had just bothered me so much. Why was it any of her business if any of them had "perfect hair," anyway?

Looking back on it, though, I really do wish I'd been able to be a little more patient with her. Any of the girls I was doing this with - Julie included - could end up as one of my direct sisters, if not one of my Panhellenic sisters should we pledge to different places. My Rho Chis kept stressing that as the week went on, and it's something that I hope everyone who does this sort of thing takes to heart. Deliberately making enemies doesn't help anyone, in the long run. Especially not yourself.

Anyway, uh... sorry for soapboxing there. Since I said we're headed back to the other side, and since you already know I've been to two of them there... you already know what the next one is!

Meowth
What to say about Meowth... I didn't know it at the time, but they were the "powerhouse" sorority on my campus. And at first glance, it was definitely easy to see why. The house - a little bit smaller than the Squirtle house, maybe - was absolutely gorgeous from the outside. I was intimidated. I was very, very intimidated. But I was having a great time so far and was determined to keep it up, so when we lined up and were let in to the clapping and singing, I did my best to keep smiling. Of all the times for my phobia of people in general to kick in, right?

There were enough girls here that there were a few groups where there were two or three rushers to a PNM. The girls who were working with me all looked very different from the other. One was tall and blonde, with short hair cut in a layered bob, with brown eyes; one was tall and brunette, with long hair in a braid and really dark eyes; one was a little shorter than I was with very, very straight and really dark brown hair worn in a loose ponytail and green eyes. The three of them were very friendly and honestly seemed interested in getting to know me and having me get to know them.

The four of us went to take a table in their dining room. We played another get-to-know-you game - the same one I'd played with my Rho Chi group, actually. The girl with the layered bob was named Melanie, the tall brunette was Ashley, and the short brunette was Karen. I ended up going last, and they seemed impressed that I was able to remember their names, though I did mis-speak and say "philosophy" instead of "psychology" when I was repeating Karen's major. Agh, I am still so mad at myself for that. I don't know exactly how much it hurt me, if it hurt me at all, but I'm usually not that clumsy when it comes to speaking!

By this time I was starting to see that the sororities were definitely different from each other, but in a really good way. I ended up asking something similar to what Melissa had asked me earlier that day - how did they know they wanted to go Meowth over each of the others? Karen talked a little about their philanthropy and how it had really spoken to her; Ashley said she'd just felt so at home each time she came back during the week; and Melanie had actually been really torn between Meowth and Charmander during her recruitment, but something one of the Charmanders had said about how you needed to find the place where you felt most at home, where you could go to your sisters crying uncontrollably and looking like a trainwreck but know that they would be there to help you through the hard times. And she'd felt that connection to the girls at Meowth more than she had at Charmander.

We ended up chatting about school, their philanthropy, and some of the activities they did around campus - since I'd seen fliers for them already. I didn't know if I was supposed to ask to see the rest of the house or if they were supposed to offer to show me, but I was too afraid of questioning their authority to ask - so I didn't. We stayed at the table the whole time (except for Karen, who went to go help with another group)... looking back on it, that might have really hurt me, too. I was curious to see the house - I just wasn't sure if it was okay to ask!

We got the announcement that it was time to go just as Ashley finished answering one of my questions, so that was pretty convenient timing. Melanie and Ashley walked out with me, and the PNMs left to the sound of Meowths singing and clapping... until the door closed.

After collecting our stuff, my Rho Chi group went to stand near Amber. We knew we were headed back over to Greek Row... there was just Pikachu and Charmander left for the day. Julie tried to talk to me on the way over, but I was not very responsive (which was NOT good). Maybe I hadn't felt an instant connection to the girls at Meowth, but they seemed interesting and energetic... at this point I was starting to hope that I wouldn't like one of the other two remaining houses, just so that my decision would be a little bit easier when we had to rank them at the end of the day. (And just for the record - that's not a good thing to hope for, either!)

When we lined up at our next house and were handing over our notecards, I looked down... saw the face I'd drawn of myself... and started thinking, "Why did I do that? We were just supposed to write our names." I kind of wanted to erase the last one, but it didn't seem like that would make much sense and I didn't know if I could get rid of all of the lines.

For better or for worse, it was time to go in to see...

Pikachu
As Amber and the other Rho Chis explained while we lined up, Pikachu was newer on campus than the other five and didn't actually have its own house. They were borrowing one of the rooms of someone else's house, and had cutouts of their letters out front so that we all knew we were in the right place.

I'm not proud of it, but this was what I was thinking as I was waiting: "They don't have their own house? Does that mean they just weren't good enough to get one when they came to campus? Does that mean this is going to be a smaller, less fun sorority?" ... see ... there I was, experiencing Greek Life for the first time, and I was already starting to fall into the traps that PNMs find themselves in. I knew very little about Pikachu, aside from the basics about their sorority and that they didn't have a house. There was seriously no good reason for me to think that. But I was thinking it! I wish I could say I wasn't, but I was.

So imagine my surprise when the Rho Chis knocked, and we were greeted with the most energetic girls I have ever met in my entire life. Instead of waiting for us to come to them, they spilled out, clapping and singing a really, really catchy song that they'd changed the lyrics to in order to make it fit their sorority, and they came to greet each one of us and bring us through the gate into the borrowed courtyard, and into the house. I was blown away. These girls were, by far, the most energetic of all the chapters I'd been to - and it was almost the end of the day!

We all ended up in one room, and yes, it was a little crowded, and since it was hot out - yiiiiikes. Luckily, they'd thought ahead and had brought water and some other soft drinks in, and the girl showing me around - Cara - immediately brought me over and asked me what I wanted to drink. We both ended up with Sprites and walked a little bit away to talk so that everyone else could get to the table. Once again, we started with the basics - classes, professors, what we did in high school. She'd actually graduated from the high school I moved to during my junior year, the same year I transferred; I thought it was a pretty big coincidence, but since it was a local university, a lot of people from my school and the others in the city ended up there. A bigger coincidence, though: We lived in the same dorm! She said she thought she'd seen me around a few times and we talked a little about what the dorm was like. We both had the same horror stories about the state of the bathrooms when we first moved in.

From there, the conversation flowed into what she and her sisters did around campus - they actually host a pretty big event each year, and I can only imagine how much thought and planning most go into it! - and what she herself did for fun. We ended up talking about a TV show we both liked for awhile, and then one of her sisters came over to join us and the topic changed to good restaurants around town. They recommended that I try a café about midway between the university's street and the next "major" street that it parallels sometime, because they had really good coffee there.

They also mentioned a friend of theirs who had attended one of our region's high schools - I recognized the name of the school because my school had played against them in the first tennis tournament during my senior year. I wasn't playing for that one because of a foot injury (it literally didn't happen until three days before the tournament, I was so mad)... my replacement had actually faced off against their friend and lost! The three of us chuckled a little at the coincidence and wondered which of us would win if we were to play each other now.

And then, all too fast - it was time to go. I wasn't really ready to go yet - I felt like I could have stayed there and talked with those girls forever - but we had to, so Cara led me out while her sister went to help clean up, and she made a joke about tennis that I remember laughing at just before I passed through the gate.

With just one more house to go, I was feeling a little bit tired - especially after the super-energetic Open House at Pikachu. A lot of the other girls in my Rho Chi groups and the other two that were with us seemed to be a little drained, too. Amber tried to keep our spirits up - bless her, she tried so hard - but we were just... so... tired. Luckily, our next house wasn't far at all. We got there early, sipped at the water in the coolers, and sat down in the shade of the nearby trees until it was time to line up. Definitely not very dignified, but I suppose it would have been worse if only one or two people had sat. Then again... maybe three entire Rho Chi groups sitting was not good. ...actually, it probably wasn't.

Eventually, though, we all had to stand, brush ourselves off, and line up to go into...

Charmander
The last house of the day... oh, man. I know it's my fault because I keep rambling and rambling, but now I'm starting to feel exhausted like I was staring at the gates of their courtyard. Anyway!

The outside of their courtyard was really, really pretty. There was a tree outside, and we could see a tree inside, too. What else was in there, we wondered? It was a one-story house, surrounded by fraternity houses on all sides but the front, where we were standing. It had a really peaceful sort of air to it - or maybe I was just sleepy. After Pikachu, I was terrified that the girls would be so energetic that they would break the quiet... or that I would like it as much as I'd liked the other houses.

But when our Rho Chis knocked, and we were ushered in... it was soft singing. They weren't screaming or chanting or clapping - they were singing. It was nice, and even though I'd been hoping for something peaceful, I kind of thought "..oh, they probably don't want us as much." It didn't even occur to me that as tired as I was, these girls were probably just as tired - if not more!

I was paired with a girl who I hadn't met before. We didn't have a whole lot to talk about to start with - just the basics, and then as she started showing me the composite photos they had on the walls, the conversation started to pick up. It was interesting to see how some of the girls in the older classes had looked alike even though they weren't related. Not in an "Oh, they were all blonde and tiny!" sort of way, but in a "Wow, they have similar noses" or "their eyes are the exact same shade" kind of way. There were a lot of actives there who didn't look like they were related, but it was really easy to see that they had a strong sisterhood and that they cared for each other a lot. It was also nice to see that there was more than one chapter here that consistently thought about their members who are now alums. (I mean, I'm sure that the others did, but it hadn't come up in conversation so much.)

We ended up talking about our relatives, where we grew up, that kind of thing. My rusher had been from here; I told her a little about where I grew up and the sorts of things I did in high school there. She asked about what the differences were like, and I mentioned that there were a lot more opportunities here - I would not have made the tennis team back in California, for sure. (I didn't say this part, but... if I were going to a larger school in California that had Greek Life, I probably would have been way too intimidated to go through recruitment!) We ended up talking about sports and she told me that they had intramural teams that competed against other sororities and other groups of girls in intramural tournaments. I thought that sounded really fun - I definitely missed playing tennis and volleyball.

We had smaller conversations with some of her other sisters, who I guess were acting as floaters - and then it was time to go.

I left a little unsure of how to feel about them. The relaxing atmosphere was nice, and I know I wanted something a little more low-key, but I wasn't sure if I'd wanted it to be that low-key. Probably just because I'd come from a super-energetic, super-attentive chapter, I felt like they weren't quite... trying as hard to get me on board. Maybe they didn't want me? Maybe they knew they'd get a good number of new members anyway? Or maybe it was all in my head. Actually, I'm pretty sure now that it was all in my head - I was a little less insecure at eighteen than I was at sixteen, but not by much. The girls were very attentive and did their jobs really well - I just kept comparing them to others. And really, you can't compare sororities - their differences are what make them special. It's just unfair to expect one to be similar to another.

Anyway - it was back to the Greek Life office with us, so we could fill out our ranking cards. Amber took my Rho Chi group to the study area on the second floor of the student union, and we filled out our cards there. She said that there wasn't any particular order we had to follow, except that the one at the bottom of our list should be one we wouldn't mind not returning to if we ended up with a full schedule the next day, since we'd only be seeing five houses at the most.

My personal ranking list, though - from the one I wanted most to return to to the one I wouldn't mind not returning to - was as follows:

Bulbasaur
Squirtle
Eevee
Meowth
Pikachu
Charmander

Stupidly - very stupidly - I ranked Meowth above Pikachu because even though I really loved my time there... one had a house, and the other didn't. Charmander was at the bottom, because while I really had liked the girls... it had just been too stark a difference, after coming from Pikachu. Again - stupid decision! There are much better reasons for ranking than I had when I was doing it. I would definitely rank them differently if I had the chance to do it all over again.

After turning in our cards, we all split up. I noticed on my way back to the dorms that I'd missed a couple of calls from my mom, so I called her back and she asked what I'd been doing. I reminded her that it was Open House for the sororities and that I'd just finished up; she asked me a little bit about the day and then said something that surprised me so much, I nearly dropped my phone.

"When I was in college, my campus had a chapter of Meowth that I had a lot of friends at. They were very nice girls. I actually ended up pledging - but I never went through initiation after an argument I had with some of the girls I wasn't close friends with."

I was completely floored. Mom had never told me she'd been involved with Greek Life before! She also mentioned that my grandfather had been a member of Sigma Nu and had been initiated, and that he would probably like to hear about how Recruitment was going for me. By this time, she was still kind of feuding with him but not as much as she had been when we moved. After we talked for a little bit more, I went to my computer and sat down to email him to let him know what I was doing.

Wow. Two members of my family had been Greek - well, maybe one and a half since Mom hadn't initiated. It sure gave me a lot to think about, and I figured I'd try a little harder at Meowth if I was invited back the next day. They weren't the same chapter that my mom had been associated with - but something about the organization had caught her eye. I wanted to find out what.

Tessa called later that night, too, and we both talked a little about what our favorite houses had been. She really, really wanted to go back to Eevee the next day. We wished each other luck, and I don't know about her, but I started on a homework assignment, gave up halfway, and went to go get food.

Milan (haven't mentioned my roommate in awhile, whoops!) seemed really impatient with the whole thing, and asked me to please stop worrying about how the next day would go. I fell asleep watching episodes of Doctor Who with her that night and had a really bizarre dream that I recall involving the TARDIS landing outside of the house the Pikachus were hosting us at and having everyone go inside so that we could go to the future when they had their own house. Okay then.

EDIT: Ok, I think that's everything! I've got Eevee in here too now. No more clicking "submit" instead of "preview," self!