[recruitment]

with only six sororities... one would have thought that sydney's recruitment would have been shorter. no. they had their "pnm orientation" on a wednesday and then recruitment began on thursday. their bid day was on tuesday. so, sydney... and our !!mother!! would know what house she joined on tuesday. our schedules were strikenly similar.... except mine did not begin until the saturday after she started on wednesday. bid day for me was not until the following saturday... almost 5 full days after sydney would hopefully receive her bid. talk about the pressure on me! there is a reason i say that...

sydney loved her "pnm oreintation"... the sororites planned it and their rho chis really gave them a wonderful prelude to the week that followed. thursday and friday they all went to all six houses. saturday was four party day... and then they had sunday off, which to me is cruel! monday was prefs and then bid day on tuesday.

mine started with a "pnm orientation" and what seemingly felt like an endless series of "lectures" on the saturday... the rho chis each telling what not to do... over and over and over. i thought about sydney and knew that she was at four party day. we did not officially start recruitment until monday... all eleven houses in one day. then the same thing again on tuesday. they felt it better that we see all of the houses twice before the cuts began. all i remember was that it was horribly hot, it was august and we had a very "dressy" recruitment... so it was full make-up, hair done, hose and heels for what seemed to be forever for two days. by the end of tuesday evening i though i had died and would have gladly let the "guys" (cheerleaders) throw me in the air at least thirty feet... than to ever have to do that again! wednesday the cuts began as we had eight party day, thursday was four party day, friday were prefs and bid day was finally on saturday. that still has to be the longest week of my life!

i realized... that due to the nature of our mother and the fact that sydney would be fully finished by wednesday... that they would all come down to my recruitment at some point. were it left to our mother... they would have all been there on wednesday. i knew that when they all showed up... sydney would be there and that would totally confuse everyone who did not know us... and i most definitely did not want to dress alike... so we had to coordinate outfits to make sure when she did arrive we did not ruin my recruitment. suddenly... out of the blue... there would be two of me running around... and totally offending people because when everyone would see sydney at my university they would think it was me... and she had no clue who any of them were. i realized the potential for total disaster that held. i begged all of them not to come... please. our mother would not hear of it, period.

instead of waiting until later in this story i will let you know another of the unique twists in our recruitments. when i said all... i really meant to emphasize that... all. we come from a long line of greeks on both sides of our family... luckily my father's family was not as intense as our mother's. even though our mother and our grandmother had thoroughly "schooled us" on what to expect and what was expected of us... i really do not think that i fully understood what they were talking about until eight party day... sydney found out on four party day and when we spoke she tried to give me a dose of reality. no. for one of the few times in our lives i really did not believe her. no...

cheers!