[SISTERGREEK]

Because I have already talked so much about television, I will disguise the organizations by renaming them for shows from my youth: Punky Brewster, Boy Meets World, X-Men, and Thundercats.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

But just because it was not really on my mind, does not me that there weren't freshman women already thinking about, plotting, and openly discussing (where is the discretion ) which organizations they would pursue membership in. I remember distinctly being part of a conversation with several women in my dorm freshman year. The Thundercats had just had their probate, and everyone--with the exception of me--was excited about the prospect of pursuing membership. Several wanted to be Thundercats, several more wanted to be X-Men. Someone asked me if I wanted to pledge, and I said that I didn't know, because at that time, I hadn't really thought about it. (One of them said to me that I looked like a Punky Brewster. I didn't know it at the time, but I think she meant that to be an insult. I never really liked that girl.) Though the probate had been interesting, I still wasn't really sure about the purpose of these organizations.

Of course, as most of us know, most D9 sororities do not allow women to pursue membership until they have attained sophomore status at an accredited four-year institution. I actually love this about these organizations, because it means that women (and men) have time to observe all of the organizations and really get a sense of what the organization and the women in it were all about. On top of that, of the three organizations that were active on my campus, all were having lines that year and would not have another line until two years later, my junior year. (By the time that I was eligible to pursue membership, all four Black Greek Letter Sororities were active on campus.)

Throughout the rest of the year, I observed. There were step shows and dances. While the stepping was impressive, it did not seem reason enough to join an organization. I had participated in a dorm step show that year, so that didn't seem like a huge thing to me. And I am a homebody, utterly and completely. I went to three or four dances (this includes one ill-fated trip to the club) my entire freshman year, so that was not really a draw either. Of course, the men and women wore letters and colors to represent their different organizations and that was cool, but again not really a compelling reason to join any organization. By far, among the sororities, Thundercats were the dominating presence, there were just so many of them. While some were impressed with how many women were members in this organization, size was always an inconsequential thing to me. Also active in my first year were Boy Meets World and Punky Brewster. I only saw these women on occasion, so I did not have much to form an impression of them.

Overall, there was not much to distinguish the organizations with the exception of colors and letters. Punky Brewster's colors were my favorite. In fact, I often wore them together, and my first really nice suit was in one of that org.'s colors. ( I have that suit to this day). Several times, I was mistaken for a Punky Brewster (hmmm, maybe I did look like one) when I was wearing that suit (or maybe it was just the colors). Of course, at that point, I did not know anything about the service aspects of these organizations. There wasn't a lot of promotion of those activities....