I finished my conversation with my boyfriend, and thought about all of the things that had happened to me in the past few days. I loved these girls that I had met and even though I didn't really have a grasp on what sisterhood and being in a sorority was all about quite yet, they seemed to know what they were doing. I felt honored to be asked to join, and I didn't realize until I went to recruitment events that I had been missing something in my college experience--female friends and friends who weren't computer science majors like me. Something touched me at pref that morning, and I couldn't forget that feeling just because my boyfriend didn't like the stereotype of sororities. I opened a blank email and typed to the recruitment chair, "I want to accept my bid. I will see you all tonight.
"
Bid night was such an amazing experience and so much fun. The sisters were waiting in their t-shirts in the cold and snow and cheered so loudly when all of us came up the steps. Christin ran to me and gave me a huge hug. They had cake and snacks for us and took tons of pictures.
My semester as a new member was equally amazing. A few weeks later, Christin would become my big sister. I got to experience the intensity of both Greek Sing and Booth as a sorority member. My new member classmates and I worked together through service projects and planning a party for all of the sisters at the end of the semester.
Initiation was also an interesting experience for me, because I, for some odd reason, didn't realize that there were secrets and other things that I didn't know about, like passwords and handshakes. The only thing I remember about my own initiation was thinking that the first sister I saw looked really pretty.
After returning for the summer, I was taught about FMR from the sister side, things that I should talk about with PNM's who came through the house, and what not to talk about with them. I was also told that FMR did not come easily for the house in the past, because being a local on a campus like Carnegie Mellon was difficult. Many girls who went through FMR wanted the name recognition of a national organization.
At that time, most of the people who went through FMR were sophomores, so I recognized some people from classes and my floor last year. It was easy enough to talk to them. However, most people didn't see the magic that I saw the semester before, and when it came to the last day, we had 2 girls out of almost 100 at our pref party. We prepared to go to the Panhel bid night reveal anyway, but our president pretty much told us to expect the worst without saying it straight out.
How many new members would we get? What was the chapter going to do? Find out in the next installment...