[ZetaGirl22]

Let me preface this by giving y'all a little background on me up until the point of recruitment and what my first semester at school had been like up until this point.

I went to a public high school in a VERY wealthy county, in one of the wealthiest towns in that county. My family was pretty well off. My dad is an orthodontist, and many people always assumed we were RICH because of that, but not necessarily so. There were 6 children in my family. My mom was a stay at home mom and ALL the kids up until I entered middle school had gone to private schools. So we were doing OK, just not as ridiculously well off as everyone else in our town. I was the only one of the 6 of us (and I was the oldest child and only daughter) to graduate from a public high school. I was a punk/alt rock theatre girl for most of high school. My idea of “fashion” in high school was a Breathless Mahoney (Dick Tracey LOL) t shirt, plaid kilt with safety pins in it, black fishnets, Doc Martens, and plenty of heavy eye makeup. That was the “uniform” of my group in high school. We never really fit in, but I always WANTED to. I remember looking at my parents' yearbooks (they both went to Maryland, too) and seeing the sorority pictures. I always thought that I might like to be in a sorority one day. Anyway, I digress. My fashion taste changed a lot during the summer before senior year. I always LIKED pretty, girly clothes, but that was against the uniform, so I never wore them. Senior year I decided, I would do what I wanted. So I went from Doc Martens to pretty, girly Ralph Lauren polo dresses (they looked like long polo shirts-that I got at the Ralph Lauren outlet in Reading, PA YEAH) and to my surprise, my core drama group were still cool with me. Some thought I was a “traitor”-I really learned who my friends were that year. Still loved my punk music, and Tori Amos, and my 90's alt rock and all that jazz, but I felt like I was becoming more of myself.

I enrolled at my parents alma mater spring of Senior year. This was NOT my first choice school. My dad had been “underwhelmed” with that school, Albright College, when we went to visit, plus UMD had a MUCH better academic reputation. Plus I got into College Park Scholars too, which I was pretty excited about. Downside, College Park was 20 minutes away from home, and my parents were NOT going to let me live on campus.

So I got there fall of '98. I had met some people during orientation, but I quickly realized that in Scholars, if you didn't live in the Scholars dorm, you were out of luck. By the time first day of class rolled around, everyone already had their friends. Plus campus was HUGE.....about 25K undergrad students. I used to joke that if you saw someone one day walking across campus, you may never see that person again. Plus when people were out and about, they were on a MISSION to get from point A to point B, so no one was looking up, there was no way to say hi, or strike up a conversation. None of my friends from high school were going here. I was miserable. I felt lost. I would go to my friend's school in Baltimore and hang out with her every weekend. I was hell bent on transferring there for second semester until my dad made a suggestion..........................”Why don't you try to join a sorority”. Neither of my parents had been Greek, but my dad had been bid by a fraternity at Maryland which he had declined. He didn't want to deal with the hazing LOL! I guess in the early 70's hazing was pretty rough. After all those years from the last time I looked at dad's yearbook, I never really thought about greek life. What would my friends say? Surely I would be laughed out of the park. I decided it wouldn't hurt to try. Freshmen couldn't join until second semester and I was TOTALLY clueless about the process, but I decided over winter break, maybe this was something I would try.......


So it was day of classes second semester-January '99. I had a brand new job as a waitress at a restaurant near home (my parents believed in teaching the value of money. If there was something I wanted, including clothes, I had to buy it, unless it was Christmas or my birthday. I even had to pay for the maintenance and gas in my car), and an obligation to baby sit every Monday night for the family I had been baby sitting for since 8th grade. I was walking in the Union and I saw a table set up advertising recruitment. I walked up to the table and asked the two girls there what was going on, and they explained they were signing women up for recruitment. Ahhhh, my chance! I eagerly signed up. Then they told me the orientation meeting would be Friday night. Crap, I had to work that night! I told them and they informed me that it was OK, my Rho Chi would call me Friday night with all the details. That was it. They didn't tell me the dates for the rest of the week, nothing. My Rho Chi, Megan, DID call Friday night, and my mom took the message. She had NO idea about sororities OR recruitment, so she didn't think to ask about what I should wear to the rounds, or what the schedule was. She did tell my mom that I should meet at the Armory the next day, 10 AM, and to dress casual, and WARM. OK. I came home from work and was VERY excited. I couldn't wait for the next day.