[ZetaGirl22]

Set of 10 parties started on Tuesday and I woke up early to get my outfit ready for the day and get myself made up. I would have to wear the clothes I would wear that night to school because there was NO WAY I would be able to go to class and then drive home, get ready, and get back by 5 when the parties started. School WAS very close to home, but rush hour traffic in the DC/Metro area is absolutely ungodly. It had taken almost an hour to drive 15 miles in rush hour traffic before. I consulted my rush book and noted that the dress for the day was listed as “casual”, which was REALLY hard to interpret. I decided on nice jeans, and a white blouse underneath a fitted black wool V neck sweater. I put my makeup in my backpack so I could touch up before the parties and headed to school.

In Scholars that day, ALL the girls going through recruitment were buzzing about how the weekend had gone, and outfits they were planning on wearing that night. They were ALL going to wear khaki's. My mouth dropped. Apparently at the orientation meeting they had been told that that is what they should wear. I wasn't going to be able to get home to change. I was stuck and totally mortified. I was sure that this was going to ruin my chances, and I definitely knew that I was going to feel REALLY stupid at all the parties. I worried about this for the rest of the day.

Sure enough, when I met my Rho Chi group at the Armory that night, it was a sea of khaki pants. I felt totally under dressed and VERY self conscious. Megan sensed this and apologized for not being more specific as to what to wear, since she knew I missed orientation. There was nothing she could do about it now, I thought, as she handed me my schedule for the night. It read:

Alice In Chains
Pearl Jam
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Cure
The Smashing Pumpkins

Now I felt even WORSE. There were SO many of my favorites that I was going to miss because I would have to work the next night. I REALLY wanted to see Nirvana, Weezer, and The Pixies again, and I worried that now my chances with any of them would be doubly ruined. I decided to put on my most fake-confident face and try to let my personality shine. It was going to be hard, and a very, very long night.


Alice In Chains: What a way to start the night, totally under dressed, feeling not that great about myself, and having to start at a chapter I really wasn't sure why they had invited me back. All the sisters AND the house looked perfect, as always. I started to feel better when I met Steph. We laughed about the recruitment dress code mix up and she griped that she thought the expectation for dress should be made A LOT clearer in the rush book. She even complimented me on my sweater/blouse combo. I felt at ease. Then she passed me off to another sister. I could tell right away that this was going to be a hard conversation. We had absolutely nothing in common as we worked on the chapter's philanthropy project. I just tried to steer the conversation towards philanthropy. Then came the fatal mistake in my book: The philanthropy chair stood up to make a presentation about philanthropy. She mentioned a group they worked with and I was ECSTATIC. It happened to be a group that I had been involved with almost my entire life. Score. When I got back to the conversation, I mentioned to the sister that I had been involved with the aforementioned group. To my horror, she replied in a not very nice tone, “Oh, XYZ group, I'm not sure about them.” I made a mental note that I did NOT want to come back here.

Pearl Jam: I was met by Jamie here and we went into the kitchen to work on the philanthropy project. We mostly talked about that. It was hard to get a read on her. I was pretty happy when I was then met by Stacey who lead me into the chapter room to talk some more. She was hysterical and we joked about my outfit disaster. She asked me what I did outside of class and I mentioned my job. She wanted to know all about it as she was interested in getting into waitressing over the summer. I told her about it and gave her some interview tips and tips on how to handle a big station, things like that. Then we started talking about one of my favorite things EVER......DAWSON'S CREEK! She was a big fan too. We laughed and I found myself get into a goofy mood. Maybe too goofy, I don't know. I was sad when this party was over.

Mighty Mighty Bosstones: It was a far walk to get here from Pearl Jam so I had to walk fast. I was practically out of breath by the time I got there. I first met Kelly who I worked on the philanthropy project with and we listened to a presentation about philanthropy by their philanthropy chair. I was then met by Amy, who gave me a house tour. I liked their house a lot and Amy was really cool. They had pictures of some famous Mighty Mighty Bosstones on the wall and one happened to be an actress in one of my favorite shows. We talked a lot about that show and how funny it was, even though based on what it was ABOUT, maybe shouldn't have been funny at all. I was enjoying myself a lot.

The Cure: This was another far walk, and unlike the other chapters, I only talked to one member, and they didn't give a house tour. I met Christina and she was so easy to talk to. She was funny and again we goofed around about my fashion misunderstanding. That's how I treated it everywhere, I tried to laugh about it with the sisters. I just wanted to make sure they understood that it was a misunderstanding, it wasn't because I was a total frump. This was another Dawson's Creek conversation, and she mentioned that one of the other sisters, Ashley was a TOTAL Dawson's Creek nut and had even MET James Van Der Beek. I was impressed. It still struck me as weird though, that their parties were so different than everyone else's. I wasn't sure what to think about this group.

The Smashing Pumpkins: The “bitch” house again. I was excited to come here. At this point, I was DYING to prove Lynn wrong, and she was starting to get progressively more and more annoying about it. She hadn't been asked back here. I was met at the door by none other than Kari, my OA, who I had ADORED! I was so happy to see her and she remembered me! She took me on a house tour as we talked about how my first semester had gone. Then she led me into a bedroom where I met Lisa. That is where we did the philanthropy project, along with a group of maybe 2 other PNMS and 2 other sisters. I think NOW this might be considered a huge no-no, but it wasn't then. Lisa was very cool and we talked about the perks of living in the house, especially during Homecoming/Greek Week time. She was the chapter's star volleyball player, and that made me smile. I was TERRIBLE at volleyball, but my mom had played very well and I LOVED watching! I couldn't wait to tell Lynn how wrong she was.

Overall, I had fun that day, but no one REALLY stuck out to me. All of the chapters that I had REALLY loved from Tours I was going to be missing and I was still really disappointed by that.

The next night I went to work and REALLY didn't want to be there. I wanted to be at recruitment, visiting my other favorite chapters, and I hoped the fact that I WASN'T there wouldn't hurt me. I don't think I did very well on tips that night.