[Althea]

Our orientation was on a Thursday at 6:00, which gave most PNMs the chance to return from classes, grab a bite to eat, and get changed if they wanted to; since my last class that day had ended at 4:00, I ended up with a few hours on my hands. Tessa's last class ran until 5:30, so she'd made plans with me to grab some food after the orientation.

I remember being really nervous, even though it was just the orientation. Milan swears up and down that I kept fiddling with anything I could get my hands on... headphones, books, folders, pencils. I don't really remember it, but I do know I like to keep my hands busy when I'm nervous, so I guess I was doing it. Tessa showed up at about 5:45 and we walked to the auditorium together. On the advice of our Eevee friend, we'd both brought notepads and pencils in case we wanted to jot down anything while we were listening.

I'd done some research about Greek Life and the sororities on campus, but a lot of what I found seemed to be really basic and I was sort of hoping that the orientation would explain more. Tessa and I took a pair of open seats near three other girls, and we ended up chatting for a few minutes until the orientation started. I was starting to feel a little more relaxed - I can sometimes be pretty nervous around strangers, but the other girls seemed about as nervous as I was. I guess it's a little strange that seeing other people being nervous helped calm me down, but it was what made me realize that it was okay to be unsure about this, if that makes any sense. And since we were all in recruitment together, I figured it wouldn't really help to be afraid of the other girls. We all had similar goals, after all.

I don't remember the specifics of the presentation - a lot of it was pretty similar to what I'd already read about, but there were some other things that they went over that I wasn't too familiar with - but I remember being impressed with how smoothly it went and how completely at ease the speakers were. Then they introduced the Rho Chis.

The Rho Chis were so energetic! It was obvious that they were happy to be there and they seemed genuinely excited to get to know all of us. The groups were divided up by last name, so Tessa and I had to split up. There were seven other girls in my group. One of the girls was extremely outgoing and one of them was really, really quiet - quieter than I was. She didn't seem to want to meet anyone's eyes and I remember hearing one of the other girls whisper to her friend about how she wondered why the girl was even there, which struck me as kind of mean.

Our Rho Chi introduced herself as Amber and had us sit down in a circle. We played a pretty simple get-to-know-you game: The first girl would say her name and something she liked, and the girl next to her would repeat it before saying her name and something she liked. The girl next to that girl would repeat both of theirs, and so on, until we'd gone all the way around the circle. Amber was last, and she had an incredible memory - she got all of us right on her first try! One thing that did surprise me, though, was that the very quiet girl turned out to be Tessa's ex-roommate, Julie. She didn't fit my mental image of what I'd imagined her to look like at all - as I got to know her, though, I did find that she was a little difficult to get along with. For me, anyway. That may have been because I was friends with Tessa and I wasn't 100% willing to take everything Julie had to say at face value. I mean, I know I should have been more open-minded, but I just couldn't get over the fact that this was the girl who had allegedly put a friend of mine in the hospital.

After we finished learning each others' names, Amber talked a little bit about how we should all do our best to support each other. She did have good points - for all we knew, these were the girls who would become our sisters once Recruitment was over. And we wouldn't really gain anything by being nasty, either. I resolved to do my best to try to make nice with Julie if we ended up talking, but I wasn't going to actively seek her out, either. I know that was a really bad attitude to take, but... *shrugs*

We hung out for a little bit more, talking about classes and what we'd done the summer before. Amber suggested that we continue our talk over ice cream, at which point Julie and the outgoing girl - I don't remember her name now, but I guess they were friends - said they had to go. The rest of us ended up getting ice cream from one of the on-campus restaurants, and overall the orientation ended on a very pleasant note.

When Tessa and I met up after spending time with our Rho Chi groups, we were both excited for the next round. Open House was going to be Saturday morning, so we still had to get through an entire day of classes before we'd visit the each of the houses in our groups. For the two of us, Saturday just couldn't come quickly enough!

EDIT: Well, I'm about midway through my next post but I just got called in for an early shift at work tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep. I'll finish it up tomorrow, sorry everyone!