[OldOleMiss]

The night after the last skit round I don’t think I slept at all. I kept going over and over in my head what my rankings were going to be. Yes at this point I stupidly thought I was home free. I was having a great rush! I decided that I loved Neiman Marcus . and they were definitely my first choice. I also decided that I did not like JC Penny’s . at all and they were my last. I was giddy with the thought of being a Neiman Marcus. I could hardly wait. I didn’t worry about a knock on the door that night and it was a quieter night than nights past. Finally it was time to go pick up our invitations. I had a spring in my step and couldn’t wait for pref. I was handed my card and told I could accept up to three parties. I had a pretty good feel in my head of where I would accept. [COLOR="Magenta"]Neiman - I was born to be a sister there, Marshalls (where everyone was so sweet to me) and probably Saks…. (which I haven’t said much about but liked almost as much as Neimans

So of course imagine my horror when I opened up the card and saw –I had been released by everyone! But JC Penny’s, Marshalls and Bloomingdales. My heart dropped. Everyone had cut me. Okay not everyone, but in my head everyone who mattered. I was crushed. I was devastated, I felt really let down and deflated as I marked acceptances to those three down. I didn’t want to see or talk to anybody, I just wanted to cry. I also wanted to call my mother but this was back when long-distance was expensive and with her not being GLO she would never have understood why I was crying and “wasting money on a phone call” when I still had three houses left. The girls on my hall picked up on the fact that I had been cut pretty hard. All of them were so nice to me telling me how hard it was to come in from out of state and what a successful rush I was - actually having and how lucky I was to be going back to three houses especially Marshalls . A lot of girls on our floor were only going back to one… and many more were not going back to any- they had already been released. This DID make me feel a little better but I was not very excited as I got dressed for the parties that night. I started thinking about my choices and felt ill when I thought about being a [COLOR="Silver"] JC Penny’s, I knew absolutely nothing about Bloomingdales except their skit had sucked and while I liked Marshalls they were not Neimans damnit.

I went to Marshalls first. The girl I had met from my home state preffed me. They did a lovely ceremony and I felt good with them but, yet…. We were leaving the active said I really hope we see you tomorrow, I didn’t quite no how to reply.

I went next to JC Penny’s. The same girl with BO who had rushed me earlier in the week preffed me along with the girl I had met at orientation. BO girl smelled better but was no better looking (I KNOW SHALLOW) and Orientation Consoler was super sweet in a syrup type of way and kept trying to “up-sell me”. Their ceremony was very “deep” and you could tell they had a really close knit sisterhood and were very close and loved each other, but I also knew that I did not fit in and would rather not go greek than to pledge them. This strangely enough felt good because outside of the love I had felt for Neimans it was the only solid thought I had had about the process. Let me just say right here- I am amazed by the PNMs that post on here about analyzing each house for the right fit. I just kind of went with the flow of things and never gave too much thought to individual members that rushed me. In a lot of ways I think this helped me because I wasn’t that emotionally involved and I was able to “be myself”, and in other ways I wish that I had spent a little more time getting to know my Rusher as much as they were getting to know me. Anyway- I just KNEW I did not want to be a JC Penny’s. I left with a smile on my face which in hindsight is bad because they probably thought they had “won me over” when in fact I had made peace with the fact that I was not going to list them on my bid card. (REMEMBER THIS WAS PRE RFM so there was no maximize your bid card)

My last house (OF COURSE!) wasBloomingdales. Was the Universe trying to tell me something here? Why in the heck was this always my last house. Once again, I was exhausted, emotional and just wanted to go home. A girl I had never met came out to get me. She hugged me and told me how glad the whole house was that I had come back.??? I was perplexed. I had not felt any connection with any of these girls and they were glad I was here?? They did their ceremony first with time to chat afterwards. The ceremony was so pretty and the girls who talked seemed so genuine. Afterwards another sister that I didn’t recall meeting came over and hugged me and said “we couldn’t believe it when you came back, we were all so excited and thought we had lost you with that stupid skit”!!! I couldn’t help it- I burst out laughing. They KNEW their skit had been stupid! It was the first time all week I think I genuinely had laughed. I looked around the room, some girls were laughing a good number more were crying and suddenly everything at this house somehow felt “right”.

We all made our way in dark silence to Fulton Chapel to sign our bid cards. As an aside here- I would like to say that I still get chills when I think about that walk. It was done in complete silence, with all of the sorority houses out on their lawns singing and a lot of them holding candles. It was a truly remarkable sight and one of those moments that you just freeze in your head forever. At Fulton we were instructed to rank our houses in the order of preference. We were told that cuts (if any) would be done between 7am and 3pm the next day and we were to stay in our rooms until then and wait. IF we had not gotten a knock on our door by 3 the next day we were to show up on the steps of Fulton to pick up our bids. We had 2 hours to think about our ranks. I sat there that night wrestling it out in my head. It was honestly the first time in the entire process that I sat and truly thought about things. I knew that JC Penny’s was not going to be put down at all but what about Marshalls and Bloomingdales. I had arguments for both. I liked Marshalls, I had since the beginning. One of my cousins had been a Marshall, the girl from my home state was there which I liked, and tent talk around the dorms placed them firmly as a “top house”. But yet there was something holding me back from just listing them first and being done with it.

Then there was Bloomingdales. Bloomingdales??? Seriously!? They had not even been on my radar screen for 98% of rush. I couldn’t tell you one single girl prior to that night who had rushed me or who I had met. I hadn’t disliked them, but I hadn’t liked them either. I just honestly had not thought about them. But here I was thinking about how hard I had laughed when the active made the crack about the stupid skit- The skit was stupid! I also thought about how happy they had all seemed when I had shown up that night. Marshalls had been nice, but they hadn’t been that happy. I went back and forth and forth and back and finally I was one of the last in the chapel I marked my card and didn’t look back.

Damn having to go to work- sorry! Promise I will get the FINAL piece up shortly....