[LAblondeGPhi]

Preference:

Early in the day, I had my class with the girl who rushed me from Houston. We each kept our distance, despite it being a small group of 20 students.

I had been chatting with my girlfriends about the chapters we liked. Sarah was still excited about Houston. Julia and I had really liked Dallas after the Welcome BBQ, but neither of us had them in our later schedules. Julia also really liked Denver, and still had them in her schedule.

By this time, I had done some Googling to get more information on the various chapters, and had found out that Rho Chi Lisa B was a member of San Francisco. This made me excited because she was my favorite Rho Chi and I now liked that chapter.

After arriving to meet our Rho Chi groups, I opened my preference schedule to reveal:
Houston
San Francisco

Woo-hoo! My top two choices! I felt back in the game and was excited to attend my pref parties. Since Sarah was in my group, I learned that she had Houston and San Diego, and was thrilled with her schedule. We both had Houston first, so we’d be attending together.



Houston: I was greeted by the same girl from the previous round and was excited to see her. She told me how she was excited all day to see who was coming to Pref, and she was so nervous during our class because she didn’t yet know if I was coming to their chapter that night. This chapter was celebrating a big anniversary, and that was one of the major themes of their night. We discussed some of the Houston themes, and mottos, and generally had some chit-chat. Because of the long time for conversation, our conversation wandered, and at one point I asked her a random question that I had been wondering about: My Rho Chi Lisa A had offhandedly mentioned that when she went through recruitment several years before, there were only 10 chapters on campus. I used the discussion about Houston’s anniversary to ask who the new chapter was. This was probably a faux-pas on my part, but my rusher answered anyway that it was San Francisco. She did a pretty good job of re-directing, saying that she was really proud of her chapter to have such a long, uninterrupted tenure at UCLA.

The formal ceremony itself was very lovely afterward – we sat in a circle of chairs, and I remember seeing Sarah weepy-eyed and eying me knowingly. She had always had her heart set on Houston, and I think she really wanted me to love them, too. There was some singing and we were given some kind of flower to throw in a wishing well when we left. It was lovely, but I knew I wasn’t as moved by it as Sarah was.


San Francisco: I was greeted by the girl who had rushed me the previous evening, and I was happy to see her. We had had a really great conversation, and I was looking forward to seeing her again. I was taken to a cozy part of the house to have a nice conversation with her, which I don’t remember much of. It probably involved the sorority creed and themes, and I recall that she told me how several girls wanted to preference me. By this time, my mind was already made up in favor of San Francisco., so the conversation didn’t much matter to me, in fact, I recall that it was a little boring at times.

The ceremony was lovely, and rather than sitting, we all stood in their courtyard during songs and speeches. I don’t remember much about it, but I enjoyed it more than Houston's.



At bid ranking, we waited in long lines to approach a Rho Chi who would show us our bid card to sign. When I finally got up to the front of the line, I saw a card with the four houses that I attended in Round 3. I was told that all four had invited me to Preference, and that I could rank all four.

So I ranked them:
#1 – San Francisco.
#2 – Atlanta
#3 – Houston
#4 – San Diego

You may be thinking, but wait, you didn’t attend Atlanta's preference! Yes, in retrospect, this ranking looks ridiculous, and I’m sure I was nowhere on Atlanta's bid lists. But at the time, I had had a change of heart about Houston after their preference ceremony, and felt that I would have preferred Atlanta over Houston. Who knows – maybe I totally misunderstood the instructions I was given!

Outside, I saw Lisa B talking to some of the other PNMs. I told her with a sly remark that I found out what chapter she was in from their website. She was shocked and confused, because she had personally removed what she thought were all of the references to Rho Chis from their website. Well, she forgot a spot. When the other PNMs were out of earshot, I told her that I had picked San Francisco. first.