DeltaBetaBaby:
Here is the Pref Night speech I gave my senior year (Note that I did not write this; it's been handed down through the years, and I found an old yellowed copy of it one day when I was cleaning out our chapter's ritual closet, and I just knew it would be my pref night speech.) You could easily adapt it for your org, I bet. Here goes:
What is Kappa Kappa Gamma?
If its really anything at all, Kappa is not entirely, a fleur-de-lis, national conventions, monogrammed rings, worn-out songs, Bylaws, Membership Standards, or a golden key badge.
And it is not entirely an institution, a creed, a legacy, an obligation, or a way of life.
If you're going to insist that it is something, Kappa is only...
...Moving in for the first time and slowly learning that all beautiful people have fat legs and use mouthwash and wear last year's coats...
...Sitting next to an alum you don't particularly like and being nice because it all means something to her...
...Long, tired eternities of black coffee and exam snacks when you can't remember the Renaissance architects or the stages of
photosynthesis and respiration...
...Borrowing a skirt from Karen and a blouse from Amy, and shoes from Meredith, and a belt and a coat from Liz and passing it off as your own...
...Sitting on the back steps and listening with all your helplessness because she's lost and she's lonely and it seems the whole world just fell into ugly pieces...
...And it's coming in very late one night and closing the door to tell someone who's seen you through the hardest years of your life that you're happy now, and you're getting married...
And Kappa is, I suppose, a kind of evaluation. You grow up inside these elegant halls, and perhaps you do learn more of the grizzly, ungrateful circus we call life than if you had lived it somewhere else.
You learn that a football player is sometimes just shoulder pads and that skinny arms sometimes hide a great man.
You learn that some lecture halls are just watery echoes and that there are silent rooms for deeper rivers of self-reflection.
You learn that no matter where you come from or who took you there, you've still got to find that one small acre that belongs to
you, by yourself.
You learn to wait, because change is slow and change isn't always right.
You learn that there's still alot left to believe in and a whole lot more to hope for.
You learn that love has never been easy, and that it's a long time coming.
And if you're very smart, or very lucky, you learn that no matter how big or how messy the world becomes, what is precious and
what is permanent is always the same.
And in the very end, you learn that Kappa Kappa Gamma can only be a better way to stumble up the back steps and out the front door.
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Oh, Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma,
I'm so happy that I am a
Kappa Kappa Kappa Gamma,
Nobody knows . . . how
happy I am!
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