House Tours are the first time you get to see the girls' "rush school" put into action. During Convo Days, the president, VP, and rush chair all walk out hand in hand, welcome us, then walk back into the house and then we all file in after them, and at the end of the party the girls silently fill the door and wave goodbye until someone shuts the door.
House Tours is when door chants come into play. I've seen them before but it was so cute to see the freshmen PNMs' reactions! Seriously, every single door chant is adorable (albeit a little crazy!). And every house is beautiful by the way! We truly have an amazing Greek system at this school. On top of that, every single girl is involved, smart, driven, and social, so there's really no losing whatever house you join (although rushing with 999 other involved, smart, etc. women is daunting too!).
The first house I visited was
Trudy Campbell. I remembered I had a not-so-fabulous time, simply because of the mirrored room/reverberating girl-voices fiasco
. All of my roommates got this house back, and we all kind of figured our super-involved Trudy Campbell was looking out for us during rush, which shows how sweet she is and how much she loves her house
. First off, let me say that this house has THE catchiest door chants, lawn dances, songs, etc. EVER. The house is beautiful. Oh my goodness. It's very sunlit and airy and easy to navigate. I managed to see our super-involved friend for the first time this semester and finally got to give her a hug! The first girl I was paired with showed me some of their rooms which were decorated beautifully (by the way, I'm positive EVERY sorority house has a room with
the Audrey Hepburn picture in it
). She was super nice and funny, and I'm glad I got another shot at this house, and that we didn't have to yell ourselves silly to hear each other! She introduced me to her big, who was on the executive board. She asked me what year I was, and she said that she rushed as a sophomore too (yet another side note: I frequently get paired up with seniors or girls that rushed as sophomores for some reason--I'm young for a sophomore, but I've been told I act very mature and confident?). She was very outgoing, confident, and interested in what I had to say as well as happy to answer any questions I had about the house. I saw the first girl I'd talked to during Convo Days, and I made sure to say hi and be excited to see her, because I wanted to make sure she knew that I did enjoy talking to her yesterday, I just had a hard time hearing! I had a really great time, was glad I met some executive board members, and was very grateful I had a second chance at this house.
Joan Holloway I was paired up with a senior who was very very nice. As I've noticed with some girls in this house, she was a bit on the quieter side in terms of personality but still interested, interesting, and inquisitive. We sat down for a bit and I could kind of tell I'd have to be the one to ask questions, but this turned out to be really nice because I learned a lot about the house. She'd studied abroad the semester before and visited a lot of countries in Europe that I'd been to years ago. I'm really interested in learning different languages and traveling, so we had so much to talk about! Finally another Joan Holloway had to walk in and tell us that the party was over and pretty much everyone else had already left! I really liked how this house's House Tour wasn't so much a "here's our pretty house, check it out!" because ALL of the houses at our school are straight up mansions anyways. The fact that the "house tour" was organized so that it was less on aesthetics and decorating and more on connecting with and talking longer with a girl than on Convo Days was really important to me. Also, their door chant at the end was really funny and sassy and showed that they were a down to earth, non-prissy house that still had a lot of house pride and love of sisterhood.
Peggy Olson I was paired up with a very quiet girl, perhaps bordering on awkward I hate to say. I don't mean this as any kind of insult at all, but more as a description since, hey, I consider myself very awkward, but we sat down on a couch and I felt like my talking must have turned into babbling, the way she looked almost...angry! at the fact that I was so talkative. (I am
not talkative in the slightest, by the way.) I was feeling kind of bad/worried and then my Peggy Olson friend from my hometown walked by with her PNM. This was the first time I'd seen her all semester and I was so happy (
....relieved? 
) to see her, and so she and her PNM joined us at the couch. This meant that she and I ended up catching up a little bit about our mutual friends and the rest of our summers, and I tried to make it a group conversation, and my friend's PNM was chatty but the girl I was paired up with was very silent! After a little bit we parted ways to walk around the house, I went upstairs and saw some rooms that were spacious and sunlit. I ended up on the landing of the 2nd floor and talking with a girl who I believe is on the exec board. I got to be my jokey self which was great, and walking past one of the wall displays (every house has them with pics of their philanthropy, socials, etc.) I recognized one of my guy friends, wearing some kind of Superman-ish costume, and I said, "Oh my gosh it's ______! He
would be shirtless!" which is nice because generally it's kind of awkward for me to be shown these wall displays because after a year I generally already know the deal about socials, exchanges, etc. So I did get a better chance to meet the actual girls in this chapter...the girl from exec was nice, but the girl I was paired up with for most of the tour did not click with me very well. Of course, it could just be one girl, but I think generally exec members are going to be elected for their social, outgoing qualities that mean they get along better with everyone they meet, and of course my friend and I have lots in common from just being from the same hometown. So would all the regular, non-exec girls in this house that I didn't already know from back home (so basically 99% of the house) be as offput by my outgoing (by comparison
) personality? Since the next round, Slideshow, would be seeing "up to 4 houses," I knew I'd be able to find out more the next day, if the first girl didn't demand I get dropped! So far...it's not a good sign.
Jane Sterling I had a long break before this house so it was dusk by the time I got here. The house is drop dead gorgeous, probably my favorite (not biased because of my sister...although my sister's university doesn't have Greek housing so she's always jealous of this house!). Going to this house always makes me feel light as air...it's just very natural, laidback, chill, but fun. Along with Joan Holloway, they have that "tomboys who like to still dress up and look nice" kind of vibe, which I love. I've been inside their house before and always liked it, but I think last year I remember it being slightly old looking, guess they must have spruced it up because it looks even BETTER than it did before...and before it was gorgeous. The first girl I talked to was great, I felt like I was talking to an old high school friend or something. We went up to the second floor and we stopped by one of the smaller bedrooms, a girl was there and somehow we got to talking about a mutual friend. Then the first girl and I walked across to a 4 person bedroom which is ginormous and as we left the room I saw the picture on the door of the girls that lived in that room, and I recognized one of my friends that lived on the same floor as me last year. Downstairs I was introduced to another girl and immediately we both kind of looked at each other funny. "I
know I've met you somewhere before...!" We both lived in the same building last year but on different floors, but we had some mutual friends and we had fun trying to figure out where on earth we'd seen each other. She was very laidback and so easy to talk to. When she walked me out the door we hugged, and I'm pretty sure I've hugged other girls that have walked me out the door but this just felt unforced, just like saying bye to any other real friend.
At the end of the day I knew that rankings didn't matter because I had 4 houses and could be invited back to 4, but in any case I ranked them:
Jane Sterling Maybe my sister and I would be SISTERS, too?
Joan Holloway The house that just makes me feel a "this is where I could be, dressed up to the 9s or rolling out of bed in weirdo pajamas" sense of peace.
Trudy Campbell Really the nicest second chance I've ever had.
Peggy Olson Only time will tell?
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