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FIRST ROUND
The chanting began within Vancouver and recruitment was underway! The moment I walked in, I felt a wave of peace. The girls were all SO genuinely happy to see us! The first girl I spoke with totally put me at ease and we had an awesome conversation. In the second conversation we talked about girl power and feminism, which I loved. The last girl I spoke with was really quirky and funny like me. All the girls looked so happy and their tee-shirts were beautiful (I know this doesn’t really matter but hey, I was impressed!). Several girls I know from class approached me just to say hi and complimented me in front of my rusher. I was overwhelmed with happiness! I loved Vancouver so much!!!
My next party was Nagano. I was feeling good because of how well the last party went, but also nervous because Nagano had been my “favorite” going into things and I wanted them to like me! Unfortunately my first couple rushers didn’t seem to click with me… I felt like I was trying super hard but not in a good way. We didn’t talk about anything with substance. Also, this room felt so much louder than the last. I felt awful because I had to kept asking this one girl to repeat herself. My experience at Nagano improved with my last conversation. The rusher was a transfer from a bigger university and she told me how welcoming all her sisters were and how it made the transition to a new school much easier. We really connected and laughed together. I enjoyed Nagano, just not as much as I thought I would.
It was around this time that my energy began to falter. I felt kinda pathetic! I thought about all my friends at Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina, Missouri, etc… Here I was feeling tired after 80 minutes of talking and they have to spend hours and hours doing this! I think part of my exhaustion stemmed from that we were standing up throughout the parties… I am not sure if this is a universal thing or not! But my feet really started hurting after the second party. I also felt pretty dizzy during the walk over to Turin. My Rho Chis told us that people have passed out during recruitment before which I thought was silly at the time but now…. Now I understand.
Turin was okay. They are the newest chapter on campus, this is their second or third year, and it was very obvious because their party was poorly run. My rusher started talking to me while chanting was still happening and I could not hear a word the poor girl said. I was also still feeling poor and I probably asked for water 3 or 4 times which was a little embarrassing, but they had these TINY water cups that were only half-full. I cared more about not passing out than about being inconvenient. All the girls here were sweet but the conversations were not memorable and I couldn’t really see myself being a sister of Turin. I didn’t dislike it, it just didn’t stick out.
The fourth chapter I visited was Salt Lake. It started off very poorly. My first rusher was clearly uninterested in everything I said. She would ask a question, not pretend to care about my answer, and then continue asking another unrelated question like she was reading off a script. I was a little offended but tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she was really tired… but I still wished she would try a little harder because I was trying so hard too! Salt Lake was basically saved by the last girl I spoke to. She was so amazing! She told me about how she studied for the LSATs with her sisters and we geeked out together. We lingered behind as everyone else was filing out. She told me that she loved talking to me and I wished her luck with her last party.
My last chapter of the night was Sochi. This party felt like it lasted forever because I was so darn exhausted. But I pushed through with the help of my rushers, all of whom were amazing. When I heard that these parties would be 40 minutes, I felt like that was way too long for the first round. But I’m actually very grateful because it meant each conversation was actually meaningful. I could be genuine and imperfect. We moved past chit chat. I really enjoyed my conversations at Sochi because they felt like the sort of conversations I would have with real friends.
After all of that, I had to drag myself to a classroom so we could rank the chapters -- we essentially “dropped” one and ranked the other four as one level. If I’d ordered them by preference, I would have said
Vancouver
Sochi
Nagano
Salt Lake
Turin
Instead I dropped Turin and all the others were on the same preference "level."
Afterwards I was really worried that I should have ranked Turin above Salt Lake. But I really wanted to go back to Salt Lake again another day to get a better grip on their chapter “personality”. Tomorrow I could go back to up to four chapters, but I was prepared to not have a full schedule. I was so nervous about where I would go back!!! To be continued…
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