Thanks to all for reading my story and for the positive comments.
Years later and now with more knowledge of Greek life, I do look back and think about how lucky I really was. While I wouldn't recommend that any current PNM try to take my roundabout route through recruitment, I do hope that perhaps they can take from it the lessons that would still apply today.
P.S. For those who wondered...I don't write on any sort of professional level, but I have kept journals for many years. I get a lot of practice, even if it is "for my eyes only." Maybe I should start a blog.
Unfortunately, most of the happenings in my life these days aren't as riveting as my rush story...unless you'd find stories about potty training toddlers and a disobedient dog riveting.
lol
P.S.S. It has been bothering me that I didn't clarify this earlier, so I'd like to mention it now. I had knee surgery a few months prior to rush, and I was still recuperating at the time of rush. As I mentioned in my Phase A description, one of the sororities (SDT) was 10 blocks away from the others. We had to walk (nearly run, actually) out to that house for their party, and then racewalk 10 blocks back to attend the Phi Mu party. I was starting to feel tired/in pain at the SDT party, and it was even worse by the time we cycled back for the Phi Mu party. Everyone saw my description of what my parties were like at those 2 chapters in Phase A, so I won't rehash that here. When I mentioned being tired at those parties, a large part of that was due to me still being in recovery from the knee surgery. (I wasn't just tired - I was in some pain too.) I still cringe to this day when I think about how my experience at the Phi Mu party could have been interpreted by the chapter as me being rude or dismissive of them. It was a bad combination of just walking 20 blocks roundtrip in extreme heat and humidity, while recuperating from knee surgery, and having one active double rush me with another PNM who happened to be really chatty. It was just too easy to zone out and let the other PNM carry the conversation. However, it definitely was more a result of circumstance than any dislike or disrespect for that chapter.
(And I was glad to hear from efcheer that PNMs don't have to do that walk for Phase A anymore - I know that I wasn't the only PNM over the years to have less than positive experience at those 2 parties through
absolutely no fault of the chapters. I always thought that the way Phase A was organized was unfair to those 2 groups, and its good to see that the playing field has been leveled.)
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