The Wonderful Wizard of OR: An Oregon Recruitment Story

[TweedleDee199]

ROUND 2: PHILANTHROPY DAY

To say I woke up nervous that morning is about the understatement of the century. I am a perpetually wound up and anxious person. Dealing with that whole first week of college thing had already done a number on my psyche and with the addition of recruitment my nerves had gone into overdrive. Our theme for the day duck spirit in honor of the game. I had no idea how intense would people get. I did know that recruitment was slated to end at 4 and kickoff was set for 5. That didn’t leave me a lot of time to get to Autzen, let alone my dorm first so I factored in that I would going straight there in my clothing choices. I ended up in jeans, tennis shoes, and the college game day shirt that had been selling out at the duck store that week. I went by one of the dorm food places and found it packed with girls, most in numbers similar to mine with the occasional jersey and glitter tattoos thrown in. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to eat a stubstantial breakfast AND get to recruitment on time. So I grabbed a banana and booked it over to the meeting spot. I met up with my rho gams and found that a lot my group was still missing. We more pressed for time than the last two days it seemed like and Darkwing was not pleased with the low numbers. When I told her about the long food line she started angrily texting girls and informing them that they had 15 minutes to get here or they’d miss their first party. I ended up almost wishing I had been late. Sitting there waiting for my schedule was driving me crazy. The night before talking with Huey, I’d told her that I’d loved Tin Man and Elphaba but wasn’t expecting invites back. She reminded me to be optimistic and that if it had gone well I probably would. I disagreed.
I should probably mention that I have a tendency to set pretty high goals for myself. Overall I was pretty successful in high school but like anyone else it’s easier for me to remember the failures than the achievements. The whole week I’d been thinking about the heartbreak that had come with every lost election, honors class I hadn’t qualified for, competition I’d lost, etc. I reminded myself to be realistic, that I only needed one house to find a home and I could very well lose favorites. I decided that out of 7 possible houses to get back 5 would be a wholly satisfying number to me, 4 I could live with I guessed, while 3 would probably be really upsetting to me. The only house I felt certain I was going back to was Auntie Em. Everything else was a grab bag. Eventually the stragglers started to fall in and the recruitment chair called for the rho gams to start handing out schedules. Darkwing pulled out a little plastic bag filled with paper strips so thin they looked like shreds. So many hopes and potential futures were in that tiny bag. I almost had a heart attack just looking at it. She reminded us that schedules were personal and not to be discussed and compared, and that some girls would be happier with their schedules than others. Of course I thought, that’s only natural. My name was maybe the third for fourth called. She handed it to me and I stepped away to look at it. The first part had my name, group, and PNM schedule. The other part contained 7 boxes, one for each party. 5 were empty. The first two read:
Auntie Em
Glinda
…
…
…
Two.
Two…out of seven.
Holy.
Crap.
I stared at that damned piece of paper like I’d been slapped. Phrases like “recruitment reject” filled my brain and did a tap dance all over my self confidence until I pulled myself together and remembered that I was going back to my absolute favorite, along with another that I’d been hoping to see again. This all happened in span of about a millisecond. I told myself 800 PNMS…800 PNMS…this had to happen…. And then I started creeping over people’s shoulders at their schedules. Full…Full….One break…Full….I was forced to a stoic realization that my schedule had nothing to do with the number of girls. It was me. Honestly, I hadn’t been expecting to go back everywhere but to not see Uncle Henry there hurt terribly. Between the recommendation and two good conversations I had felt so confident I was going back [see previous statement in that post], and here I was utterly humbled, realizing how arrogant I’d been. The girl from my middle school came over to me. Her schedule included that same two as mine along with Elphaba, her favorite. She was the only person whose schedule even came close to mine. She was really upset but tried to make a joke of it. She started talking about how no one wanted her back and she was a reject hahaha…and I just sat there with one less invite than she did. This was not helping my mindset. I stepped aside and numbly texted my mom and boyfriend along these lines: “I got invited back to Glenda and Auntie Em. No one else wanted me back…” Almost instantly my phone rang. My mother, God bless her, knows next to nothing about Greek life but had been supportive and backed my interest from the beginning. She had the concerned and conciliating voice I remembered her using every time I’d had a bad dance competition and all my friends had won. She asked me what all of this meant and I tried to explain at first, but realized that I had to leave for my first party soon. I promised her that I’d be all right and I’d call her later. I sniffled and tried to reign in the tears that had been fighting to the surface. I knew that as much as this sucked I did still have two houses that were still interested in me and I needed to pull myself together and put my best foot forward. I walked to my first house in a group but stayed silent and tried to mentally put myself in a better place.

GLINDA: Now that the first round of cuts had been made I stood in line next to different girls. No Chuck Norris in sight. See? I was finding upsides to my schedule already. I did recognize faces from my walking group, including the girl standing in front of me. She was a sophomore who had gone to the same high school as Chuck Norris. From what I understand it’s a wealthy school and it’s alumni have a pretty strong presence in Oregon Greek life, with a reputation for being pretty intense and dramatic [go figure]. She seemed extremely down to earth however and I liked her a lot. As it happened, we were called inside together. All I could think was “Oh my God, what if all the kids from your school go to recruitment boot camp and you’re just as scary as the other one!” The rusher picked us up and we sat down to watch a film about their philanthropy. We started the normal small talk before it started. The other girl had an extracurricular in common with the rusher and they hit it off. I wouldn’t say the other PNM was aggressive or in the same league as CN by any means, but was what I’d call “gently assertive”. She didn’t seem to talk in an attempt to drown me out, just to get her voice heard. I could respect that. I had hardly said anything to the rusher when the film started. I already knew what Glenda’s philanthropy was and I admired it a lot. Perhaps it was the emotional morning I’d had thus far, but I was caught off guard. I was so moved by it that I was almost crying at the end. Afterwards we did a pretty simple craft that I managed to make look rather silly. While we were working on it another member came over and talked to us. I liked her more than my original rusher though I didn’t get to talk with her as much as I would have liked. Once again I felt the other PNM was making a bigger impact than I was. I felt comfortable enough here but I was still a little frazzled. I left feeling that my chances of being asked back were minimal.

AUNTIE EM: I was so thrilled to be going back here and once again seeing this house was a relief. I got picked up solo by a sophomore. We started by doing a craft for their philanthropy. She asked me if I was familiar with it and I just smiled and said yes I certainly was. Their philanthropy has played a pretty big role in my life for a long time, but I’ll come back to that later. I don’t want to give anything away =) This craft was pretty idiot-proof but I hardly finished it; I was so busy talking with my rusher. This girl was fabulous and the conversation here once again flowed naturally. Afterwards we moved into another room and watched a video about the chapter. I tried so hard to do everything I could to let my rusher know that I was enjoying myself and really loved the chapter. The time I spent there was the shiniest of bright spots in a very sucky day.

As I left my last house all the other girls ran off to get to their next parties on time and I walked by myself to the lecture hall the recruitment staff was basing itself out of. A very sweet and sympathetic rho gamma had told me that I didn’t need to wait around the rest of the day since I was done as long as I stopped by to fill out a sheet. There was music playing inside and some recruitment staff and rho gammas were chilling out and working on computers. I walked forward tentatively and was greeted by a warm smile from the panhellenic president. She asked if I had a break this block. Trying to seem as cheerful as possible I informed her that I was done for the day and a rho gamma had directed me here. The panhellenic president is one of those faces you see all over the place during recruitment doing this and that. Like the rho gammas and other sorority women we interact with she is lovely and put together and as corny as it may sound, a sort of role model for all of us newbies just dipping our toes in the Greek waters. And here she was, a look of utter pity all for me dawning on her face as she registered that I had only received two invites…this day just kept getting better. In fairness, the pity was only there for a second and then she was all business, pulling out a form for me and giving me directions on how to fill it out. She and the other recruitment staff wished me a good day and then I trudged home and met up with my boyfriend. We hid out in a sound proofed music practice room where I called my mother, cried my eyes out, and more or less had a little pity party for myself. One of my favorite things about my mother is her faith in, well pretty much everything. In my lifetime I’ve received countless coffee mugs, magnets, and other baubles bearing her personal motto: everything happens for a reason. It’s not the easiest thing to hear on a bad day, but I knew it was the truth. Like many other parent figures my mother has an unnerving and occasionally annoying habit of being right: if she said things would all pan out one way or another, I believed her. End of story. I felt better afterwards and for the rest of the afternoon I alternated from feeling calm and optimistic to depressed and spastic, each mood swing a little less intense than the last. The advantage of my tiny schedule was that I free to head to the game whenever I wanted. So I got there early with my boyfriend. Most of the country saw the Ducks pivotal win over Stanford live on ESPN college gameday; I saw it from the front row of the student section. And maybe you saw me on national TV =)
One of my defining personality traits has always been my optimism. You’re probably thinking “yeah…sure…”, but just bear with me for a second. You see I have this pesky inability to stay upset about anything for an extended period of time. October the second is a day I’ll probably never forget. Whether I’ll ultimately remember it as the day 7 out of 9 chapters cut me or the day I had the greatest first college football experience any freshman can hope for is an issue I’ll have to get back to you on. Looking back not a month later I already recognize it as a turning point however: my perspective on Greek life and recruitment certainly changed, although not for the worse. It was a day when I started to realize exactly what I was looking for and came one giant step closer to finding it. But more on that later…
Song playing in my head this round: Bad Day, Daniel Powter.