A retro tale: 10 years ago today.........

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by Smile_Awhile

Did you just slip? Hmmm....

Can't wait to read more!

I think she just meant the sister that she was paired with, using the terms "sister" and "active" interchangeably. Or maybe it was a slip.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

It's all MoCo...my town is definitely the exception to what most people think of Montgomery county. I am from the redneck part of the county.

I love MoCo, though, I don't know when I'll get out of Baltimore! Lanham is a great place to work...I just wish that it was easier to get to AOII events in MoCo after work so I could participate more in that area. As of now, I'm a Baltimore AOII alumna. We'll probably move to DC in the future, and I'll volunteer with AOII's alum advisory committee at UMD.

[CougarGrad]

Must. Have. Moar. Retro thread!!!

[ZetaGirl22]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

I think she just meant the sister that she was paired with, using the terms "sister" and "active" interchangeably. Or maybe it was a slip.

^^^This. At first I was like, how did I slip? Is Jolene some important name to another NPC-and then I realized. D'oh.

[ZetaGirl22]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

It's all MoCo...my town is definitely the exception to what most people think of Montgomery county. I am from the redneck part of the county.

What like Damascus or Poolesville? Olney might as well have been Damascus for the longest time. We are very close. And much love to Poolesville. The reason that it isnt so built up now like the rest of MoCo is because they enacted a rule that anyone new buying land has to buy at least 25 acres and they cannot parcel it out if they are buying on the outskirts of town. I like that. Keeps some green space at least.

[violetpretty]

Originally Posted by ZetaGirl22

What like Damascus or Poolesville? Olney might as well have been Damascus for the longest time. We are very close. And much love to Poolesville. The reason that it isnt so built up now like the rest of MoCo is because they enacted a rule that anyone new buying land has to buy at least 25 acres and they cannot parcel it out if they are buying on the outskirts of town. I like that. Keeps some green space at least.

I am from Poolesville. Another reason it isn't very built up is probably because we are on well water.

[ZetaGirl22]

Originally Posted by violetpretty

It's all MoCo...my town is definitely the exception to what most people think of Montgomery county. I am from the redneck part of the county.

Nice. You'd be surprised the parts of MoCo still on well water. My parents bought a house in Derwood (sort of in between Olney and Gaithersburg) that is on well water. Anyway, redneck MoCo or not, its still MoCo LOL! I now live outside of Fredneck, and yeah, there ARE a whole rack of rednecks still around here.

[ZetaGirl22]

After we got home, I called into work to get my schedule for the next week. Crap. I was scheduled to work the second day of Set of 10 (the second round) AND a double on the day of Set of 5. Preference was also a Monday night, and I was supposed to babysit. My mom was mad when I suggested I talk to Mrs. S. about having that night off. I had made a commitment to the family, and my mom and Mrs S. were best friends at that time. I think she saw in me that I NEEDED some close friendships in college though, and she agreed to talk to Mrs S. for me. Now I just had to figure out my work schedule.

I had gone into recruitment at pretty much the last minute. We had to ask off 2 weeks in advance to have a day off. I thought about dropping. There was NO WAY I was going to get a dinner shift AND a double covered. I finally decided that I would stick it out, but I would need to decide which day I would have to miss, because knowing my co-workers, I would be missing at least one.

At lunchtime the next day, I went to get my invites for Set of 10 at the Union. This was before RFM, and there was no ranking by PNMs so we got a list of who had asked us back and we had to pick who we would return to. I found Megan, my Rho Chi. I talked to her about work, and she told me that missing one day of Set of 10 probably wouldn't kill me, but I needed to be at Set of 5. Ok. I could AT LEAST find someone to cover my day shift and I could make it to work in time for dinner. My list looked like this:

Nirvana
The Clash
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Cure
The Pixies
Alice In Chains
Live
Weezer
Pearl Jam
The Smashing Pumpkins

I was invited to 10, and you could return to a maximum of 10, so I didn't have to regret anyone. I was pretty happy about my list, but no Dropkick Murphys? I had had a great conversation there! Oh well, still had ALL my favorites left. I was pretty surprised by Alice In Chains, though. I did NOT think that the “perfect” girls from my high school would want me back.

I also ran into Kristen at invite pickups, one of my FAVORITE people from Scholars. She asked if I was happy with my list. I told her I was and asked how her recruitment was going. She was dropping. WHAT?!?!?!?!?! She said she had realized sorority life wasn't for her. I was a little surprised, but didn't try to talk her out of it. I figured everyone could make the best decision for themselves. Set of 10 would start tomorrow night, so for now I was focused on figuring out my situation with the S kids and my waitressing job.

I had to babysit that night. When I arrived Mrs S. pulled me aside in the kitchen and told me my mom had called her earlier. Uh-oh. I really hoped that that hadn't disappointed her. I LOVED the S family. Mrs S was even my Confirmation sponsor. She explained that she was ECSTATIC I was rushing! She knew that I was having a hard time meeting people at school, and she herself had been a Pi Phi in college (Pi Phi wasn't on our campus) As luck would also have it, her dad was coming into town that weekend to stay with them for the week, so I wouldn't be needed anyway! Problem #1 solved. Later that week I begged and pleaded for someone to switch work schedules so I could have off Saturday afternoon. As I suspected, there were no takers for ANY of my shifts at first. FINALLY after much convincing, I got one of my friends to pick up my day shift so I could at least go to Set of 5, but I would still need to be there for dinner. Problem #2 solved! Now I just had the rest of recruitment to focus on.

[speedsters]

haha, I was going to guess MoCo! A lot of my college friends are from MoCo.

Can't wait to read more, my bid day was 5 years ago Friday

[ZetaGirl22]

Set of 10 parties started on Tuesday and I woke up early to get my outfit ready for the day and get myself made up. I would have to wear the clothes I would wear that night to school because there was NO WAY I would be able to go to class and then drive home, get ready, and get back by 5 when the parties started. School WAS very close to home, but rush hour traffic in the DC/Metro area is absolutely ungodly. It had taken almost an hour to drive 15 miles in rush hour traffic before. I consulted my rush book and noted that the dress for the day was listed as “casual”, which was REALLY hard to interpret. I decided on nice jeans, and a white blouse underneath a fitted black wool V neck sweater. I put my makeup in my backpack so I could touch up before the parties and headed to school.

In Scholars that day, ALL the girls going through recruitment were buzzing about how the weekend had gone, and outfits they were planning on wearing that night. They were ALL going to wear khaki's. My mouth dropped. Apparently at the orientation meeting they had been told that that is what they should wear. I wasn't going to be able to get home to change. I was stuck and totally mortified. I was sure that this was going to ruin my chances, and I definitely knew that I was going to feel REALLY stupid at all the parties. I worried about this for the rest of the day.

Sure enough, when I met my Rho Chi group at the Armory that night, it was a sea of khaki pants. I felt totally under dressed and VERY self conscious. Megan sensed this and apologized for not being more specific as to what to wear, since she knew I missed orientation. There was nothing she could do about it now, I thought, as she handed me my schedule for the night. It read:

Alice In Chains
Pearl Jam
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Cure
The Smashing Pumpkins

Now I felt even WORSE. There were SO many of my favorites that I was going to miss because I would have to work the next night. I REALLY wanted to see Nirvana, Weezer, and The Pixies again, and I worried that now my chances with any of them would be doubly ruined. I decided to put on my most fake-confident face and try to let my personality shine. It was going to be hard, and a very, very long night.


Alice In Chains: What a way to start the night, totally under dressed, feeling not that great about myself, and having to start at a chapter I really wasn't sure why they had invited me back. All the sisters AND the house looked perfect, as always. I started to feel better when I met Steph. We laughed about the recruitment dress code mix up and she griped that she thought the expectation for dress should be made A LOT clearer in the rush book. She even complimented me on my sweater/blouse combo. I felt at ease. Then she passed me off to another sister. I could tell right away that this was going to be a hard conversation. We had absolutely nothing in common as we worked on the chapter's philanthropy project. I just tried to steer the conversation towards philanthropy. Then came the fatal mistake in my book: The philanthropy chair stood up to make a presentation about philanthropy. She mentioned a group they worked with and I was ECSTATIC. It happened to be a group that I had been involved with almost my entire life. Score. When I got back to the conversation, I mentioned to the sister that I had been involved with the aforementioned group. To my horror, she replied in a not very nice tone, “Oh, XYZ group, I'm not sure about them.” I made a mental note that I did NOT want to come back here.

Pearl Jam: I was met by Jamie here and we went into the kitchen to work on the philanthropy project. We mostly talked about that. It was hard to get a read on her. I was pretty happy when I was then met by Stacey who lead me into the chapter room to talk some more. She was hysterical and we joked about my outfit disaster. She asked me what I did outside of class and I mentioned my job. She wanted to know all about it as she was interested in getting into waitressing over the summer. I told her about it and gave her some interview tips and tips on how to handle a big station, things like that. Then we started talking about one of my favorite things EVER......DAWSON'S CREEK! She was a big fan too. We laughed and I found myself get into a goofy mood. Maybe too goofy, I don't know. I was sad when this party was over.

Mighty Mighty Bosstones: It was a far walk to get here from Pearl Jam so I had to walk fast. I was practically out of breath by the time I got there. I first met Kelly who I worked on the philanthropy project with and we listened to a presentation about philanthropy by their philanthropy chair. I was then met by Amy, who gave me a house tour. I liked their house a lot and Amy was really cool. They had pictures of some famous Mighty Mighty Bosstones on the wall and one happened to be an actress in one of my favorite shows. We talked a lot about that show and how funny it was, even though based on what it was ABOUT, maybe shouldn't have been funny at all. I was enjoying myself a lot.

The Cure: This was another far walk, and unlike the other chapters, I only talked to one member, and they didn't give a house tour. I met Christina and she was so easy to talk to. She was funny and again we goofed around about my fashion misunderstanding. That's how I treated it everywhere, I tried to laugh about it with the sisters. I just wanted to make sure they understood that it was a misunderstanding, it wasn't because I was a total frump. This was another Dawson's Creek conversation, and she mentioned that one of the other sisters, Ashley was a TOTAL Dawson's Creek nut and had even MET James Van Der Beek. I was impressed. It still struck me as weird though, that their parties were so different than everyone else's. I wasn't sure what to think about this group.

The Smashing Pumpkins: The “bitch” house again. I was excited to come here. At this point, I was DYING to prove Lynn wrong, and she was starting to get progressively more and more annoying about it. She hadn't been asked back here. I was met at the door by none other than Kari, my OA, who I had ADORED! I was so happy to see her and she remembered me! She took me on a house tour as we talked about how my first semester had gone. Then she led me into a bedroom where I met Lisa. That is where we did the philanthropy project, along with a group of maybe 2 other PNMS and 2 other sisters. I think NOW this might be considered a huge no-no, but it wasn't then. Lisa was very cool and we talked about the perks of living in the house, especially during Homecoming/Greek Week time. She was the chapter's star volleyball player, and that made me smile. I was TERRIBLE at volleyball, but my mom had played very well and I LOVED watching! I couldn't wait to tell Lynn how wrong she was.

Overall, I had fun that day, but no one REALLY stuck out to me. All of the chapters that I had REALLY loved from Tours I was going to be missing and I was still really disappointed by that.

The next night I went to work and REALLY didn't want to be there. I wanted to be at recruitment, visiting my other favorite chapters, and I hoped the fact that I WASN'T there wouldn't hurt me. I don't think I did very well on tips that night.

[CougarGrad]

Well, so far, it sounds like the jeans-khakis misunerstanding didn't hurt too badly, and you recovered from it pretty well. I'm interested to hear the next installment.

[AlphaXi_Husky]

As someone else who rushed 10 years ago, I am really enjoying your story. Can't wait to hear what happened next!

[tangelo212]

Originally Posted by ZetaGirl22

Then came the fatal mistake in my book: The philanthropy chair stood up to make a presentation about philanthropy. She mentioned a group they worked with and I was ECSTATIC. It happened to be a group that I had been involved with almost my entire life. Score. When I got back to the conversation, I mentioned to the sister that I had been involved with the aforementioned group. To my horror, she replied in a not very nice tone, “Oh, XYZ group, I'm not sure about them.”

This sounds like her fatal mistake to me, not yours! A PNM already involved with our philanthropy gets a star in my book!

[WVU alpha phi]

Originally Posted by ZetaGirl22

No, Olney, but good guess!

My roommate freshman year was from Olney!

[ZetaGirl22]

Originally Posted by tangelo212

This sounds like her fatal mistake to me, not yours! A PNM already involved with our philanthropy gets a star in my book!

It WAS her mistake. I had otherwise been on the fence about this chapter. Her comment really turned me off