Fortunately (I guess) all that was taken out of my car was my iPod. The guy will have a fun time selling it though considering it has my name etched on the back, and it will look a tad obvious that it's stolen if he has to scratch it out. Dumbass.
Ok I'm going to try to wrap up my story now!
I made the decision to drop out of Giverny and rush again the next year but for one reason or another I kept putting it off. None of the houses did COB and I wanted to be in a sorority so badly that I couldn’t imagine waiting an entire year to have the chance. And what if Bordeaux cut me next year? So I decided to give Giverny a few more weeks.
At first I just felt bad and couldn't bring myself to do it. Then I started getting really close to Caroline and we started talking about big sis/little sis stuff and I thought it would be great if she was my big sis. After a few weeks I got in the groove of going to classes, I joined the equestrian team, I got a boyfriend, and I got to know more girls in my pledge class and loved always having someone to hang out with.
I had once been so sure I wanted to drop out but now I was really starting to like Giverny. Also, one of my quad mates had pledged Marseille but had already dropped out because something happened that made her not want to be in the house. I remembered what my Rho Chi had said about the house's true colors coming out and I wondered if I would be stupid to leave Giverny when there was no doubt that these were really nice girls.
I was still unsure after about a month but we were having our new member retreat and I thought it would be a good chance to decide for sure what I wanted to do. It was during the retreat that I finally realized how much I loved the Givernys. Deep down I knew all along that this was the best fit for me but I had wanted to be the popular party girl so badly and was so worried about what everyone else would think of me that I had ignored my gut instinct completely. After talking to the rest of the girls in my pledge class I realized that I wasn’t the only one who had concerns over the reputation of being the anti-social house. We didn’t have a problem being seen as the smart girls but we did have a problem that everyone seemed to think we did nothing but study. That night we vowed that by our senior year we would have the reputation of being the smart, classy, AND fun girls.
Giverny was not a struggling house when I joined but I do think they were a little apathetic when it came to recruitment and it definitely showed. The whole time during rush I just thought they seemed bored and uncomfortable which was a huge contrast to the loud and bubbly girls in the other houses. Fortunately my school changed the silence rules so it wasn't such a feeding frenzy the first week before rush started but in my experience just the fact that only 2 girls from Giverny had called me, when probably 50 from Marseille and Bordeaux had called me, was a big turnoff. I'm sure there were PNMs who would have been the complete opposite of me and would have hated being bombarded by sorority girls, but at least at my school those girls would have been the minority. Once everyone realized that we just needed to be more aggressive and "cutesy" during rush there was a major turn around in morale and the girls that we got on bid day. My sophomore year our bid day was probably one of my best memories because all the new members were so excited to be there and it was just a huge contrast to the year before. My pledge class always joked about our disasterous bid day (it wasn't that bid day itself was awful but I was not the only one who was upset to be there that day!) so during our senior year the new freshman class threw us a "re-bid day" complete with bid cards, gifts, and a bid day party.
They also had a tendency to only hang out with a particular fraternity, so all of the other guys said they were anti-social because they’d never see them at their house. There was one fraternity in particular that was spreading the worst rumors about us my freshman year but just by hanging out at their house and supporting their philanthropy events their opinion on us completely changed and now they’re one of our biggest supporters. Initially a lot of girls were against being nice to them since they weren't nice to us but I can't tell you how much their support has helped us.
At our new member retreat we had to write letters to our future selves then at our senior party 4 years later we got them back. Here are some excerpts from mine:
“Right now I’m at the new member retreat. I’m having a really good time which is surprising because I didn’t think I would. I was worried that I made the wrong decision but I am having so much fun tonight that I’m not worried anymore. I’m so happy that these girls are my new sisters because they’re so cool!” It goes on like that for a while and ends with some rambling about how much I missed my dog
And if you haven’t figured it out by now, Giverny is
Alpha Omicron Pi!
This was also in 2002 and even though that's not that long ago the stereotypes for all the chapters have completely changed. So if any future PNMs are reading this and trying to understand my campus you'll be 5 years behind!
So how did it end up for everyone else you ask?
Caroline was my big sis and we became really close. She was basically my mentor and I learned so much from her and just gained a lot of confidence by being around her. She was incredibly smart, gorgeous, had great fashion and makeup sense, could talk to anyone and was always the life of the party, but was also phi beta kappa and just a truly interesting person. She was chapter president her senior year. She’s now working with a top law firm in Manhattan and is engaged to her cute fraternity boyfriend (the same one from philanthropy party
)
My roommate initiated in Lyon. She liked the girls but never really got involved and ended up de-activating her junior year.
One of my quad mates pledged Bordeaux and loved it. The other got a bid to Marseille but ended up dropping out a few days later. She rushed again the next year and pledged Bordeaux. I ended up getting to know a lot of Bordeauxs through them and really liked most of them but never regretted my decision to stick with AOII.
Do you want me to reveal the chapters? If I do it will completely give away the school and I also don't want to hurt anyone feelings since I tried to be as honest as possible about them and I could understand someone taking offense.
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