I was the idealist when I wrote about rush last year. While I don’t regret my decision to join my house (or chapter, or whatever PHA has us calling them this week), it’s not everything I expected — for better and for worse.
Being in a sorority, especially living in the house, is crazy. How else could living with 40 plus women be? But it’s crazy in a good way, most of the time. Joking about ordering a ShamWow at four in the morning (exam week gets to everybody) or obsessively watching SVU re-runs on USA are some of my best memories at college so far. The couch in our living room pretty much ruins your entire day — if you sit down, you won’t get up for hours.
On the down side, you really can’t study in the house. There’s always someone watching Gossip Girl in the living room or blasting music through the wall or way too much food calling your name in the pantry. I’ve definitely learned how amazing the library is… yes, I said the library is amazing. While I’m not one to complain about having a flatscreen and DVR in the living room, the house can be difficult. There are rules about men, booze, meals, everything. It’s not like a dorm where you can pretty much do anything you want in your room. That’s why you make friends with people who have apartments.
I still stand by what I said last year: it’s the people who make my sorority so amazing. There were people in my pledge class I didn’t think that I liked, and some of them are now my best friends. How amazing is it to have a best friends across the hall who will lend you a top (or lip gloss or belt) just because?
When you’re in a sorority, people tend to stereotype you. Apparently my house is considered athletic. If anyone has ever seen me run, they’ll discover I’m not exactly the most graceful thing ever. But the worst stereotype is that sorority girls only hang out with their sisters. Some of my best friends aren’t in my sorority, or even in a sorority at all. Yes, I do love hanging out with my sisters, but I don’t only hang out with them. That’s the beauty of the Greek system at NU — it doesn’t completely run your life.
Well, most of the time. Something I didn’t realize before joining is that the recruitment process is a huge commitment, especially for the women in a sorority: Not only do we spend hours and hours during Fall Quarter preparing, but the beginning of Winter Quarter is something else entirely. I thought it was a big time commitment being a PNM! As sisters, we have to decorate and clean up for all the parties, and then get together and go through the whole selection process. While we don’t stay up until 5 a.m. as some blogs (ahem, Rumor Royalty) suggest, we do want to have awesome girls in our house, so we spend a lot of energy making recruitment as good as possible. The problem with this is I’m pretty sure I’m about to fail all of my classes, and it’s only the first week of Winter Quarter.
Being in a sorority provides you with amazing opportunities. While I’m never one to turn down a baseball game (even if I am a Tigers fan), I probably never would have gotten to watch the Cubs from a private rooftop if we hadn’t had a date party there. Sometimes, I just get the opportunity to be ridiculous. Whether that’s making new friends or attempting to bowl at a date party while completely wasted, it’s always interesting. And I wouldn’t want to share it with anyone but my amazing sisters.