Finals week has officially started and I'm quickly realizing my High School did NOT prepare me for this.
At the time, I thought I was soooo lucky I didn't have those big, scary, difficult finals other schools talked about, but now I'm wishing I did. Walking into this week with no prior experience is definitely a disadvantage; my stress level can gladly tell ya a thing about that. Today I took my very first final and I'm happy to say that it will be my LAST MATH EXAM EVER. I went to eight hours of tutoring this weekend along with 5 additional hours of practice exams. Finite is my definition of death. I'm glad that it was my first final though, because now it is out of the way completely. I have two finals tomorrow, one Wednesday, and my last final on Thursday. Phew!
Right now, I'm on study break from business and health. I figured it'd be a great time to update the blog on my ever-so-busy college life. Since I last updated about IUDM, I have finished (nearly) my first semester of college classes, completed the first round of rush (sorority recruitment), been home briefly for Thanksgiving Break, met a great new friend, and had some amazing nights with my Harper 9 girls. Now for the details...
Rush. Where do I even begin? If you aren't familiar with Indiana University, let alone the greek life here on campus, I don't know how I could ever explain it. While only 18% of our campus is "greek," it's definitely a large portion of campus involvement. Sorority rush here is said to be one of the more difficult recruitments in the nation. With over 40,000 undergrads on campus, nearly 2,000 girls each year go through recruitment in hopes of finding and joining their perfect sorority. The way that recruitment works here, as I can't speak for other campuses, is through a mutual selection process. This means that not only do the sororities narrow down girls at each "level," but the girls also narrow down sororities. This assures the girls select the right house for them. (I sound so knowledgeable so far; I'm slightly impressed.) Anyways, because we have 19 sorority houses here on campus, there are multiple rounds in recruitment. The first round is called 19 party, where all the girls going through recruitment are split up in large groups and tour house to house over the course of two days. 19 houses, 30 minutes inside each house...20 minutes outside waiting for each house. Yeah, it was extremely tiring. Not only was it a LONG two days, but Indiana decided to hit campus with full on winter that weekend for the first time all year. Awesome. I had nearly 10 layers on at any given moment and still felt like a human ice cube. The frat boys certainly got a kick out of the groups of girls parading around like frozen idiots. Some gave hot chocolate (which we were advised not to take based on previous year's experience of adding laxatives,) others gave hand warmers, and some simply provided pure entertainment. Once we finished 19 party, we had to choose 14 we wish to return to for the next round, and then we ranked our bottom 5 from "best to worst" or "liked-the-most to not-so-much." This assures that if we don't get all of our top 14 back, which is extremely rare to in the first place, our ranked 5 will be bumped up to fill positions in the first place.
Now we are completely done with recruitment until January, when the real games begin. While we are all gone on break, our final grades are sent to the Panhellenic council, where we will be cut from houses based on their specific GPA requirements. Oh, boy. I don't feel that I did poorly first semester, but you would be surprised by some of the requirements. Whoever decided to start the "dumb sorority girl" cliche obviously didn't make the GPA requirements in the first place! :P Anyways, those who make it through move back into the dorms a week before classes start in order to finish one of the craziest weeks of their lives. The next round is 14 party. This round is a little longer, each house does a skit to show off their house "personality," and we all get to dress up a little bit more...like business casual. I think that's my favorite part about it all, the dress code. It's so much fun to have functions like this where we have to be dressed up a certain amount :] After 14 party, which is two days, comes 8 party...also two days. This round works the same way, where we eliminate houses just as they do to us, and we get to spend an even longer amount of time in each house. I'm extremely excited for this round, as I'll get to wear a cute new skirt I have. After 8 party is 3 party, the last round of them all. This round is the longest, spending nearly an hour and a half in each house, dressed up to the max in adorable cocktail dress fashion. After this round we rank our top three houses in order and wait impatiently for Monday night to come. That is when our RhoGamma, or "greek advisor/counselor/solve-all" will deliver either a bid card or upsetting news. Here's hoping I even make it that far! I don't know what will happen, or where this whole adventure will take me, but all I know is it has been a blast so far.
The first round was worth it, even if that's all I get to complete, just because I got to see the insides of all of the beautiful greek houses. There are no words to explain some of them, which makes it completely unbelievable that the girls get to LIVE there! Aside from that, I met a truly great new friend, Liz...who, embarrassingly enough, has lived on my floor all year. Crazy right? She lives on the short side of my hall and is actually not too far from my hometown. Because our last names are so close alphabetically, we ended up in the same group as we toured the 19 houses. We struck up a conversation and then I embarrassed myself when she told me we lived on the same floor. Woops! We've been hanging out as close to nonstop as possible lately. If I had chosen not to rush, who knows if we ever really would have crossed paths. Crazy how that happens, right?
While it's been extremely crazy being away from home these past few months, and while it seems like I've been living on my own forever, Thanksgiving break was a quick reminder of where I was before college. Living back at home for just a few days made me miss Bloomington immensely. It's not that I don't enjoy being with family, or back home...I just love my life here. Along with seeing my sisters and family, I also got to hang out with my amazing "extended family clan." Being glued to Robin's hip all of break was absolutely amazing, but made the following week extremely hard without her. It's crazy how we've been so close since 6th grade and now I'm a freshman in college and she's nearing graduation from her University. Ahhh, how time flies! Her siblings have taken me in with open arms, and over Thanksgiving break, I was definitely thankful. Just writing about them now is making me excited for Christmas/Winter break!
Hmmm...what's left on my list? Harper 9 adventures, I suppose. As I've mentioned in a few previous posts, these Harper 9 girls have become my family. Now that we are in our last week of the first semester, I'm starting to realize that we're halfway through, halfway finished, and in one more semester we'll be moving out and onto another great chapter here at IU. Some (probably most) will move into sorority houses, others will move across campus into apartments and houses, and above all, we will no longer be the babies on campus. That is absolutely crazy. While all the Harper 9 girls are amazing, my little, direct niche of girls go without words. I have the best neighbors around, to be quite honest. So many of the other floors here, just in our building alone, keep their doors shut and are completely unsocial. If I even tried to say that about our floor, I would laugh...definitely not the case. Since day one, we've all seemed to hit it off with at least one other room really well. I'll have to just devote an entire blog to my girls...and one probably here soon, too. Until then, I'll just leave it at this: these girls have been an absolute blast.
Well, there you go. I've officially avoided studying health for an hour, and now you (if anyone even reads this), are updated. As I finish finals week, I'll attempt to come up with things to write about while I'm at home on break. Any ideas?
Much love always and until next time,
Sophie
