Posts Tagged “sorority life”

Things I will miss about college: Phi Edition

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Stephanie

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog all about the things I will miss when I graduate, which is actually a pretty awesome list. But this past week we had Alpha Phi Senior Week, which gave me the chance to reminisce a bit about my years in my sorority, and how much I will miss certain things. I’m officially not ready to graduate…mostly because of these things.

Brian & Curtis’s Fabulous Cooking

For the last 3 years, I have had two cooks who make meals for me 3 times a day during the week. This means that I really haven’t tried out the whole cooking thing, and I’m completely unprepared for my future as a real person. It also means that I won’t ever eat as well as I have for the last few years. I don’t like everything that they make…but overall, I really love their cooking. My favorite meals include breakfast/brunch, swedish meatballs, ciabatta sandwiches, orange chicken, pizza (it’s homemade), pasta bar, KFC-ish mash bowls, and anything that he makes with pesto… I’m hungry just thinking about everything!

The Banner Closet

Our banner closet is a closet that holds paint, random things, sheets for banners, and that serves as a place to store banners that have been painted for events as they dry. For me, the banner closet is a crafter’s paradise. It is a great place to store half-finished crafts when there isn’t room in my own room, a great place to go to find that perfect color of paint when I am in the middle of a project and don’t have what I want, and to go to find anything else that I could ever possibly want. Soon, I won’t have a room like this right beside my room, and instead I will have to drive to Wal-Mart or Target every time that I have a crafting need. How inconvenient is that??!! Maybe my apartment complex will open a crafting room that could fill the hole in my life that the banner closet will leave.

My girls

I live in a house of 76, and I have 50+ other sisters that don’t live in. Most people couldn’t handle this…but I love it. There are always people around to hang out with or talk to, and life is so much more exciting this way. I love my pledge class and the pledge class below us…and the pledge class below them was the group that I worked with as the pledge educator so they will always hold a special place in my heart. And to top it all off, we got an amazing group of girls this year that I have loved getting to know. Basically, I don’t want to leave them. I wish I could stick around a bit to see how they grow over the next few years and where they take our house. I have full and complete faith in them, but they are just such awesome people that I don’t want to leave them yet! Alpha Phi, you’re great….keep it up…and never change.

My pledge class at an event earlier this year....

Tagged: alpha phi, cooking, crafting, food, graduation, senior week, senior year, sorority life | Leave a comment

A New Wild Tradition…

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Stephanie

In my sorority, Alpha Phi, we have families that each have a different theme. We bring new members into our families each year, and so this year we decided to change things up with our own family a little bit. We have been the Sweatpant Fam for a few years, and even though we loved our days in comfyness…we thought it was time to change it up – so we joined forces with another family. Now, we are the largest family in Alpha Phi (19 members strong)…and we are known as the Wild Fam. This made for a great family reveal…check it out!

The entire Wild Fam....

The Wild Seniors....

This year’s family night was kind of bittersweet for me…because just like everything else that I am doing right now…it was my last time around. I’m so happy that we have seven fabulous new girls in our family, but I’m sad to be leaving them. Just being called their Great-Grand-Big is strange….I feel so old!!!

My Great-Grand-Littles and I...

Doin' our Wild thang...in the foliage.

Welcome to the family Andrea, Melanie, Kate, Katie, Felicity, Laura, and Peyton! We’re so excited to have you!!!

Tagged: alpha phi, family, new members, sorority life, sweatpant fam, wild fam | Leave a comment

THIS is college.

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Stephanie

I’ve been meaning to devote a post or two to my room’s set up/decor for awhile…but I thought that before I showed my room in its prime I should show it in the normal state. It really hasn’t been clean since Recruitment, but for that week and a half it was really, REALLY clean. Of course, it wasn’t naturally clean…simply because we have so much stuff and not enough room for all of it. To deal with this situation, we created a secret hiding space for all of our stuff…where we would hide everything that didn’t have a home during each day of Recruitment so no one saw it. This included some food, my roommate Katie’s clothes, some shoes, and other random things that were just laying around…and the place where we would hide it all was our bath tub. Think about it, if you put things in the bath tub then you can close the curtain, and just like magic…everything is hidden.

Our bath tub...the catch-all.

I know…it’s kind of gross. But it was clean – and every day we would just empty it before we needed to use the shower….and then fill it again after.

If we could have our room look nice, clean, and orderly all day every day…I would be all for it. But let’s be serious… we are in college and we are not neat people…at all. So we just do what we can to make sure that we aren’t living in filth, and put most of our stuff in piles. This way, it is at least a comfortable space…right?

So…that is our room in its normal state. Check back next week for our room in its prime…where you can actually notice our style and all of the awesome decorative things we made. I promise – it is a REALLY awesome room…and I’m only slightly biased.

Tagged: alpha phi, college life, decorating, dorm room, greek life, recruitment, room, roommate, sorority, sorority life | Leave a comment

The Joys of Sorority Life…

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Stephanie

During Formal Recruitment, we all get to talk about our favorite things about our respective chapters over and over and over again. Then it ends, and we go back to real life…classes, work, and everything that exists outside of the house. The best part of the week is that you have the perfect chance to appreciate your sisters and everything that they do for you…and you bond like you’ve never bonded before. This year I had an absolutely great time getting to know some of our sophomores better, just hanging out with my roommates, and being with the girls 24/7. Since I have had a great couple of weeks in sorority life…I thought I would share some of my favorite things about being in a sorority with you…

Someone is always around to order food with you late at night, or to go with you to get something that can’t be delivered. There is nothing better than HotBox breadsticks while you’re studying, going to get McDonald’s when you really don’t need to, or going to BRICS two days in a row. And I am now officially craving each one of these….
Watching YouTube videos all night long, and then quoting them until you fall asleep. My room’s favorite video is Boys Will Be Girls, but others like Sassy Gay Friend and Jessica’s Daily Affirmation are always a close second…
Even though we all meet and get to know our new members, sometimes you don’t get to know a certain side of a person’s personality until you get the chance to really open up with them. I love getting to see how multi-faceted and amazing my sorority sisters are…and becoming so much closer with them in the process.
Just like my own sister and I, we might not always get along…but we always respect one another. We are all so different and so unique in our own way…but somehow the differences bring us closer together, and make us appreciate ourselves and each other more every day.

Of course, there are more things that I love about Alpha Phi and my sorority sisters, but I might just have to save those things for another blog.

Our Senior Class...

Tagged: alpha phi, greek life, recruitment, sisterhood, sorority, sorority life, YouTube | 1 Comment

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…Fall.

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Stephanie

I love Fall…for many reasons. The food is great (pumpkin everything), the clothes are even better (boots and sweaters…yes please), and the changing leaves can’t help but just make my day, every day. Let’s be serious, how could someone NOT love fall when you go to a school that looks like this…

Photo courtesy of Ryan Love - photographer extraordinaire.

I also love fall because it reminds me of some of the best parts of being at home. Harvest time in the fields and bonfires with hayrides were always the best parts of fall in my middle school and high school years, but now that I live in the middle of the city, I don’t get to experience these things…at all. I’m not going to lie, it’s rather depressing. A few weeks ago I was feeling kind of down, and I didn’t quite know why…until I went to one of my sorority sister’s houses out in the country east of Indy for a retreat. It was amazing…and I knew that I was just feeling homesick and missing fall in the country. At the retreat there were corn fields, cows, horses, a bonfire, hot dogs, s’mores, a hayride, and everything else that comes together to create a perfect fall night. When we left, I had eaten entirely too many hot dogs, I smelled like a fire, and I was still scared from all the ghost stories we told…but I felt so much better.

Here’s a little peek into our retreat…horse rides and all…

The horses...

So country...I love it.

They even have a bulldog, Hercules.

All of us at the retreat.... Alpha Phi Love!

P.S. If you want to visit Butler…right now is PERFECT. So you should.

Tagged: alpha phi, bulldogs, Butler, campfires, cattle, country, cows, fall, horses, sorority, sorority life | Leave a comment

True Life: I go to college.

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Stephanie

I’ve been meaning to share photos of my room on my blog for some time now…but to tell the truth…our room hasn’t been clean when I had time to take the photos. So, I decided that it would be easiest, and best if I just featured a real life room in a sorority…without hiding our true slightly messy selves. We are actually really clean people….but it just gets cluttered so easily!

Our room is actually 3 rooms in one….a living side, sleeping side, and a bathroom. They are all connected…and they make it so much easier to have our own space, or all be doing different things simultaneously. On our living side there are desks, our TV, our futon, our fridge and food….and everything for studying.

The main part of our living side...

The food station...my desk...and our wall of paddles...

The futon and Lauren and Liz's desks...

On the other side we have our dressers and our beds….and this is where our stuff tends to accumulate. It is so easy just to throw stuff over there since it is mostly just where we sleep….so we have to be careful about not letting it turn into a pigsty.

One of the other features of our room are our closets….we each get one….and they are rather great. But, the downside is that two closets are on the sleeper side and two are on the living side….so if you have early classes and someone is still sleeping, you have to be quiet. Or if you have one on the living side that is right where people tend to walk into the room….which means you can’t let your closet overflow…much.

I left out the bathroom…so I will come back to that another time…if you have any questions about residence life at Butler, feel free to leave a comment!

Tagged: bathroom, dorm, greek life, sorority life, studying | 3 Comments

I love being Greek!

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Stephanie

Last weekend, I went with 4 other Alpha Phis to the Alpha Phi Upper Midwest Regional Conference in Toledo, OH. It was a great chance for us to get to learn more about Alpha Phi, and to get to meet some of our sisters from other chapters in the area. As we talked and discussed certain things, I started to realize how fortunate I am to go to Butler, and to be Greek in such an awesome Greek system….here are some of my favorite things about Butler Greek Life….now that I have somewhat seen the “other side”.

We have an awesome Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council, and having this strong backbone to our Greek System as a whole prevents so many issues and problems that our individuals chapters could have to deal with. A big part of this is the recruitment counselors that each girl is paired with as she goes through recruitment. These counselors inform the girls of financial obligations and help them make the choice that is right for them and that they will stick with, so most of our campus doesn’t have a problem with retention of members.
Butler’s Greek Life is so supportive in nature. Whenever a chapter has an event, there are always plenty of people from every other chapter who come to support them, and it is always positive. It is just a great spirit to have, and especially to be a part of.
Butler’s campus neither encourages getting involved in Greek Life, or discourages it. Everyone tends to support everyone’s decision, whichever way it might be. In addition to this, everyone understands why people go Greek, which is a huge deal, even if we don’t think about it all the time.

I had a wonderful weekend with Alpha Phis from all over Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Canada, and I am outrageously proud to be both Greek and an Alpha Phi right now. With all of the things that we took away from conference and learned from other chapters, I can’t wait to see what is in store for our house and the entire university in the future…

All of the Alpha Phis on Bid Day

Tagged: alpha phi, conference, greek life, greek system, IFC, panhel, sorority life, Upper Midwest | 1 Comment

When can I become a real person again?

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Stephanie

Now that I have been a college student for you know…about 2.5 years….I have started this vicious cycle of being a real person….then getting bogged down with stuff….then recuperating from being bogged down….then becoming a real person again….and so on. Usually my “being bogged down” stage lasts while I’m at school, and then then I go home for a break/weekend where I usually recuperate, and then I become a real person again just in time to go back to school.

So, I was a real person…..about 3 weeks ago. Then I came back to school, had to move back into my sorority house, then move out of my sorority house to be a recruitment counselor (we live in a hotel during recruitment), then I moved back into my house, and then I started classes. And now, with no school breaks rapidly approaching….I have no idea how I am going to deal with this situation. Either I need to be really productive for a week or two to get everything done before a weekend, or I need to figure out a weekend when I can just not do anything….so I can recuperate from the intensity that is my life during the week. Just to give you an idea of how outrageous my life is at times…check this out.

Here are all of the cups that began to accumulate on my desk during Finals week this past semester. Due to the danger that comes with having cups full of water/liquid near a computer...I just moved them all to the bookshelf. It works, right?

This is slightly outrageous….because Finals week is quite possibly the most intense week of the year….but it does illustrate my point quite well I believe. When my life gets busy…I respond by trying to save time in any way possible. This usually ends up being through not showering….or not cleaning up things….or not sleeping. But….the good thing is that I always get everything done on time, and I always do my best….so I guess it is worth it? This semester, however, I am going to try my absolute hardest to not get to this point. So I will return to this “being a real person” topic frequently….since it is something that most Butler students have trouble with. What can I say? We just love to be involved.

Tagged: becoming a real person, busy, college life, finals, messy dorm room, productivity, sorority, sorority life, studying | 1 Comment

It’s finally here…Bid Day! So proud to be an AΦ!

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Stephanie

After a long semester of never wearing my letters or saying what house I am in….I FINALLY CAN! I am an Alpha Phi! Bid Day is the day where everyone gets their bid cards (get it….Bid Day??!)….and best of all….the recruitment counselors get to reveal what house they are in! So we started off the day bright and early at 2 p.m….when the recruitment counselors met with their groups and gave them all their bid cards. I had an amazing group that stuck with recruitment through the thick and thin, and they all accepted bids! Where other groups had girls drop out every once in awhile….we all made it through…and I am so proud of them!

My beautiful recruitment group....such fabulous ladies!

After they got their bid cards, we all gathered in the Reilly Room where the Recruitment Counselors had a skit put together to reveal our letters in a fun and special way. We all put together this song and dance…where the recruitment counselors all got to do a special cheer that their chapter does, while they showed off their letters for the first time in months….it was beautiful! I love the reveal because the girls who went through recruitment all get to see who their new sisters are for the first time…even though we all knew each other rather well already. Then it was finally time for us all to run out and meet all of our sisters on Rowdy Row, which is the stretch of Hampton Drive that goes in front of Schwitzer Hall. BUPD blocks it all off so we can run and see all of our friends that are in different houses without getting run over, and it is basically mass chaos with cameras. We all run around in the snow, hug the people we haven’t seen in a week, or since before Christmas, and congratulate everyone on the new pledge classes. Basically…its the BEST DAY EVER.

My beautiful roommates and I...3 of us were recruitment counselors....so we missed Lauren so much all week long.

Alpha Phi's beautiful new pledge class!

Recruitment week was long, tiring, and very emotional (especially since I couldn’t spend it with all of my sorority sisters), but I am so glad that I spent my week as a recruitment counselor. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had….and now I have a new found appreciation for Butler’s Greek system as a whole. I have always loved being a part of Greek life here, but since I saw recruitment from another side, I realize how fortunate I am to be a part of this amazing group of people, and I see how amazing each house is in a whole new way.

Tagged: alpha phi, bid day, formal recruitment, greek life, recruitment, recruitment counselor, rowdy row, schwitzer hall, sorority, sorority life | 1 Comment

Day 4 of Recruitment…Pref Night!

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Stephanie

So the final day of actual recruitment is Preference Night, when the girls go to their final 2 houses of the week. These parties are longer than every other night, and the mood of the night is much more serious and quiet, rather than the loud and exciting moods of the other days of recruitment. During Preference Night each house has some sort of special ceremony for the girls, they get a special dessert, and they have a much longer time to get to talk one-on-one. After the girls finished their parties for the night, they each went to a room in Jordan Hall, where they waited until they could meet with a Panhel Exec member to rank their houses for the final time and sign their bid cards. While they waited, some girls met with their recruitment counselors to talk about their own situation, because not everyone was positive about what they should do. At times like that, pro and con lists definitely come in handy, which is why I made quite a few that night.

Since Pref Night is much more formal than the other days, this also means that the girls get to dress up more. While on the other days we see lots of cute casual dresses, skirts and tops, or dress pants and sweaters, on Pref Night most girls wear cocktail dresses and fancy heels. That is why I love it so much….I love to dress up…and what is better than dressing up and then going to a house where you get a tasty dessert??!!

The girls lined up and waiting to go to their second event of the night and final event of the week!

All of the Recruitment Counselors from my chapter posing together....we don't just dress up for nothing...the theme for the night was Disney Princesses...hence the dress and tiara.

Only one more day left…..and then you can find out what chapter I am in!

Tagged: formal recruitment, greek life, preference night, recruitment, recruitment counselor, sorority, sorority life | 2 Comments

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