Sorority Life

So, the Princess is rushing. Actually, I’m told the correct term at this point is new member education, since she’s already been accepted into a sorority.

As you can tell, I’m not a sorority person. When you’ve been bullied as a kid, the last thing you want to do is be in an organization run by girls whose goal is to judge you—at least, that was my impression at the time and it’s why I chose to join APO, a co-ed service fraternity whose goal was to help others. If you could perform service projects, you were in. But I digress.

The Princess has loved the idea of sororities probably since she watched her first movie that had them as characters. She applied to colleges where they were a part of the social life and told us she planned to rush. I didn’t like the idea, but I wasn’t about to lay my fears on her.

And, the more she told me about her thought process, the more impressed I was. As she went to open houses and then through rush, she evaluated the girls based on their personalities. She was drawn to the houses where the girls weren’t cookie-cutters of each other. And she eliminated sororities based on their philanthropy—were they serious about helping or were they just going through the motions.

She ended up getting a bid from the sorority she wanted to join even before she started rushing, and she’s happy. Very happy. The girls are nice, there’s no hazing, and although they are putting her through a lot of requirements that seem silly to me, she’s bonding with her sorority sisters and having a lot of fun.

Now my biggest problem is remembering their names. Because I am TERRIBLE at remembering names, especially of people I don’t see all the time. Both of my girls can go on for hours making fun of me for not remembering the names of their camp friends, or being unable to identify them in pictures (trust me, I have other good qualities, but remembering names is not even in my top ten*). She’s been calling and texting daily telling me about all the girls she's gotten to know. It's a big sorority and there are a lot of girls. That means a lot of names. As far as I can tell, the only thing saving me so far is that apparently most of these girls’ parents chose their daughters names from the Top 10 lists of their birth year. So really, I only have to remember about 10-12 different names. Out of about 50, that’s not too bad!

*You might think I use “Princess” or “Banana Girl” to protect their identities. Could be. Also could be I can’t remember their actual names. ;)