Joe's Blog : Phi Kappa Psi

Phi Psi 500!

JoeW — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:08:00 GMT

The Phi Psi 500 graced campus this past weekend. It is one of the last social events of the year and as one of the largest put on by a Greek house.

Phi Psi 500 is a celebration of all the service that Phi Kappa Psi does through out the year. Last semester we completed 813 hours of community service and are on track to pummel that amount this semester. We also complete 500 hours of service the week of 500, which is where the name originates.

It was a large and eventful day. The main festivities began at 3:00 with our beach volleyball tournament; which continued well into a free dinner for all at 5:00 and go-kart time trials at 6:00. (500 has a racing theme.) Then at 7:00 our lipsync competition started. I was in charge of organizing the days events. Because of Butler’s passionate and rhythmic student body these lipsyncs were FANTASTIC- not a bad one in the bunch. However, because this event also showcases our days stiffest competition it was very stressful for me.

After the Lipsyncs were finished on the rise hip-hop artist Krypton Flo took our stage by storm. Keep in mind, this entire event was outside, free, and open to all of Butler- so there were tons of people there. K-Flo was out of this world and you should check him out.

http://kryptonflo.com/HOME.html

The last thing on our agenda was our closed party at 11:00. This was really the only VIP event, but with over 400 people on the list it couldn’t have been too exclusive. 500 was an amazing end to our year, and I’m sure all of the participants agree. 500 let me spend the entire weekend outside in fabulous weather. It was the perfect prelude to my exam week.

The Jacqueminot Ball

JoeW — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:34:00 GMT

It has become somewhat of a tradition for Phi Psi to spend their Spring Formal in Culver, Indiana. Culver, made famous by it’s apparently very legit military academy, is a small town on a lake- meaning that our hotel/formal is on a lake. This is tight.

We always stay at The Cove. You could call it a hotel but that would be like calling Mike Rowe a ‘host’ and I do not like understating things. The Cove has become the Spring Get-a-way for the men of Phi Kappa Psi. We have pictures of formals long past hanging in our study were the brothers of yesterformal are sporting Members Only jackets in front of The Cove’s sign. Needless to say- they know us there.

The Cove is a large grouping of extended stay rooms, they get very busy in the warmer months when families want to spend a few fine days on the lake. Which means that when Phi Psi arrives just as winter’s bitter hand is loosening it’s grip on the fast approaching Spring- we are pretty much have the entire place to ourselves. This is tight.

College students don’t have to be enrolled for more than a month before they have learned everything about the world. A weekend of being with just your brothers and your dates in a sunny splashed retreat you feel like you own only catapults this emotion; simply put- During Formal, we own the world. (Traveling back to the real, post-formal, world is always a humbling and harsh realization.)

Because the rooms are all suites we are completely self-contained. Once you arrive and check in, much time is spent figuring out which rooms everyone else is in and starting up various playlists. Then you and your fellow roommates (your formal family- more like a real family than you would think) begin cooking dinner. (correct, we do not go out to eat. We cook a first class, warning- men in kitchen, style dinner.) After burning various foods and seasoning things to heavily the happy little family sits down to dinner and everyone says the food is good no matter what actually happened to it.

After the eating everyone helps each other get ready. The women take over the bathroom with their tool belts of masking and coloring equipment for an unnamable amount of time and the men realize that they forgot a tie, shoes, their suit, etc. And begin wearing each others clothes. (Guaranteed whoever forgot their belt happens to have two pairs of socks.)

Once everyone looks sharp as javelins they walk to the ballroom which, conveniently enough is just down the hall. Perfect! Once in the ballroom, everyone begins to dance their faces off and swap dates like square dancers.

The evening ends much like it began, people disappearing and reappearing, dates reuniting (possibly) and everyone eating the leftovers enthusiastically.

The morning after formal always comes too quickly. The rays of Sunday sun creeping in to wake tired Phi Psis from their cavernous slumbers. Everyone rises (probably not shining) and the mom and Dad of the room clean. Everyone repacks and returns to Butler- most likely owning a Bob Evans along the way.

They start their weeks hesitantly, filled with stories and hopefully some memories as well. Thinking back to that one night in Culver where they switched from being above average Butler students, into Greek Gods and Goddess. They are all the more excited to go to the next formal, the next semester, and hoping- wishing really, to see Culver in the spring.

Mi Cumpleaños

JoeW — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:46:00 GMT

I had the privilege of going to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for my Spring Break. I was extremely excited to go because I had yet to have the typical college student MTv generation Spring Break.

My Break, however, was far from typical. I was going to Cabo with 21 of my fellow Phi Psis. That’s right 22 Fraternity men, talk about a motley crew. We were going for the American Leadership Academy, a leadership conference that is for Phi Kappa Psi, by Phi Kappa Psi. Our hotel was paid for and we got three free meals a day. It was fantastic. The speeches ranged from leadership to goal setting to etiquette to self actualization and much more. I really took a lot away from this conference. Seriously.

But of course, the purpose of Spring Break is nopt to become a better person. So please, do not be mislead into thinking we misspent my mexican minutes growing, chaning or learning. In fact, we were of the opinion not learning anything was an indication of a successful Spring Break. Not to mention, I had a Birthday to worry about.

You read me. I turned the big 2 - 0 while we were in Cabo. Meaning, I was taught the only spanish I know- "Mi Cumpleanos! Mi Cupleanos! fiesta! fiesta!" Which means (roughly) - "I am an american on Spring Break, please ignore me"

And, boy, was it a time! Sun, surf, and relaxation. Being an unnecessarily involved student means that I was long over do for some chill time. I didn’t have to plan a single thing for an entire week and it was fantastic, my brothers took care of everything.

Getting to Mexico wasn’t easy. We had three connecting flights to get there and every time someone found out we were going to Mexico they adapted a very solemn look and said, “Be careful boys, please, be careful.” I appreciated that strangers seemed so concerned, but luckily Cabo is roughly 700 miles from the Mexican Border wars and is as American as Miami.

I had two bags- a carry-on and a checked bag. My check bag was actually smaller than my carry-on. When we were going through customs and had to un and re check our bags I realized that because of their size I could just keep both bags with me, so I did- or tried to. I was only thinking of the size of my bag and not it’s contents. Because of the razor, finger nail clippers, numerous liquids, etc.that I unknowingly tried to smuggle onto a plane I am now labeled as a security threat at the Denver Airport. My bad.

Cabo was great. It is a very watered down Mexico, in that USD are accepted everywhere and all the cab drivers speak English. You can get better deals on everything if you only use Spanish, but then you don’t have the thrill of being looked at like they want you out of their country. It was warm and bright and perfect. It was the break I needed.

Walk it Out

JoeW — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:47:00 GMT

Walk it Out

*warning, I am going to use brombinations (combinations of bro and other words) as many times as possible in this brog.

This Saturday was one of the most bromatic weekends of the year for Phi Kappa Psi. Every year our pledge class goes on ‘Walk Out’. They travel a few hours out of the city to get away from everything and have some serious bronding.

They stay at a pledge brother’s house and invite a handful of active brothers to come with them. Fortunately, our pledge class is brilliant so they choose me to come along. Why, you may ask, would they want me? Well, probably because they knew I would blog about it. Pretty phi sly pledges, pretty phi sly.

Brotherhood is one of our most important principles, so the retreat involves several activities that help the pledges learn more about each other and become closer. Being part of it was fantastic and I am even more excited to see what our pledges will do once they are in our house. Did they get a lot from it too? I’ll be a broptimist and say yes, but in truth I know I got so much from it that I don’t see how they could not be better off.

I have done a lot of retreats in the past for various things. I was very involved in my church growing-up and went to summer camps from the time I was six until I was sixteen. I was even a counselor last summer. I think retreats are a great way to make a deeper connection with people and most houses on campus agree, because almost all of them have some sort of retreat integrated into their pledge program.

Being on the other side of pledgeship has been brantastic. Greek houses are so founded on tradition that I am constantly surprised to see what an organic process it is. Every class is a little different and houses are always changing. I’m glad that mine is browing in the right direction.

I Never Thought I'd Go Greek

JoeW — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:52:00 GMT

Many people cannot wrap their heads around why anyone would want to join a fraternity. I can’t say I could either. I grew-up beside ‘big’ Greek Life- the large university scary Greek Life that ends up on the news. Because of this when I came to Butler, I was not only never going to join a Greek House- I wasn’t even going to go inside of one. But I did, however, fill out the recruitment application on the last day it was due; so if, sometime over Winter Break, I decided I did want to rush, I would be able to come back. I came back.

The reason I showed-up to recruitment was so I could go through it and make absolutely sure Greek Life wasn’t for me. The first day of recruitment I was excited but skeptical. We took a tour of each house on campus and after that were left to our own devices. Each day following, students were allowed to visit Greek Houses during two 2 ½ hour appointments. Butler’s recruitment is dry and students aren’t allowed to go to houses outside of these specified windows. It is very structured, very well run and (to my surprise at least) very relaxed and fun.

I was a skeptic. I wasn’t at all sure about this Greek Life thing. So each day I asked good and important questions. Each night I called people who’s opinions I respected and where generally not for Greek Life. I was being won over, so I wanted to make sure that it was completely legitimate. I thought about it all for a long time. But when it came down to the end of the week- I wanted to be a Phi Psi.

Everything that happened after, mounds together in what happens to be the best decision of my college career. I love Phi Psi and it loves me back. I never thought I would ever be Greek, but that is true to many men in my house. Butler’s Greek Life is different. Many people can agree on that. Butler has just 4,000 undergrad students. Because just a little over a third go Greek it leaves a very manageable community for Butler to watch closely- we couldn’t get away with things that large schools could. Additionally, We do 2^nd semester recruitment only. This means all freshmen have an entire semester to get settled into college before they have to make the ‘big Greek decision’. Also, because Greek students spent an entire semester growing close to students that may not have gone through recruitment- everyone has Greek and Non-Greek friends; we don’t have a huge rift in our campus.

I would recommend recruitment to anyone, even if they decide not to go Greek in the end, you meet more friends in those four days than you could anywhere else. Men interested in signing up for Formal Spring Recruitment (rush week) can do so at

http://www.butler.edu/greeklife/?pg=528

The form for has to be completed by Dec. 12. Interested women should have already signed-up.

Alpha Phi's Heart Throb Competition

JoeW — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:27:00 GMT

You can't hear the music very well, but for Alpha-Phi all of our music had to come from boy bands and we had two trampolines at our disposal in the back. Alpha Phi's Philanthropy is Cardiac Care so all of the heart refrences make sense. This video is not as impressive as our lip sync was in person, but it's pretty good.

Stuntin' is a Habit

JoeW — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:02:00 GMT

One of my favorite things to do at Butler is Skit/Stunt/Lip Sync like there’s no tomorrow. Every Sorority has a Philanthropy week and several of those weeks end in skit competitions. Last week Kappa Alpha Theta had their annual Grill-Off which always has a Cheer Competition. We won this year! (again) This week is Alpha Phi’s Philanthropy event so I’m spending each night up late working on a Lip Sync. Their Lip sync is called Heart Throb and the participants can only use Boy Band Music. Additionally, because Alpha Phi’s philanthropy is Cardiac Care, their week is called Bounce for Beats and a trampoline is in use during the entire skit. When Fraternities have their big weeks, some of them have lip sync competitions that the sororities compete in. However, all of these competitions are open to anyone, not just Greek houses. I was extremely excited to find out that Ross Hall will be competing in Bounce for Beats as well. I am really excited for Friday! Phi Psi won last year, so we’re hoping for two years in a row; but not getting burnt out is difficult.

The skits take a lot of time, effort, and jazz hands. We have to figure out our own music, dances, and there are always lots of stunts. To figure out which stunts and dance moves we can handle we all just start breaking it down and tossing each other into the air until something looks cool enough to put in. It’s really dangerous, risky, and not at all safe. Generally, we have no idea what we are doing. Seriously. But no one has died yet, and the sororities always provide a coach or two to help smooth out rough spots, think of dances, and keep us alive.

Last week we made a Ring of Fire. I mean that literally. There was a ring. It was on fire. Someone jumped through it. It’s the grand finale of our Theta Grill-Off skit. You should watch the video in my "Phi Kappa Psi- Theta Grill-Off Champions" blog. It’s pretty impressive.

Bounce for Beats will be fun. It will be difficult to top the ring of fire, but it’s possible that that was a bad idea in the first place. Bad or brilliant. A little of both. I will probably be practicing until 1:00 tonight, but doing these skits is a lot of fun and a wonderful bonding experience. Not to mention, there are not many facets of my life where my one-handed cartwheel comes in handy.

Tons of people on campus come to watch these skits. In fact Geneva Stunts, which takes place during Parents Weekend and benefits the YMCA, is in Clowes and individuals have to buy a ticket to get in. The only skit night that isn’t open to everyone is the New Member skits that take place in the spring semester. Each Greek House has their new pledge class do a ten minute skit and it gets very intense. Phi Psi has received 1st place for the past eleven years.

Needless to say, even though I thought I was leaving my musical background in High School it has followed me to college. But I don’t mind, because sometimes in life you just have to dance it out, and grin ridiculously while doing it.

Phi Kappa Psi- Theta Grill-Off Champions

JoeW — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:14:00 GMT

my Greek Life

JoeW — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:59:00 GMT

I love living in Phi Kappa Psi. I was very excited to be living in the house with nearly all of my closest friends, but I was concerned if all those great people would be too distracting and too loud. I'm pretty involved, so there are lots of times when I need to be up early or up extremely late or entertaining other odd hours. But my strange schedule melds perfectly with many of my brothers’ awkward agendas. I can sleep when I need to, but there is always something going on if I want to be up late. Generally when I get free time (as rare as someone who doesn't like 'doba) I just ping-pong from room to room. Doing things Kramer style and just barging in on my friends to catch-up, or eat their Easy Mac, or play some Brawl. (Super Smash Brothers) It takes me a long time to get focused, mostly because being unfocused is so much more fun. Procrastinating is wrong but it feels so right! I get work done when I need to, but there is always something more fun to do!

For example; this weekend it seemed like Broad Ripple was the destination of choice. Being a sophomore means that not all of my friends have meal plans, which means I get to eat out a lot more than usual. Just this weekend I went to Qdoba twice, Broad Ripple Bagel, and Noodles. All of which are very fantastic. We ran into other Butler students at each restaurant, each time. ( a common occurrence) Broad Ripple is truly like Butler's little village. Going to Qdoba ( or 'doba runs) is probably the most common food sojourn.

So- a little bit of Greek House Living in review-

1) Lots of going out to eat in very packed cars. (Once one person says 'doba, everybody wants 'doba)
2) A huge cloest - I don't mean this square footage wise. Part of brotherhood is that you get to borrow clothes from anyone who wears your size. (At Phi Psi, that gets me access to roughly 30 different wardrobes) (This may not excite everyone, but it does cut down on laundry)
3) Tons of eating. I don't mean the 'going out for dinner' eating. I'm talking -Hey, it's 2:12 AM, let's share a pizza- eating.
4) A Huge DVD/music collection. (See 2 for more details)
5) Everybody has your back like you wouldn't believe. This is the main difference between Greek Life and Dorm life. While living in a residential hall does provide a lot of time to grow close to others, and you do make really amazing friends- When you live in a Greek house individuals have an obligation to you not just because you live close by (like in residential halls) but because you are brothers/sisters; a bond you keep for the rest of your life.

Greek Life is not for everyone, but I sure love it. I loved living in Ross Hall my freshman year too! I just needed to have that close bond that only Greek Life could give me. I needed a family not just a unit.

Moving Back

JoeW — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:55:00 GMT

Moving in was very different for me this year. I guess it was less moving in and more just moving back. The differences were numerous; I am in Phi Psi this year instead of Ross, so I was furnishing a real room instead of a dorm room. This required things like light green paint, tasteful beige curtains, and floor lamps. (My roommate brought all of the things that are actually useful) However the biggest difference between me moving in this year and me last year was my attitude. Last year I did not want to come to Butler. It wasn’t where I was going, (I was very excited about being here) It was what I had to leave. I just wasn’t quite ready to part with my home. I went to tons of camps as a kid and never got homesick; in fact I knew that I would have very few problems adjusting in my new college environment; but I had a fantastic time in High School and it is always difficult to leave a sure thing for a less certain situation.

Two days into my freshmen year I knew I loved it, everything about it. My days were all sunshine and name games. I even loved the things I didn’t like because I claimed they helped me appreciate the things I enjoyed even more. The first weeks of a being college freshmen are painful and awkward and terrifying and hilarious. Looking back on my first days, my friends and I can do nothing but nod solemnly and then laugh our brains out. We were so lost but we had sooo much fun. Sometimes, for very brief and sporadic moments, I almost wish I could go back to freshmen year and view things through fresh eyes again- but then I remember that I wore Jorts** and pronounced Meijer as My-Jer. I learned a lot and I had a great year, but I don’t want to trade it for my current situation, especially because now I can have throw pillows in my room.

Because I am Greek (and unnecessarily involved) I was part of “Greeks on the Move”, which is a program that allows guys in polo shirts to absolutely champ fully packed freshmen cars. The fresh families pull up in completely stuffed cars and the Greeks descend upon them like Pharm majors to a Periodic table. Generally we would get all of the individuals possessions in 1 ½ trips. Generally the dad would purposefully hand me something light. (Demeaning and unnecessary) However, after awhile I began to look at the freshmen a little more reflectively. I started wondering what they would become; which clubs would they join, what classes, would they eat lunch in Atherton or ResCo, would they ever read the blog I wrote about them, would they think I was cool, are they going to get arrested tonight? You never know with these new freshmen; but because I was and Orientation Guide, Diversity Coordinator, and spoke at the Freshmen Convocation I am even more anxious to watch them grow, and was also anxious why every Butler freshmen girl seemed to have absurdly pink plastic storage bins. Moving in was, I’m sure, both rewarding and stressful to all. But it’s great to be back in the Bubble. I love being a sophomore and I love being here. This year is going to be so unbelievably fun and busy! I am so glad it has finally started.

**Jorts are jean-shorts. I still see absolutely no problem with wearing them. I feel they are just the warm weather equivalent to jeans. However I faced enough ridicule about mine that I stopped wearing the one pair.(they were falling apart anyway) For the loss of my Jorts I mainly blame Andrew Sprunger. But to those souls who still sport the Jorts- Live the dream kids! Just keep livin’ the dream!