Search results matching tag 'Alpha Phi'

Check out my Butler Crib!!!

StephF — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:12:00 GMT

So some of you might have seen the Butler Cribs videos already......but if you haven't, I highly recommend that you go to this link and watch all of them....and possibly vote for mine! Sadly, mine isn't as cool as the others, but I did try!!! And mine is of my entire house....which I think is pretty cool! :) Just so you can check out mine...here it is!!!

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Isn't my house fun??! :) I really like it, and all of the special touches, like the dinosaurs in the plants and our door decs! And I especially love that it is completely fine that we all have teddy bears on our beds and all over our house, simply because we are Alpha Phi's. The teddy bear is one of our symbols, so of course we love to do what we call the "Phi Bear" in pictures, and we go to Build-a-Bear, and we put our stuffed animals on our beds just like we used to when we were small children! haha. I also love that when I was recording the video, I didn't plan on having people hanging out in the TV Room, but they just happened to be in there while I was videotaping, so it just worked out great! Living in the house so far has been a great experience and a great opportunity for me to get to know my sisters a lot better! It has it's challenging times....but it is still tons of fun!!! Just in case you are wondering what the "Phi Bear" is.....here it is!!!!

To change how teachers are licensed in Indiana...or not to....

StephF — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:02:00 GMT

One of my favorite things is getting ready in the morning. I like it because it is a great time to chat it up with the other girls who live on the 3rd floor of Alpha Phi (we have a community bathroom up there), and I get caught up with what kinds of cool things that they are doing during the day. The other day I was talking to one of the girls...Abby....and she told me about this public hearing that she was going to. Abby is an education major here, and that day she was excused from all of her classes to attend this hearing downtown. Basically, educators from the area all gathered to give their opinions on a piece of new legislation that the Superintendent of Public Instruction is trying to pass. They want to make it possible to be a teacher for a certain subject if you have a degree in that subject (Ex: if you have a degree in Chemistry, and you take the test all teachers have to pass, you can have a license in Chem.) And they want to basically do the same thing for administration, except you don't have to have a degree in any certain subject. So if you have a certain level of schooling, and you take the administrator's exam, you could be a superintendent or a principal. (I'm pretty sure that is what is going down....but here is the Department of Education's page with all of the correct information, so check it out for yourself...and see what you make of it!!!) Of course, teachers aren't too fond of this, because then people do not have to have as much training in education, they are simply focusing on the subject matter, and there are tons of other changes that I myself don't fully understand because I haven't looked that in depth at it yet. Check out this site for a video and more information on this situation....

Now of course I have my own opinion of this subject, and it is probably biased because I grew up in a family of teachers, and my mom has always been very active in the teacher's union, ISTA. And something that I was always taught it to stand up for what you believe in, and what you feel is right. So right now I am SO proud of our education majors and for their professors for taking action with this situation, and doing all that they can to be proactive. If you watched the video I linked you to earlier, you will see how much of an impact that they had on everyone at the hearing, which is great! In the article that goes along with the video it says that they meant for the hearing to last from 10-12, but so many people showed up and wanted to voice their opinions that they were there until 4 pm. So good job getting your voices heard everyone!!! Butler definitely has an amazing College of Education, and it is obvious that so many students care about the future of education in the state of Indiana. That is really exciting to see because it shows that they will definitely be fabulous and excellent teachers one day!

Soo speaking of schools and teachers and students and all....here I am, reading to kids in my 1st grade teacher's class!

Sorry Butler, I want to go to Hogwarts now.

StephF — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:19:00 GMT

So some of you might have already heard of this......but....Universal Studios is going to be putting in a Harry Potter theme park!!!!!!!! Yeah. I know. HOW EXCITING IS THAT???!!! Now you must go to this site that it won't let me link to....so use this URL! http://www.universalorlandoresort.com/harrypotter/first_look_uo.html

Are you ecstatic yet??!!! I know that I am! I can't wait to go and to get to see their version of Hogwarts.....actually in real life!!! For some reason in the past week.....Harry Potter has just been a big theme in my life. It all started last week, when we had a sisterhood social where we watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Of course, our sisterhood social chair, Shefali, sorted us into houses.....and I was in Gryffindor,,,,as I should be. haha. So we had that, and then I heard about the theme park and I watched the video religiously....and then some other girls in my house decided that we should start a Quidditch Club on campus.....so that is in the works currently...and I basically can't wait until it happens! Now of course, it could just be Alpha Phis who do it, but thats fine.....we would still have a great time! Now you might be wondering how we could play Quidditch, since we can't fly......but this might answer your questions.....so check out this YouTube video that will hopefully answer that question....haha.

So in the past two weeks....as I have been completely bogged down by Accounting and Microeconomics and other stuff.....I have thought numerous times that I would love to just go to school at Hogwarts, where I could study charms, and care of magical creatures, and transformation instead. Harry, Ron, and Hermione always complain about their classes....but sometimes I wonder how they would handle normal classes that we take. So wouldn't it be awesome if Butler had an exchange program with Hogwarts?? (If it actually existed of course...haha) That would be such a popular exchange program.....and it would be pretty awesome too I think!!! :) Just imagine....going to school here...

That's a photo of the Harry Potter Theme Park.....which I will be saving my money up for from now until it opens! haha....even though I do love Butler....I think I would like to change it up and study at Hogwarts if I could. :)

If you don't know when you should visit Butler....come now!

StephF — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:28:00 GMT

So basically the best way to sum up what Butler looks like right now is to quote my cousin...."Oh my gosh, Beautiful Campus!" She and her husband have a professional photography business back home, and they came up this weekend to do an engagement shoot on campus, and loved it! Basically Butler looks amazing when the leaves change....it is basically the epitome of a college campus. Right now we are past the peak time for beautiful leaves....because the past few weeks of storms have cleared a lot of the trees off already, but there are still a few trees on campus that are absolutely gorgeous! One of them is right in front of my house....and I absolutely love walking underneath it to the front door as the sun is setting. The combination of the beautiful sky behind the yellowish-orange leaves just makes you never want to look away. So of course, I had to take a photo of this tree, since it is my absolute favorite!!!! :) I took it around 4 p.m. today, so the sky wasn't at it's prime, but its still pretty! :)

Something that is very difficult about living in a sorority house is keeping plants alive. I learned this right when I first became an Alpha Phi, because apparently no one knew that the plants in our foyer are real, so over Christmas Break, no one watered them. This might not sound like a huge deal, but it kinda was, since they came back for recruitment and they were all dead. haha. So they got new plants....don't worry....but this year we have really struggled with keeping the plants in front of our house alive. We have two HUGE flower pot stand things....and they started off holding mums, and then those died. Then we got ferns....and those died. So before the 2nd round of sorority house tours on Sunday, one of my sisters (Hannah) and I basically scoured 38th street for some sort of plant. We went from Meijer to WalMart, and then to Garden Ridge....and found nothing basically. Meijer had some mums, but they were all dead, then WalMart only had poinsettas, and apparently Garden Ridge does not sell plants. They have fake plants and such, but no real ones. So, we improvised....and bought fake flowers. We cut them apart and made some awesome arrangements......and now they are sitting in front of our house....and they look pretty fabulous I think! If you are wondering what they look like....here they are.....lookin fab of course..... :)

So if reading my blog makes you want to come to Butler to visit while it is still colorful and beautiful.....check out this website....and it will give you more info!!!!!

So you think you can dance???

StephF — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:14:00 GMT

So last weekend I went to see the So You Think You Can Dance Live Tour with my mom, my old dance teacher Stacy, and my friend Tyler from high school. Basically, it was an amazing day!!! I got up early for church, then had my composite picture for Alpha Phi taken, and then I headed downtown to meet them for an afternoon of shopping. :) We made our way through Circle Center rather quickly (I still don't know how that happened), and then I had to come back to Butler for my Speakers Lab new tutor class and meeting. Once I got back downtown, it was time to grab some dinner at Noodles and head to Conseco Fieldhouse for the show!!! My mom, Stacy, and I were SYTYCD (thats the abbreviation for So You Think You Can Dance) Live Tour veterans, because we went to see it when it came to Indianapolis two years ago, so we kind of knew what to expect, even though it is one of those things that you never really know what to expect. But of course, each of the dancers was absolutely unbelievable as always, and I loved every minute of it!

So if you aren't familiar with SYTYCD or their Tour...here is a recap: So You Think You Can Dance is basically like American Idol for dancers, and this summer they had their 5th season. They start out with 20 dancers, 10 male and 10 female, and once they cut it down to their top 10, those are the dancers who will go on the tour. During the tour they perform routines that they competed with during the season at some point, and they always pick the best and most memorable routines. They did a Bollywood routine, Travis Wall's contemporary routine (he was a dancer during season 2...and one of my favorites, and he came back as a choreographer this year!), some awesome hip hop routines, a really emotional contemporary piece by Tyce Diorio, some really hot ballroom routines, and of course there were tons more!!! I took tons of photos of course....so here are some of my favorites....:)

Here they all are, introducing themselves at the beginning...:)

Then this is very possibly my favorite group routine, ever!! It was choreographed by two hip hop choreographers and a ballroom one....so it was the best of both worlds and it was amazing!

This is "One Singular Sensation" choreographed by Mia Michaels...

This was a paso doble by the winner (Jeanine) and the runner up (Brandon)....basically, it was AMAZING.

And this is their final performance of the night....it was too much fun! :)

So as you can see, I had an amazing time at the SYTYCD Live Tour....and I even got to visit and spend time with the people that I love! I have to admit, it was so much nicer just driving the 15 minutes back to Butler's campus instead of the 2.5 hours that they had to drive to get back home. I do not miss doing that drive late at night after things anymore!! That's something that I really love about Butler, it is so close to everything in Indy, and so many things come to Indy, that there are tons of opportunities for concerts and things of that sort. I like it, but my wallet sure doesn't, because tickets can get expensive!! haha....it's all worth it though!! :)

Yet another blog about....Homecoming!

StephF — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:28:00 GMT

Ok so I have written a lot of blogs about homecoming lately, but I have good reasons, I swear! #1, I did a lot of blog-worthy things during the week/weekend...#2, it was EPIC. I think that's good enough, don't you? So on the morning of homecoming, I got up bright and early to drive some of the seniors to Broad Ripple (Christina, one of the other bloggers, talked about this in one of her blogs too!!!), and then I came back and got ready to set up different events around campus with BUSF (the Butler University Student Foundation). Basically, it was cold....but SO MUCH FUN. We got to go and get all of the golf carts they would be driving throughout the day, which was basically the best part. We formed a caravan of golf carts on our way back....so of course, I had to document it. Prepare yourself.

Here are two of my sorority sisters, Kristen & Lindsay, in their AMAZING golf cart/bus...basically, Kristen had some great maneuvering skills that you will see in a moment...

Another one of my sisters, Caitlin, and I were in a golf cart, and we couldn't get ours to turn on....so we had to refer to the Operating Instructions that were very nicely printed on the steering wheel...haha

Once we finally got them to work....we were off on our journey.... :)

Here...Kristen was trying to drive the massive golf cart in between the light posts....which was difficult since it seats like 12 people instead of 4, but eventually she succeeded!

Here we are again....in our little caravan....haha

And then we arrived at our destination. :)

Basically, I had a ton of fun getting the golf carts. After that, we decorated tables, tied bows onto trees, and carried things to different places! Before we knew it, our shift to help out was over, and the Bulldog Beauty Contest was getting ready to start. I couldn't stay for it because I was signed up to give tours of our house to Alpha Phi alumni, but I did take time to see my sorority sister, Mel's dog that she brought to the contest......he was adorable!!! His name is Hercules, and they made a toga and a crown of ivy and stuff for him to wear. Basically, I think that he should have won. He was feisty but still so sweet...which made me miss my dogs from home! But he was still an amazing dog, so I just had to take a photo of him....here he is... :) (and thats Mel holding him.....even though you can only see her legs....sorry Mel!!!)

So to close out my pre-homecoming festivities, I stood watch in our foyer as alumni came and went throughout our house. (Someone had to be there to let them in!!) It was awesome to get to meet the girls who lived here before us, and to get to hear the stories that they had about their days at A Phi. They all wanted to hear about what we are doing with the house now, and how things have changed.....and of course, we all wanted to know what living in the house was like 5-10 years ago! As I watched them come in to the house and yell and scream when they saw people for the first time in years, it made me actually look forward to the day when I will get to come back to the house during homecoming and get to see all of my sisters back in our house again. :) So this is my final homecoming blog, I hope you have enjoyed reading about my intense week....because I have really enjoyed getting to somewhat relive it by blogging about it!!!! Happy Homecoming!!!!!

Homecoming 2K9!!!!!

StephF — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:22:00 GMT

So I have decided to do my homecoming blog in three parts.....the first was about Yell Like Hell, this one is about the parade/game, and my next one will be about what I did before the game, and anything else that I left out. :) So on Friday afternoon, we started coming up with ideas and such about our float, and some genius thought that we should make a 20 ft tall robot. Naturally, we loved that idea. Our theme was techno, so we just carried on the theme of intensity and raving and such from our lawn decs to the float....plus the robot of course. We used boxes that we painted silver to make him.....and then he was suspended on the trailer with strings and such. Basically, he was awesome! At first, I didn't think that he would last for 10 minutes once we got in line, but he stayed standing up for more than 3/4 of the parade....so I am pretty proud of him. haha.....so mad props to the boys of delt and the schwitz and phi girls who helped put together this fabulous robot.....it looked great! Here is a photo of our trailer....with the robot of course...

Now during the parade, the best part wasn't just the awesome robot. I was walking/cheering/dancing alongside the float......which was SO much fun!!! I loved it because we were just loving life and having the best time ever.....which was really exhausting! I have only worked out once since I've been at Butler.....and I could totally tell that I'm out of shape as I ran/danced alongside the float. But, I had tons of fun nonetheless, which is what is important. We kept doing cheers, and doing a little dance from Yell Like Hell, and singing, and handing out glow sticks, and just being awesome. :) So here is a photo of all the girls from Phi and Schwitz who were in the parade...

After the parade, it was finally time to go to the game!!! We all went and sat on the hill at the Butler Bowl, and basically just continued to love life. :) I couldn't stay for the entire game because I was going to go babysit for my cousin's kids, but I still was there for a pretty long time, and I basically had my fill of football for the year. (I'm not the biggest sports fan....) I had to leave before they announced all the winners of everything, but I was there for long enough to watch the game for a little bit and to show off my Butler spirit!!!! Here is a photo of the Butler Bowl before the game.....it was basically a happenin place..... :)

Yell Like Hell...aka...my favorite part about homecoming... :)

StephF — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:59:00 GMT

So last week was homecoming.....which was absolutely fabulous! :) There was some sort of event every night, and my favorite night was Thursday, when we had Yell Like Hell, the campus-wide cheerleading competition. During homecoming all of the residence halls were paired with sororities and fraternities, and Alpha Phi was paired with both Schwitzer and Delta Tau Delta. This was basically an awesome pairing, especially since so many people from Schwitz, Delt, and Phi all wanted to help out! We had tons of people to do Yell Like Hell, which just made it so much more fun!!! We would practice every night altogether, which was the perfect way to get to know girls from Schwitzer and guys from Delt, and even Alpha Phis!!!! Since it was a cheerleading routine...we did a lot of builds....and I was a flyer, which was terrifying at first because I haven't done that since I was a freshman in high school, but I had a great build group of Delts who never ever dropped me! And all of our music was pretty awesome since it was techno.... (that was our pairing's theme for all the events and such...) So I absolutely loved it!!! Here is a video.....my build group is always the one on the far right....so look out for us!!! And enjoy how awesome it all is... :)

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Another one of my favorite parts of homecoming is lawn decs....which I didn't get to help with as much as I would have liked because I had a test the day that they had to be done, but it was still really cool to help a little bit and just see how they made it all happen! Since our theme was techno, our lawn decs included a HUGE dog house that had a rave going on inside.....complete with techno music and a strobe light, a DJ booth with Blue as the DJ, and tons of really big boards with outlines of people dancing on them....like on the iPod commercials and all! Now I wish I would have taken a picture, but by the time I had a second to spare, they had started to take apart the lawn decs to make our float for the parade. Thats the sad thing, we take so long to put it all together, and then we have to take it down a day later. But the best part is definitely having everyone come together to make it happen. I love it!!! In my next blog I will talk more about homecoming....but this time, the actual day of homecoming instead of what led up to it!! So check back soon for that!

What does every girl need at college? A toolbox of course!

StephF — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:29:00 GMT

So I am dedicating this blog to my Dad, because his birthday was yesterday....HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! :) So when my sister and I both went off to college, the one thing that my Dad made sure that we had was a toolbox. He decided that it would come in handy throughout our college years, because you never know when you might need a wrench or a hammer, or any of the numerous other tools that he equipped them with. Last year as I was making sure that I had all of the towels, storage bins, appliances, and everything else for my dorm room, my dad was busy putting together my toolbox. Now I'll admit, last year in Schwitzer I barely used the thing. I couldn't use my hammer to put nails in the walls, and nobody else really ever needed anything either. The only time that I remember using it last year was to try to fix a pair of shoes during recruitment. I was standing outside of Delta Gamma waiting to go in, when my heel snapped off. So I had to run in and change my shoes, and later that night I tried to fix them. (Needless to say, that didn't work out....so I ended up trying to snap off the other heel, also with the help of the toolbox...what a great way to get rid of any stress after a long day of visiting houses and making life-changing decisions! haha.) So anyway, in my first month of living in Alpha Phi (yes...we have been at school already for a month...ah!!!) I have used my toolbox more than ever. First of all, my Dad used it to put together a shelf for my desk when I moved in, and then I have used it to put up some nails and thumbtacks to hang things on the walls. Then a few weeks ago, when we had Bounce for Beats, we bought a new trampoline, and they needed some tools to put it together....so who came to the rescue??? Me and my toolbox! Now I didn't help put it together, but I left my tools out there for them to use...so thats one more time that they have been used! And since then, everyone in the house now knows that I have a pretty awesome toolbox....so they all come to me when they need to put something together or fix something. Basically, my toolbox rocks now. :) I really enjoy trying to be handy and tough.....since you know, I own a hammer and some other things that I don't know how to use.

Here I am with my massive handy-dandy toolbox... :)

So girls, if your Dad wants to send you off to college with a toolbox and you think you will never use it....think again. Who knows? It could help put together a trampoline, help someone rotate the wheels on their rollerblades (yeah....it's happened...haha), or it could even provide a night of fun in the hallway of your dorm trying to break a pair of boots that you can't wear anymore. Thank you, Dad, for making all of those things possible. Hahaha....thank you.

When in Rome

BUTaylorM — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:20:00 GMT

It's a Sunday. It's 4:20 and I just visited all the sororities with some girls from my unit, 1E (except Alpha Phi. We were too late.) and, before, I was total skeptic about sororities and greek life. I had heard from friends about hazing and drinking and such at different schools and I did NOT want to be a part of that. However, after visiting all the houses (except Alpha Phi), my mind has been changed.

First House= Alpha Chi Omega

Second House= Delta Gamma

Third House= Delta Delta Delta (or Tri-Delta)

Fourth House= Kappa Kappa Gamma

Fifth House= Kappa Alpha Theta

Last House= Pi Beta Phi

You can't really know until you get to know the girls and it's tough. At least for me. I have been trying to get involved but... it's been hard to get into some organizations. I never got a call back for BUSF which I think is kind of rude. I wanted to get in, sure, but at least tell me that I didn't make it instead of not calling. Plus, I have been working so hard at school and such that I haven't been going out to the greek events which makes it hard to get to know the girls. I'm really glad Butler doesn't make us decide until the end of our semester rather than rushing right at the beginning. It helps you to get assimilated to Butler. I just hope that, if I do end up rushing, that I get bids based on my personality and work ethic... not my looks or ability to party. Well, I think I better finish this thing up. I have work up to my ears that I must attend to. However, I leave you with a picture of old Butler. It's pretty crazy how much it has changed over the years.