Search results matching tags 'Greek life' and 'basketball'

The Spice Girls, live at Hinkle Fieldhouse

ChristinaL — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:52:29 GMT

One of my initiatives for Panhel, the group which oversees all the sororities, is for us to be a united force of women supporting women. So, I organized a fun evening for all the sorority women at a BU women's basketball game which was on ESPN. The theme was "Spice Up the Night! Girl power for women's basketball" and we had a Spice Girls costume contest and Spice Girl themed games (the sing-a-long was very popular).

Here I am with a full set of all 5 Spice Girls from Pi Phi. I had to be Scary because of my curly hair... my roomie Kim even went all out and dyed her hair red to be Ginger!

The event was SO much fun and it was the largest turnout at a women's basketball game in YEARS... success!

Re: Traditions!

ChristinaL — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:50:03 GMT

Funny you should ask! This is a question I asked pretty much everyone I know at Butler last year when I was editor of the yearbook and we did a "Butler Traditions" page. Here's what we came up with:

Fountain jumping - This is the number one Butler tradition, in my opinion! Groups of friends run around Butler's campus and jump into every fountain (and of course, photo document it!). The ultimate fountain jumpers make it in every single fountain... even the one in the library : )

Campus golf - Bring your golf clubs to school, because Butler students love to "golf" around campus with tennis balls. "Holes" are popular spots on campus such a star fountain, the observatory, etc.

Soapy Star Fountain - Star Fountain is in the center of campus on the mall... not only is it part of the epic fountain jumping experience, but it tends to be the site for practical jokes. During finals week in the spring someone always pours soap in it so it bubbles over with suds. Always good for a laugh… or even a bath. I jumped in last year on a whim with some friends – the walk home was a bit sticky! haha.

Blue II's Birthday – Our mascot, Blue II is a real live bulldog so last year we started the tradition of a campus-wide birthday party for him. The birthday dog hangs out in Starbucks to take pictures with everyone and play games and there are free cupcakes for all.

Lawn decorations for Homecoming – I don’t know if other campuses do this, but I had never heard of it before I came to college… for Homecoming Week, we have a lawn decorating contest to go with the Homecoming theme. All the Greek houses and residence halls participate and decorate the sorority houses – but you would not believe how intense these lawn decs are! My freshman year, Delta Gamma covered the entire front side of their house with a tarp. Last year Theta had a school bus parked in their driveway… it gets serious! Anyway, I think it’s a really fun tradition because the night before the competition, everyone is out on the lawns decorating until like 3 or 4 am, kind of like a massive decorating party… even if you’re not helping, it’s a great time to walk down Hampton Drive and check out all the action.

Midnight Snack – probably my favorite Butler tradition, and it happens twice a year! During Homecoming and Snowcoming Week, SGA brings in tons and tons of fast food – Qdoba, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Duncan Donuts, pizza, etc. and at midnight everyone RUNS into the Reilly Room and grabs as much food as possible.

Geneva Stunts & Spring Sing – These are two musical extravaganzas/competitions where Greek houses and residence halls pair together to put on musical skits. There is always a theme – for example, I think last year’s was Back to the Future. Anyway, the participants sing and dance, but all the lyrics are rewritten to be about Butler… so it’s basically all about making fun of ourselves. Bring on the campus inside jokes : )

Sledding on C Club trays in the Butler Bowl - Snow days are one of the greatest things to ever happen at college, because even if you’re snowed in, all your friends are right there. Our football stadium is bowl-shaped, so one of the wintertime traditions is to go sledding down the hill. However, being college students, we don’t really have sleds sitting around our dorm rooms… so we have to get creative. Not that I’m advocating this, but a popular sled choice appears to be borrowed trays from the cafeteria ; )

Drive-In movie – During Welcome Week, SGA shows a popular movie out on the Mall (our big grassy area in the center of campus) and everyone brings their blankets and snacks and enjoys movie night.

Playfair – This is only for freshman, but one of my favorites. Playfair is an activity that travels around to different college campuses, and it always comes to Butler during Welcome Week right before the start of classes. It’s hard to explain but it’s basically all these crazy group games that the whole freshman class plays together. It involves running around and yelling and holding hands and all this chaos. It is impossible to go to Playfair and not meet new people! The joke is always that you will meet your future husband or wife there.

VooDoo – Annual Halloween party sponsored by Sigma Nu, one of the fraternities. The guys go all out decorating their house and people sometimes wait in line for over an hour to get in!

Greek philanthropy events – Greeks sponsor lots of fun annual philanthropy events that we look forward to every year. They almost always involve a cookout to raise money, and then free entertainment like sports tournaments, women’s lipsyncs or men doing cheerleading or synchronized swimming haha (blogger JoeW LOVES to do this… check out his videos.)

Humans vs. Zombies – I think Liz wrote about this in her blog already, but I’ll mention it here too. This tradition was around my freshman year, banned last year and appears to have made its resurgence. It is a campus-wide game that anyone can join. If you’ve ever played Assassins, it’s kind of like that. I don’t remember all the rules, but the basic idea is that there are humans and zombies roaming campus (marked by bandanas) and they are both trying to defeat the other side…. you attack by hitting someone with a nerf dart, rolled up sock or a marshmallow (not kidding). It’s not dangerous by nature, but it was banned last year because the administration didn’t think it was safe. I guess this year the restrictions are that you can’t play in the dorms or academic buildings. I have never played but it’s always fun to see people creeping around corners talking about zombies.

Rowdy Row – This is only a Greek tradition, but a memorable sight on campus even if you’re not participating. Our Greek formal recruitment takes place at the end of Winter Break, right before classes start up. On the last Sunday of break, all the new members get their bid cards and find out what house they are in. They run out onto Hampton Drive (usually screaming) where their new Greek families are cheering and waiting to greet them. The street is closed off for the afternoon, and it’s basically a big Greek party in the streets with everyone hugging and taking photos and catching up with all their friends from other houses.

Camping out for skydiving – Every year, SGA’s Out & About in Indy committee sponsors a very cheap skydiving trip. It is very popular, but there are limited spots that are given away on a first-come, first-serve basis. So, the night before the sign-ups, people always camp out in the student union in front of the activities office.

Basketball – Loving basketball is probably the oldest Butler tradition and one that is still strong today. This IS Indiana, after all.

Also, they’ve already been mentioned, but Relay for Life and Spring Sports Spectacular are both fantastic. And Dominick the Donkey is just hilarious… there’s nothing like Christmas-time at Butler to make you smile.

A YouTube Weekend

ChristinaL — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:34:00 GMT

Hey there friends! [Now that you've started commenting, I feel like we know each other ]

People on the forums are always wanting to know what a typical weekend at Butler is like, so I thought I'd give you a rundown of one AND use this opportunity to feature some of the videos I took around town with our exciting new blogger's Flip camera (extremely fun little camcorder).

The videos are actually from two weekends ago, but I'll give you the play-by-play of last weekend because that's easier to remember.

Friday

9 am - 1 pm: Class!

Yeah, I'm a loser. I have class on Fridays. But it's Modern Dance, Revolutionary Europe & Postmodernism, so not too bad.

2 pm - 6 pm Meijer Run & baking party at Schwitzer.

My sorority matches us each up with a different new member (our "Phi friend") every week so we can get to know the new class better. My Phi friend Michaela and I decided to go all out and bond by making our own fortune cookies for all the freshmen Pi Phis. We bought supplies at my fave grocery store, the 24 hour Meijer on 38th St and then cooked in the kitchenette in Michaela's dorm. I never knew you could make your own fortune cookies but they turned out really cool.

If you're curious about the other shopping and restaurants near Butler, I made a quick video tour of some of the places to eat and shop on 38th St, about 5 minutes away from campus and let you in on informal Kappa Kappa Psi bonding at Steak n Shake

[YouTube:gZ7HPB3-IV0]

6-7:30 pm Dinner at India Garden with my best friend.

Broad Ripple is a fun place about 8 minutes away from campus with TONS of restaurants... India Garden is great if you're looking to try something new - spicy, but tasty! I recommend it.

7:30 - ? Chillin at the house.

Our friend Bethy came to visit from IU, so my roommates and I hung out with her for a while. They wanted to go out to eat, but since I had already gone out and was really tired, I decided to chill at home and get caught up on my crazy life - so relaxing!

? - 3:30 am LOST Slumber party

My roommates and I have gotten hooked on the dvds of this TV show. We stayed up WAY too late finishing Season 1 and I fell asleep during episode one of Season 2.

Saturday, February 3rd

11:30 - 1:15 Honors Program Info Session

It was a Scholar's Forum weekend here at BU, so we had lots of prospective students visiting. (Any of you reading?) I helped out with the info sessions about the Honors Program, because I think it's way cool and every one who's eligible should apply!

1:15-4 pm Women's Basketball Game w/ Basketball Band

I love Butler Basketball, being in Hinkle Fieldhouse, and of course playing with the band.

Here's a video with clips I took during the Men's game vs. UIC on January 26th. Check it out to see how much fun game day at Hinkle is!

[YouTube:qrGfrka4AQU&feature=related]

4-6:45 pm Homework & getting ready to go out

6:45 - 8 pm Dinner at La Piedad Mexican restaurant with some KKPsi friends.

Back to Broad Ripple! It's kind of unusual for me to eat out in Broad Ripple twice in once weekend, but we were all dressed up so we decided to splurge.

8-10 pm Swing Night!

Kappa Kappa Psi, my band fraternity, hosted Swing Night as a fundraiser/event for the whole campus. We had swing dance lessons and then live music from the Butler Jazz Band. Ballroom Dance Club showed up and impressed us all with their crazy moves. I even convinced my friend Zak to give swing dance a try and he LOVED it (...you never know, boys!)

10 pm-1 am Phi Psi

My "little brother" from Kappa Kappa Psi just pledged a social fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. I'd never actually been over to the house, so he gave us a tour and then we joined in on the dance party. No worries if you're like me and don't drink... I still have a good time talking with people or dancing (like a fool).

Sunday, February 4th

2 pm Time to wake up!

Oops... I must have been REALLY tired! I normally get up around 10 am on weekends to get things done, workout, etc. but I fell asleep before I even had a chance to set my alarm and slept for TWELVE straight hours... Not gonna lie, that's probably the latest I've ever slept in.

3-6 pm Work at the Writer's Studio

I have a job at Writer's Studio, which offers free peer writing tutoring for Butler students. Nobody came in on Sunday, though, so I caught up on some reading for history and my poetry class. and got paid for it : )

6-8 pm Dinner at home, hanging with my roomies, a little homework.

8-? pm Superbowl party at Lambda Chi Alpha

One of my friends invited me to watch the game with the men of Lambda... I assumed there would be more girls there but I was very much in the minority. Let me just say that football in a fraternity house = a MAJOR dose of masculinity! Not that I don't like football... I mean, how sweet was that game?? Of course we were all rooting for the Giants because of a) Manning #2 and b) the fact that they are not the Patriots. Yay for Colts country : )

For once I was actually done with all my Monday homework before Sunday night so I went to bed early! Good thing, too, because I decided to try out a 7:45 yoga class at the HRC the next day (great way to start the week, by the way.)

So, that's basically it! A peek into my weekend life. Every weekend here is different...usually I don't go out to eat or hang out at fraternities quite that much; sometimes I spend way more time studying; sometimes I go to lots of performances; sometimes I'm travelling or doing stuff around Indy and I'm not even at Butler that much. It just depends on the week! However, I hope you see that there is a lot to do here and we're always having a good time.

Until next weekend! : )

2007: A year in pictures

ChristinaL — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:00:00 GMT

You may think I put tons of pictures up on my blog, but for every one I post, there are hundreds more on my computer. To celebrate the end of 2007, I picked out some of my favorite shots that you haven't seen before. Enjoy!

Bell tower in the snow, February 2007.

Snow day! The guiding spirit of our music fraternity was named Boh, so we made a Kappa Kappa Psi themed "Boh-man".

Our student foundation is known for our rugbies... but we stole the idea from University of Wisconsin. Our conference in Madison was a blast - it's such a cool city and we loved hanging out with the UW students!

KKPsi hosted Salsa Night last year - here's two of my friends dancing. At Butler, we love ballroom dancing (everyone's favorite PE credit!)

In front of the house with my Greek family after I got initiated into Pi Phi.

Sweet 16 game vs. Florida! Butler showed it on a massive screen in Clowes hall. We may have lost, but we're winning in this picture

When our team arrived home from the Sweet 16 in St. Louis, we were there to cheer for them when they got off the bus.

Sigma Nu's World Vision Bowl (sorority football tournament) is one of the most popular Greek events all year. Check out our team captain getting tackled in the middle! Those girls were intense!

All the music & dance fraternities & sororities teamed up this year for a pirate-themed formal. Everyone else pretty much wore normal dresses and suits, but three of my friends who were the DJs for the evening really got into it.

At our District convention in Cincinnati, my Big Big Big Brother Eric won the highest award a collegiate member of KKPsi can get! We were so proud. It was an exciting convention because my big brother (and blogger) Alex was elected district secretary/treasurer, our former chapter president Jeremy was elected district president, and our chapter was selected to host the next convention in Indianapolis! I feel so lucky to be part of such an outstanding group.

So my friend Julie was studying abroad last spring in Australia, but before she left she had a life-size cardboard cut-out made of herself! We took it to all of our KKPsi events and tagged "her" in all our photos of so she could see what we were up to. In this shot, she's hanging out in Cincy with us. Only Julie...

The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life is a huge event at Butler and so much fun. Last year some of my friends and I dressed up our buddy Paul for the Miss-ter Relay beauty competition. Makeup, shaved legs, panty-hose, jewelry... "Paula" was the real deal. She raised a bunch of money for cancer research and so we won the competition!

Once upon a time, we were cleaning out the band storage room in Hinkle when we found a box. My friend Nate said, "Hey, I can use this!" He took the box home over winter break, and when he came back... Boxbot was born! After that, many late nights were spent doing Boxbot photo shoots around Ross Hall...oh the freshmen dorm life. Nothing like it!

I know this isn't the greatest quality picture, but no record of 2007 would be complete without Steak n Shake. This photo is from a special trip with my "family," but I think we went about once a week. Oh frisco melts - how we love thee!

Finals Week - Spring 07. Somebody soapified Star Fountain!

I absolutely loved my freshman dorm room in Schwitzer. I was so sad to leave it that I went on an insane picture taking spree during the last week of school. It was pathetic... but now I can probably do a great blog post on what a Schwitz room looks like!

I spent my summer performing with the Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps from Casper, Wyoming. We toured the whole country and performed 3 or 4 times a week - so much fun. Here's the colorguard, aka the people I spent ALL my time with and love soooo much! Most of them are from Texas... I miss them!

Check out how tan I was by the end of the summer!

Even though I was all over the country this summer, I never felt too far away from home because there were always Butler friends around. Chris (the guy in the BU sweatshirt) is a drummer who marched with me for 2 summers in a row (and helped convince me to go to Butler!). Evan, in the middle, is also a music major at Butler and is the drum major for a different corps from South Carolina. This photo was taken right after he was named best drum major of all the corps in the nation! Go Bulldogs! : )

Drum Corps International Championships were in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl this year, so we got a day off to enjoy Cali. We spent an afternoon at Santa Monica Pier where MTV happened to be filming an episode of Next (see they bus behind us?) And yes, it is as fake as it looks on tv. The producers tell all the people what to say!

"Make new friends but keep the old"... even though I'm not home very much, I'm still close with some of the same friends I've had since junior high. Ashley (who goes to Augustana in IL) and Sarah (who goes to GWU in DC and took this picture) and I had a campout on my back porch before we all headed back to school in August.

Back at Butler, finally! Block Party is my favorite part of Welcome Week because you can find out about all the awesome student organizations. Here I am at the Butler Student Foundation (BUSF) table with Forrest (president) and Sara (secretary).

BUSF always helps out with Homecoming and this year Kate and I worked at Blue's Family Fun Fair - of course we had to test all the games ourselves before the kids got there!

My Big Sis Ariel was our Homecoming Queen candidate for Pi Phi. Here we are at the football game - she's the greatest!

Living up my nineteenth birthday with two of my best friends, Amy and Betsy.

Pi Phi and Sigma Nu teamed up to plant trees for Keep Indianapolis Beautiful this fall and had such a blast. My friends Jon, Ariel, Ross and I were an amazing team - we planted four trees and named them all after characters from Finding Nemo. This is Sharkbait!

Fall at Butler is so beautiful! I love our campus.

One of my favorite things about being a sophomore is getting a Little Brother for KKPsi. I first met Jimmy at camp when he was 16. Last year when I heard he was looking at Butler I was so excited that I did everything in my power to convince him to come here. Not only did he choose Butler, but he joined my fraternity and now he's my little!

The BUSF exec board puts so much hard work into creating a great experience for Butler students, alumni and prospectives, so it was so sweet that our advisor rewarded us by taking us along to Chicago to help with her conference. These three people with me are some of the most involved student leaders at Butler and I admire them all so much. I feel so lucky to consider them great friends, too!

Basketball was one of the greatest parts of 2007, and it looks like 2008 could be even better! "DAWG POUND! wooooooosh!"

Wow, 2007... my first full year at Butler and such an amazing one. So many great people, good memories, late nights, long days, and fun times.

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful 2008 and that I'll see some of you at Butler this year!

Costume Balls and Celebrity Sightings

ChristinaL — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:39:00 GMT

If there's one thing college students love, it's themed parties.

Seriously, is there anything better? (and if any of you are already themed party lovers, comment and share your ideas.)

There have been some fantastic ones already this semester...

Last weekend my sorority had a Masquerade Ball and I used my mad glue gun skillz to make a mask that was only semi-hideous! ha. My date's was entirely hideous, but I figured that since it was my formal and I was wearing the pretty dress, I was going to claim the good mask.

Sadly, because I was at Masquerade, I missed a fabulous 1920s themed party! (Alex was there though - he can tell you about it.) I was really bummed about this because I already had my costume ready since I was a flapper for Halloween.

Halloween at Butler is kind of funny, because no one really dresses up on the actual day, but the Saturday after Halloween was this HUGE all campus party that Sigma Nu hosts called Voodoo. Seitu was right when he said it is the party of the year! You should check out his pictures, because the SNu boys go all out decorating their house so that we can all have a massive dance party in their basement. I went with my friend KFod (Ivy from Batman), Paula (Snow White), Kim (50s movie star) and Katie (50s girl...popular decade). (Comment if you had a cool costume.) I was pretty much in love with my flapper dress because it was red with this fun fringe all over it. Fabulous for shaking it up on the dance floor...

which is where the celebrity sightings come into play!

okay, I may have led you on with the term "celebrity," but the Butler Men's Basketball team is the object of my undying admiration, so you can imagine how excited I was to see #5 junior Ben Slaton at the party!

Ben was dressed up as "a ladies' magnet" and had Barbie dolls glued all over him. Cute idea, although in my personal opinion #32 Drew Streicher and #34 Pete Campbell are the ladies' magnets of the team (watch them read this now... haha). But anyway, the point is that as much as I like to pretend that they are celebrities, those boys are actually pretty down to earth. Drew was in my Spanish class, Brian Ligon (who graduated last year) used to smile whenever we crossed paths in the science building every morning, and I saw our new freshman Matt Howard at C Club buying some dinner last week. They're really just normal college students like the rest of us - especially at a small school like Butler... they can't just hide out from the rest of the student body, nor would they want to. My sorority house had the team over for dinner last spring after the Sweet 16 and it was fun to just chat about tv shows and classes and realize how much they are just like us (except when they're on ESPN...haha).

Anyway, I feel pretty comfortable around most of the players, but on Wednesday, I was walking down the sidewalk by the Mall (our grassy area in the center of campus) and who should be walking towards me but AJ Graves, our star player! Now the thing is, we were the only two people in the whole area, so it was hard to avoid eye contact. However, I didn't know what to do, because I wanted to be like "Hey AJ!" but that would be creepy. Instead I just looked away and headed down my seperate path to the library. (What should one do in that situation? Smile? Wish him luck at the game vs. Indiana State? which we won, ps.)

However, looking back, I really wish I had stopped and had a conversation with him, because that would have been a super sweet blog entry for you all. I'll remember that for the future!!

Parent's Weekend!

ChristinaL — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:57:00 GMT

We all know that college is about being independent and growing up on your own, but sometimes it is SO nice to just have Mom & Dad around to spoil you one more time!

Last weekend was Parent's Weekend here at Butler University, and I was so excited to have my mom and dad here.

Our schedule was pretty much jam-packed with all the events that Butler puts on for the weekend.

On Saturday, my mom went to study abroad info sessions in the morning, but my Dad and I were in Hinkle Fieldhouse checking out the Bulldogs Men's Basketball team at a little preseason scrimmage. Even though it wasn't a real game, a bunch of students, alumni and fans came out. We LOVE our basketball!

We also went to the football game vs. Davidson, which was pretty exciting because there was some weird play that happened for the first time in Butler history (but as I know very little about football, I can't tell you what it was... if you're interested, I bet butlersports.com knows!). Unfortunately, we lost, but hey, 4 wins in a row this year was a really big deal, so I'm still proud of them!

That night was Geneva Stunts at Clowes, which is a really long-standing tradition at Butler that raises money for the YMCA mission trip to Jamaica. Basically, all the Greek houses and residence halls get paired and put on skits about Butler according to a theme. They always incorporate lots of Butler places and lingo, so it's kind of like a campus wide inside joke and a fun way to share BU culture with our families.

The theme this year was Retro Remix, and Kappa Kappa Gamma & Sigma Nu won with a hilarious skit about a bunch of Butler students from the 1970s that end up at Class of 2011 orientation.

(Did I mention this competition requires singing and dancing?? Everyone takes popular songs and adapts them with Butler words and choreography.)

I loved Snu & Kappa's skit because they took the song "Buy You A Drank" by T-Pain and made it about getting coffee at our campus Starbucks and studying...slightly different from the original!

My parents had such a good time feeling like part of the Butler family and reliving the college days for a weekend.

My dad even made me take a picture of him on the floor of Hinkle fieldhouse so he could show his buddies...

He secretly really wants to be a Bulldog! (Don't we all? )