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

My Greek family at Initiation!

ChristinaL — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:45:26 GMT

My little sis Jackie and her little sis (my grand little!) Stephanie at initiation for Pi Phi. Part of this special day is letters and Pi Phi presents for our new members.

I'm a Big Sis now!

ChristinaL — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:36:00 GMT

Initiation week for Pi Beta Phi is over! It was tons of fun, but I'm glad that all our new members are now officially Pi Phis and that things will settle down a little bit!

The most exciting part about Initiation Week as a sophomore is getting a Little Sis. We had to keep our pairings a secret until last Sunday, which was Big/Little reveal. It was really hard for me to keep it a secret because I adore my Little Sis so much! Her name is Jackie, and I met her at the beginning of the year when she joined my yearbook staff, so I see her all the time and had to keep reminding myself not to let the secret slip.

Big Sisters are basically mentors for our new members so that they have one special person watching out for them and helping them get into the swing of Greek life. My Big Sis made such a big difference in my experience as a new member so I'm really excited to be that person for Jackie. It was so exciting when we had our ceremony out in Holcomb Gardens to reveal to our littles who their Big Sisters are. Then we came back to the house and had a Pi Phi singalong and family time. My family is, of course, the greatest of all families, because we are the MOOSES : ) We like to make Moose faces and tell inferior families like the Ladybugs that we'll stomp on them with our big Moose feet. Naturally, our family time consisted of eating Moose Tracks ice cream, decorating moose cookies, posing in our lovely antlers and passing down all the Moose gear! (Big Moose slippers, Moose boxers, family trees... the works!)

This weekend was when the real craziness happened, though! Our initiation is a three day process, so we started on Thursday night. I actually really like being on the other side of the rituals, because I think the longer you're in a fraternity, the more its rituals mean to you. The rituals are really important to me because they're all about our values. I think it's so funny that people have such a negative perception of Greeks and especially what goes on during Initiation, because for us, it really is all about reflecting on our morals and striving to be noble, compassionate and educated women. Even though I've already been initiated, it's good to hear all the ceremonies again because they remind me of what's really important and who I want to "grow up" to be. Ha, now that I think of it, being a Greek woman is kind of like the grownup version of being a Girl Scout...you know what I mean? girls uniting together to grow into better people and to make the world a better place, as corny as that may sound. It's sad that the media has got Greek life (at least at Butler) totally wrong.

Anyway, Friday night we had Day Two of Initiation, but before that was Freshmen Skits. This is a really fun event where all the Greek houses' new members put on a skit about life at Butler. The women are always really sweet, and the men are always really funny, because you know how guys can get away with doing the craziest things for a laugh. I was SO proud of our Pi Phi girls - they really one-upped my new member class! The theme this year was Reality TV and so our girls did a skit that was the Amazing Race: Butler and then they had stops at all these places on campus: the cafeteria was Fear Factor hahaha, the library was Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, and Hinkle Fieldhouse was What Not to Wear? (gotta be decked out in Butler blue!) The girls did a really nice job. I was also really proud of my Little Bro, because he was the director of Phi Kappa Psi's skit, and they won the competition for the 11th year in a row! There was definitely lots of pressure on him, but he did a great job, and my KKPsi Little Brother Jimmy was also in that skit showing off his mad drumming skills! My Greek family members are pretty much amazing.

Anyway, by the time we got done with Freshmen Skits and Initiation on Friday night it was after 1 am, and I still had a ton to do to prepare my basket of little Pi Phi gifts for Jackie and write notes to all the new members! So basically, my Big Sis and I had an all night Pi Phi craft party and only slept for an hour and a half! craaaaziness, but that's what I get for procrastinating.

Saturday we had Initiation all morning, and then more singing, cake, family time, and presenting our Little Sisters with their new Pi Beta Phi greek letters. It was so much fun but we were really tired by the end of all that! You know we were seriously exhausted because I MISSED a men's basketball game to get some rest. (Regular readers of this blog know that I only miss basketball games for class. Nothing else! Buuuut we were playing Detroit, so I figured it was a safe win.) Haha, instead, our whole Moose family was curled up on Ariel's floor in Jackie's new fleece Pi Phi blanket, passed out for naptime.

Anyway, I am way excited to be a Big Sister, but between that and all the values we talked about during Initiation, I am definitely feeling the pressure to be an even better friend and person than I already am. Let me appropriate from Spiderman and say that with great blessings come great responsibility to deserve them!

PI PHI LOVE!

Outside showing off the new letters!

New members with their cakes - 10 points if you can find blogger Anna : )

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!