This past weekend I traveled to Michigan with the women I advise from Alpha Delta Pi at the University of Illinois and the women of several other chapters to attend our District Leadership Conference.
It was a lot of fun to be with these women and getting to know them better. The conference was good too, very informative and I feel like I'm really settling into my advisor role. (After six years! LOL!) For people who aren't so involved with a sorority, it may be hard to understand... but there are so many rules and procedures that learning it all is really overwhelming. This was evidenced this weekend by how many times I heard "higher-ups" giving conflicting information about these very procedures. And it doesn't help when the international organization keeps changing things from time to time either. Luckily, I believe that most sorority women have a positive experience and know about none of this, which is of course our ultimate goal.
A couple of funny things about the weekend...
* There were approximately 300 sorority women at that hotel over the weekend. As it so happened, the mens' basketball team from Ohio State University was also staying there. My husband believes there is a direct correlation between that and the fact that OSU had a startling loss in their game against Michigan. He believes the men from OSU may have been "ADPi-ed." :)
* At the age of 33, I can still pull an all-nighter. By 3:30am on Sunday, it seemed pointless to go off to bed for the 2 or so hours I would be able to sleep. So my advisor friend from ISU and I stayed up, wandering around the hotel for things to do. We "broke" into the pool (ok, the door wasn't actually *locked* but since the pool was technically closed and I am a rule follower, I consider this "breaking" in) and soaked our feet in the hottub. We got on the Internet in the lobby. We talked and talked and talked. Turns out, she also has a restless brain - so we talked about that for a while. It was great fun, but I paid for it the next morning with that horrible nodding off experience during a couple of meetings.
* Drunk men in town for an Eastern Michigan baseball reunion spent some time conversing with myself and two advisor friends (one was the same mentioned above). There's no way I could explain the full ridiculousness of that conversation but here's a tip to drunk out of town men everywhere: women with wedding rings are generally not interested in your "Michigan prick." And they're definitely not interested in your racist views. Enough said.
* There is a "good-old girls'" club in sorority life. And no, I'm not part of it.
And on a more serious note:
The chapter from Northern Illinois University is in our province and traveled with us on the bus. They are beautiful, strong women who had a lot on their hearts and minds as they attended this conference/workshop this weekend. While none of our members were hurt in the attack on their campus last week, members of the Greek community - and people they knew - were. They continue to be in my prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment