A 3x5 greeting card literally changed my life. Yes that probably sounds a little dramatic, and if you know me at all you know that has a little bit of truth to it. But, as dramatic as it may sound, its completely true. Fall semester of my freshman year was miserable. I sat in the hallway of my residence hall and cried and poured my heart out to my best friend on the phone. I hated the campus, I hated my classes, I was fighting with my roommate. My heart had been set on another school, and although I was trying to make the best of it, I wanted to run away.
I went home for Christmas and had a couple of conversations about Greek Life, with my aunt and a close family friend, but everything in me said that Greek Life just was not for me. I had no desire to pay for my friends, or be apart of something that would take all my time. I had actually been to a couple of open house parties with one of the sororities on campus, and just realized I did not fit in with them at all. I had a thought that all sororities were the same and had no desire at all to go through formal recruitment in the fall, even to see.
The night of the start of formal recruitment I had no plans to go, but a friend of mine was dead set on going and she was determined not to go alone. So even though I hadn't signed up ahead of time I quickly got myself together and headed to the first night of recruitment. Throughout the night I saw how different the personalities of the 5 sororities were but i still wasn't sure that there was a place for me, but when my feet stepped off the last step on to the 5th floor something just seemed different. The doors to the hall opened and I caught a friendly face from high school, The feeling on the hall was light and airy, the walls were painted pink, and this group of girls were the most beautiful and cheerful girls I have ever met.
Recruitment in a word was disappointing, I remember thinking the entire time that there was only one place I felt like I would fit in and yet, I was the girl who was completely content in high school, and was friends with everyone but when it came down to being chosen, or winning, I always came up just shy of what I wanted. Whether it was a sports team, a part in a play, a boy I liked, I always seemed to be just under the point of getting what I wanted. So as I walked off the hall on Sunday afternoon after the Pref Day ceremony, I knew where it was that I felt like I belonged, but because of the feelings I had about never quite being good enough I thought there was no way that I would ever get a bid, but I knew what I had to do. With the way that sorority recruitment works you choose the sorority and they choose you. It was very risky to only choose one sorority on your pref card. I knew there was only one sorority that I loved so I only chose one that day, and left the conference room feeling disappointed. I was just sure that this was going to be something else that I wanted that was just out of reach.
A few hours later back on the hall in my dorm, bids were being delivered . There were a group of about 5 of us standing in the hall. 3 of us got bids, I couldn't bear to open mine but when I did, there it was in beautiful black ink. I would be a pledge of Phi Mu Fraternity.
Over the next few weeks my thoughts about college changed. I had a whole new group of friends, I was introduced to even more new people, organizations on campus, and opportunities for jobs that I would have never known about or perused otherwise. In fact if I had not "Gone Greek" I wouldn't be sitting in my desk chair at my current job that I love right now. Going greek, started a chain reaction of events that made Western Carolina University and its people some of my favorite ever. It created a woman who was confident in who she was. It created a woman who realized she wanted to be just as involved on her college campus as she had been on her high school campus. It allowed that girl to realize that the reason she was miserable was because she wasn't involved and wasn't looking for opportunities to make this campus one that she loved.
That BID ... changed my life, I learned to be a woman who lived by values of Love, Honor, and Truth, and Western Carolina became my Home.
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