My name is K, and I was in a sorority.

That is, I’m an alum. I still wear my butt-shorts to sleep at night and my Greek Week t-shirts to the gym. I have sorority jewelry, and my best friends are people I pledged with. I may or may not have my affiliation listed on my resume. And I am not ashamed.

What does irk the hell out of me, though, are the characters who, post-college, find it appropriate to judge me and still make the same assumptions that were made in college. Just a heads up, kids, but just like no one cares if you were cool in high school, no one could care any less whether you were cool in college. And by hating on me for being Greek, you’re definitely no cooler than the next a**hole.

Sure, I partied, but so did a large percentage of the independents (oh that’s right, there’s a label for them, too). Shocker, sorority girls aren’t always the drunk mess you expect them to be.

So let’s clarify a few things, shall we?

#1. No, I did not buy my friends. Surprise! I actually have other friends who aren’t Greek. Who cares where or how you meet people if they’re quality? I lucked out; my house was full of girls I clicked with, many of whom will probably be in my wedding. I could just as easily say you bought all your college friends because you paid tuition to attend a university with thousands of other people, right? You’re electing to join an institution where you will happen into people…. kind of makes you a hypocrite to call me out. I’m not picking people to hang out with based on whether or not they were in a frat or sorority in college, and if you are, you’re living a sad, sad life. Read More »

Last night’s episode of The Bachelorette took us on a whirlwind trip across the country so DeAnna could see the boys on their hometurf.For the most part, everyone stayed true to form.

Jesse met DeAnna in Breckenridge CO and took her snowboarding. He is moving his relationship with DeAnna along at a snail’s pace kissing her only once so far. In the preview for next week’s episode, it looks like he won’t spend the night in a fantasy sweet with her unless he meets her dad first. Chivalry is great and all but this is a dating reality show. This just in Jesse: The rest of the boys are putting out.

Next we went to Dallas to ride motorcycles with Jeremy. He was still stiff and surprisingly reserved. A multiple choice for you:

The most awkward part of Jeremy’s hometown date was:

a. When his brother’s gave DeAnna the fifth degree

b. When he read the journal entry he wrote the day before his mother’s death

c. When all anyone could talk about over dinner was dead parents

d. All of the above Read More »

As that song your mother listens to on the Oldies station says, “breaking up is hard to do (oo).” Especially these days when people have all sorts of options when it comes to communication. It sometimes seems that people sit down and contemplate the absolute worst way to dump someone…and then do it.

Below is my list of the top five ways to dump someone. If any of these have happened to you, I feel for you sister; I really do.

1. Instant Message. A friend of mine was recently dumped via AIM. By her boyfriend of six months. Six freaking months and he didn’t have the decency to do this in person. The last time I was broken up with on instant messenger was in 8th grade, and even then it was barely acceptable. Any self respecting male over the age of 15 should muster up enough cojones to do their dirty work in person. Douchebags.

2. Text (Rusty Cartwright style). This method is highly unrealistic, at least in my experience. For me there would be no confirmation; the jerk would just disappear off the face of the earth until I ran into him at 1 am in sweatpants at the library. Still, the guy who employs this tactic is a little bitch, in my own humble opinion. If you are ever or ever have been dumped in this manner (or the aforementioned AIM breakup) then you probably don’t need me to tell you that honey, you are waaaay better off without that prick. Read More »

When I think of fraternities, I often think in images; beer pong tables, guys running around without pants, pledges standing out in the rain and screaming renditions of the school’s fight song…you know, the typical, Hollywoodified version of Greek life.

What I never picture is yoga.

No, not toga. Yoga. As in stretching and breathing. As in Fraternity brothers stretching and breathing together at 8 A.M.

Across the nation, Fraternities have been attempting to revamp their image. Suffering from bad press, reports of hazing, and general ill-will from other members of their Universities, certain Greek organizations have decided to replace the drinking and partying with “honorable”, healthy living.

The Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of Missouri-Columbia is a shining example of Fraternities Gone Good. Aside from those early morning yoga classes, “trips to the opera, wine tastings and documentary film screenings” are all part of Missouri Sigma Phi Epsilon’s “Balanced Man” initiative. Read More »

Having a hard time getting through those 50 pages of English Lit? Imagine if you had 1,000 pages to read. Every week. And it was in Latin.

Students at the tiny New Saint Andrews College in Idaho are saddled with assignments like that throughout their college career, and none of them are complaining.

Modern and ancient at the same time, Saint Andrews is relatively new, with a large percentage of enrollment from home-schoolers and a small, carefully selected student body. The actual age of the Idaho college has nothing to do with it’s classes, however, since N.S.A. aims to teach “classical Christian education”.

“Besides required coursework in Latin and Greek,” the New York Times reports, “students at N.S.A. study natural philosophy (mostly taxonomy and creationist science), the Western literary canon, Euclidean geometry and theology; they also practice public speaking at a weekly declamation.”

According to one alumnus, the students and professors at New Saint Andrews “want to be medieval Protestants.”

Uh, okay. Read More »

I was a sorority girl.

I went to college with the firm belief that I would never ever go Greek. Yet there I was at my first rush event freshman year, awkwardly chatting with 30 or so girls. I didn’t really know why I was there, except that a girl on my crew team was in the group and had invited me to come. She seemed normal, and very much not what I had envisioned a sorority girl to look like.

None of these girls fit the stereotype. That was probably what attracted me the most to this particular group of girls. I thought there must be something to this whole thing if all these very different, very interesting women were a part of it.

A few years out of school now, I look back on my time spent with those girls very fondly, and when I tell people I was in a sorority they are just as shocked as I was when my teammate revealed to me her Greek affiliation.

Before you run out to your first rush function, there are some things to consider. Read More »

Has real life dating gotten you down? Is it just too hard to interact with other singles, or even your spouse, in reality?

Have you ever wished there was a “Massively Multi-Player Online Erotic Game” where you could pretend to be smoking hot and have lots of cyber sex?

Then let me introduce you to Erotasy Island.

Much more than just your average cleverly named role playing game, Erotasy Island dubs itself a “romantic virtual vacation spot” where players can amuse themselves with activities such as strolling though “a lush jungle garden” or dining “in an amazing volcano view restaurant” all without having to step foot outside their house.

For a monthly fee, users (sadly for all those love-deprived Mac users out there, it seems only PC computers are compatable) can “interact” with people all over the world, most likely creating and maintaining a scantily clad Greek-ish avatar and doing all the things online they only dream of doing in the real world (that is, if you dream of “dancing in a disco”…which most of us haven’t done since 1975).

Not being up on the latest role-playing information, I have no real idea how all of this virtual fantasy stuff works—but I can imagine, and my imaginings are very, very boring. Read More »

Being in a sorority I have my reservations about ABC Family’s new show, “GrΣΣk”, since whenever a portrayal of us is attempted it’s almost always negative. Not to mention that it always drives me crazy when people spell “Greek” with sigmas in place of “E”. Every Greek knows that while “sigma” might LOOK like ‘E’, it has nothing to do with the letter; “epsilon” does. Of course epsilon is just represented by a plain ‘E’, so it’s not nearly as swΣΣt looking.

Anyway, another concern I have is that this is the kind of show I would have expected from The CW, not ABC Family. Aren’t they supposed to be strictly PG? They even have an odd advertisement gimmick where you can “rush” the frats and sorors of the show on the website. I can admit that sororities and fraternities have done a lot over the years to warrant a negative image, but it’s still a very present and ever thriving community on most college campuses, and its members are really sick of the constant fire we’re put under, personally and publicly.

I often feel like our campus does everything in their power to downplay our Greek societies, including our very own Greek office which disbanded a sorority this past spring. I think that often times our administration forgets that this is college, and these are sororities, not the Stepford Wives. As a result all of this Greek life is only about 3% of our school body, at a school which constantly complains about the lack of community on our campus. The hypocrisy is endless. Read More »