9:30 am
Right now I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting for my flight to Alexandria, Louisiana. It upsets me that all airports don’t offer free internet. The Denver airport does but the Indianapolis and Atlanta ones do not. It’s like $8. With as expensive as everything else is in airports, you’d think they could just let us use the internet for free. Lame.
I really enjoyed my trip to Clayton State with Nicole and I’m sad that I’m leaving. We got to Georgia on Sunday and we were exhausted. Our flight didn’t land until 7:30, so it was like 8:30 by the time we finally left the airport with our rental car and we were starving. We made it back to our hotel, checked in and then tried to find a place to eat. We didn’t really know the area well (obviously) so we drove around for a while to see what we could find. Morrow, Georgia has a lot of fast food places, Asian restaurants and car lots. We didn’t find anything that sounded great, so we just settled on Cracker Barrel. When we checked into our hotel, they gave us each a little punch card so we could each get 3 free drinks at the hotel bar every day during happy hour. We thought that was pretty nifty.
Monday was quite a busy day for us. We had to be at campus at 8 to get some posters approved to hang up. That part was easy enough, but we walked around campus forever before we found the bulletin boards to actually hang them on. Clayton State’s campus is gorgeous. It’s covered with tall pine trees and has a really pretty little lake with a bunch of ducks/geese. At 10 we had an info table set up on the main walkway of campus. Nicole and I decided that the best approach for this table wasn’t to just sit there with all our stuff and smile at people as they walked by; the whole point of us being there is to meet girls and get them interested in ASA so we can start a colony. So instead we stood in front of the table and engaged girls in conversation and then directed them towards the table where we had fliers with more information and they could sign up to give us their contact information. It was kind of hard at first since I’m not usually one to engage a stranger in conversation, but after I watched Nicole do it a few times I tried it and it wasn’t too bad. After 4 hours we had like 37 girls sign up for us to call/email them with more information. I was pretty proud of us. Nicole and I didn’t realize until we got there that Clayton’s campus is considered the most culturally diverse campus in the southeast, so we were both quite surprised when we got there and 75% or more of the student population was black. We knew that the only Greek organizations they had on campus at that point were NPHC organizations, which are typically all black, but for some reason it didn’t click that that was probably a good indication of what the student body as a whole would look like. After that we had a break until 5 so we went back to the hotel and called and emailed all the girls on our list and invited them to go out and get smoothies with us later so we could get to know them better. At 5 we had a dinner appointment with a potential new member (PNM) that Nicole had been emailing before we got to Georgia. Her name was Turquoise and she brought her roommate Rashonda to dinner with her. Both girls were freshman and super sweet girls! We had a lot of fun eating with them and then they joined us for smoothies afterwards. Two other girls showed up for smoothies and Nicole and I were really glad that most people had to work and we only have 4 girls there; it gave us a chance to get to know them better. At the end of the night we were pretty excited with how the day went and really pleased with the girls that we met.
It was about 9:30 by the time we got back to our hotel Monday night but we still had to prepare for our info session that we had the next morning. The info session was pretty successful as well. We had 16 women show up to that. Nicole and I stood up and talked about ASA for a while and then we took questions. These woman were asking some really great questions. For some reason when I think of woman who want to join a sorority, I forget that they usually want to join for good reasons, the same as I did, and not just to make more friends and go to socials, so I’m always pleasantly surprised when they ask about our values and our philanthropies. There was also another sorority on campus who was trying to start a colony (Theta Phi Alpha) and their LC arrived that day. She didn’t have the same “get out there and meet her” approach that Nicole and I had when we were at our info table the day before, and when we walked by her table that afternoon we saw her just sitting there texting. We stopped and said hi to her since we’d met her earlier the summer, but she wasn’t as friendly as we remembered. Alpha Kappa Lambda, the new fraternity that was starting at Clayton, had gotten there that day too. Those are the same guys who were at Krystal’s house for dinner last week and who met up with us the night of Nicole’s birthday. They’re really great guys so the 5 of us went to dinner that night. After dinner we had planned to get ice cream at Sonic with some of the women we’d met our info session earlier that day. We had 3 women show up this time and one of them, Victoria, is absolutely amazing! She already knows what position she thinks she wants to hold and she gave us names of a few more girls that she’d been talking to about ASA. It was great!
Wednesday Nicole and I didn’t have as much going on. We had a lunch date with another PNM that we hadn’t met yet named Jessica. Again, this girl was amazing! She asked all kinds of terrific questions and really seems like she’d make a great member. We sat and talked with her over lunch for about an hour. After we were finished with lunch, we ran into another PNM we’d met earlier the week, so we sat and chatted with her for a while. While we were sitting with her, one of the girls Victoria had been talking to called Nicole to see if we were on campus and if she could come and talk to us some more about ASA. She had a lot of questions and we ended up talking with her for more than an hour. We’re not quite sure if she’s going to join because she had so many concerns, but she was a really nice girl and definitely had potential. Later that night Nicole and I went to Laker Night, which is kinda like Rock n Bowl at Schreiner. It wasn’t that fun, but we made a few connections that ended up being helpful later in the week, so that was good.
Thursday there was a student involvement fair on campus and all the student organizations had tables set up out on the quad for people to walk by and get more info. All the Greeks were set up together so we got to meet people from all the other organizations that are already established. They’re all really nice and excited that the three new organizations are on campus, which is nice! Our table was set up with the AKL guys on one side of us and the Theta Phi Alpha girl on the other side. AKL was taking the same approach as us and getting up and talking to people; again the Theta girl just sat behind her table and hoped that people would approach her. At the end of the fair, we had like 31 new names on our list and we had a lot of fun. After that we were pretty much done for the day so the AKL guys came back to the hotel with us and we all hung out. Then we went to dinner together at Joe’s Crab shack and headed to watch the student organization showcase together. That was just a step show put on by the other Greeks (stepping is historically something that the NPHC organizations do). It was fun to watch. After that we all went back to the hotel to celebrate my last night in Georgia.
This is a picture of me and Nicole at the student involvement fair on Thursday. It was very humid that day. 
They students at Clayton are all really friendly. I figured that since they already had 4 sororities on campus that are considered “black sororities” that our main pool of interest would be the white girls on campus. That wasn’t the case. We had a lot of black girls come up and ask if we were the new “white sorority” on campus and what we were all about. We’d tell them more about ASA and they were usually really interested and said things like “I never really thought about joining a sorority because I didn’t think I’d find one that fit with my values, but this one sounds great!” That made Nicole and I feel awesome! I was really sad to have to leave today. Nicole and I have been together everyday for the last 7 weeks, and it’s weird that she and I aren’t going to see each other now until November. I was also sad that I got to help her meet all these great women and I’m not going to get to be there to see them all join ASA and grow and making their colony amazing. I’m hoping that I can come back for their installation in the spring.
I’m nervous about my next visit. It’s to Psi Psi, the revitalization chapter. They only have 8 girls at the moment when most chapters on their campus are around 90. I’m meeting with their advisors over dinner tonight and I’m just getting worried that I don’t know enough or that I don’t have enough authority (or balls) to tell them what I need to. I’m going to be there for 2 weeks and I’m sure that after the first couple of days I’ll be feeling a lot better, but at the moment I’m nervous! I have a lot of work to do with this chapter. The chapter isn’t used to having to do things for themselves. Their advisor seems to do a lot of things for them and, until the other day, the campus was under the impression that I was coming in to fix things for the chapter. They were surprised, and not in a pleasant way, when they realized that I’m here to help the chapter fix themselves and that I’m not just going to be doing things for them. Hopefully the Greek advisor will support me and it will all go smoothly. We’ll see when I get there I guess.
I’m really proud of myself! I’ve been eating really well since I left Indy. I am sure they didn’t mean to, but my co-workers at headquarters really made me feel stupid for wanting to eat healthy and exercise. We also went out to eat together a lot, so I’d end up ordering something fried and delicious like everyone else. I decided that I was really going to try and get back into eating healthy when I hit the road, and so far it’s been going pretty well! I’ve had things like fat free yogurt and fruit for breakfast, a salad with grilled chicken and fat free dressing for lunch, and good things for dinner too. Even when we went out to eat with the guys a couple of times, I made smart choices and tried to get things that I knew were lower in fat and calories. I did have a few beers last night at my going away get together, but I’m decided that was ok since I’m not going to be drinking at all over the next few months.
I’ve gotten homesick a little since I’ve been away, but it really hasn’t been too bad. Nicole and I became pretty close so, even though I really miss my friends from home, I still felt like I had a friend with me everywhere I went (literally, because we went everywhere together). Now I’m going to be traveling by myself and now that schools started I’ll have to hear about all my friends hanging out together and having fun without me. I’m afraid that I’m going to get super sad and depressed. I definitely hope that’s not the case, because at this point I’m really considering doing this for a second year. We’ll see how this year goes first.
9:00 pm
I am in Louisiana now! My flight from Atlanta to Dallas wasn’t bad. I was really cold, but I did get to get a little bit of sleep. I was internetless again at the Dallas airport, but I kind of expected it. My favorite part of the day was my flight from Dallas to Alexandria. I was on this tiny little plane that only had one seat on the left and two on the right and only went back 15 rows. And the plane had big propellers on either side of it! It reminded me of the plane from the cartoon Tale Spin. The overhead compartments were tiny and people had to check a lot of luggage that they can normally carry one because it simply wouldn’t fit on the plane. The flight was a lot bumpier than I’m used to and the salad that I’d had for lunch wasn’t very good and those combined made for the first time I ever felt sick on a plane. When we got ready to land, the flight attendant informed us that we would be deboarding the plane via the stairs, so to be sure to hold on to the railing on our way down. That part really excited me, so once I got off the plane, I turned and took a picture of it with my phone.
The chapter advisor from Psi Psi picked me up from the airport. Her name is Betsy and she’s a really sweet woman. My plane landed around 2:45 and it took no time at all for me to get my luggage (there’s only one baggage claim belt in the airport and mine was the only plane that had just landed), so to kill time before dinner we did some random shopping around town; nothing too exciting. We met up with a few of the advisors for dinner, and at first it was kind of weird. These are all women who were once members of Psi Psi and have known each other for years, so it was a bit awkward for me sitting there while they all chatted about their lives. Once we’d gotten our food I kind of guided the conversation to the chapter as it is now and their views of it, etc. Hearing all that they had to say was very helpful, but a bit overwhelming. The chapter has a lot of areas that they need to work on, and hearing about all of it at once was a bit intense. At first I was trying to remember everything that they were saying so I could make a point to try and work on these areas with the women when I meet with them over the next two weeks, but after a while I realized that there is no way I am going to be able to fix all of their problems this school year, let alone this visit. I then tried to focus on the issues that seemed to be the most prominent and relevant at the moment and I’m feeling a lot better about it.
I’m staying in the extra bedroom at Betsy’s house, which is nice because I have a big bed, my own bathroom, free laundry and food, etc. However, I do no have internet access at her house. It seems that I might not really have much internet access on campus either unless I’m on someone else’s computer, which might prove to be a problem. I think I am going to talk to one of the students and see if there is some way that I can gain access it from my laptop. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
No comments:
Post a Comment