The Red and Black

September 11th, 2007

Welcome to Greek Speak

“From the outside looking in you could never understand it … From the inside looking out you could never explain it.”

We, here in the Greek community here at the University, know we can be a little crazy. Some of us are more aware of this than others, but, for the most part, we know we do things that seem a little strange.

What event other than sorority recruitment, formerly known as “rush,” could possibly make more than 1,000 girls put on dresses and heels and brave August heat in Georgia, starting in the wee hours of the morning and not stopping until the sun is blazing high in the sky? Yet every year, just that happens, and every year, the number of girls wanting to start out college with sorority letters increases. On bid night, guys cruise down Milledge Avenue in packs, cramming as many people as possible into the back of a pick-up truck, wanting a little peak at the insanity that is Formal Recruitment.

Then there are the dozens of socials throughout the year that pull sorority girls and frat guys out of dorm rooms and Milledge homes to downtown Athens, crowding the streets in togas, secretary outfits, tennis skirts and any other occasionally revealing outfit that can be deemed a costume.

Most every week, our male counterparts toss up makeshift trashbag walls, hire garage bands, throw some Everclear into a trashcan and manage to attract hundreds of girls to their current abode; the “good” parties are a necessary stop for any freshman girl who’s anyone … or at least that’s what some of us think.

This past year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution picked up on the buzz about formal recruitment, deeming it worthy of the front page of a Sunday paper. The article goes into detail about the mechanics of recruitment, or at least as much detail as the reporter could find. After all, those of us in the Greek community love our secrets and rituals.

We’ve become notorious on campus for making the front page of The Red & Black repeatedly, sometimes for making mistakes hundreds of other students have made, simply because we ARE Greek. Bad decisions put us in the spotlight, yet our positive contributions — hosting philanthropic events, having leaders on campus or having GPAs above the campus average — rarely are deemed newsworthy.

It seems the University we continuously support loves to make fun of us those of us sporting Greek letters on our T-shirts. But I guess this is something the thousands of Greeks at Georgia just will have to deal with and, eventually, hope to overcome.

So what’s a sorority girl to do when do when working at a newspaper often known on campus as being anti-Greek? She starts a Greek life blog. Who would ever guess that there are MULTIPLE students with Greek affiliations that climb Baxter street to go to work every day?

We know we aren’t perfect. Sometimes recruitment gets messy, and not everyone finds their “perfect fit.” Sometimes we say or do things that offend others on campus. And sometimes, we even get arrested.

But we also have found lasting relationships (even if we may have “paid for them”) in our Milledge homes. We often successfully maintain the high GPAs many of us are proud of (even though sometimes socials get in the way of studying). And we do our best to give back to the community, whether it be through hosting a benefit concert or visiting a homeless shelter downtown.

Maybe here I can offer insight to those who question our motives and activities. Maybe eventually I even will tell you which sorority I call home. But for now, that’s all I have time for…I’ve gotta go get ready for my social.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Greek Speak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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