Iotas and Pledging 12/15/2002
I’m not quite sure who reads this any more. I’ve been gone a long time. I guess that’s a good and a bad thing. It sucks, because there was a lot of diaries I used to read, but I’ve been so busy, that I’ve let some of my correspondences die. In Syracuse, I hated the school so much I was on the site every day, venting, and wishing how things were better. At Binghamton, there are certain things that are better, some are the same, and some are worse. But I guess I’ll start from the beginning. I’m really bummed I didn’t keep up with my diary during pledging. Yes, I hated most of it, but there were some really awesome moments, some of which I have probably forgotten.
After getting rejected by twelve sororities in Syracuse, I wasn’t too thrilled about going through the process again. But the friends that I had made in Binghamton weren’t the nicest people in the world, and I was afraid that things were starting to become like they were in Binghamton. Before I had pledged, I had even discussed the idea with my mother about transferring one last time back home after the fall semester. So yes, the idea of joining a sorority may seem quite ludicrous, but ironically, the sorority really helped me out in a lot of ways. Each semester, a pledge class of girls pledge for a sorority. I will call my pledge class Iota. Besides me there are ten girls in my pledge class—Toni, Lisa, Lauren, Ashley, Erin, Corinne, Sara, Christina, Nicole, Tamara, and me. Although I never would’ve thought it in the beginning, I am so proud to call these girls my sisters. They definitely piss me off, and on occasion make me cry, but I love them more than most people I know. They’re the reasons why I’m still here.
We pledged for eight weeks. Four days before we were supposed to cross (officially join) the sorority, Tamara called her cousin (a member of my sorority but in another school) who called Nationals. Nationals is in charge of all of members of my sorority in all the schools across the nation. If Nationals is called that hazing is occurring on a certain campus, they visit the campus, and interview the pledges and sisters to find out exactly what is going on. My sorority was hazing. I know they treat their pledges better than some chapters, but worse than others. They never physically harmed us, but they would do other things. They’re called line-ups. Normally, the pledges would stand in a line in someone’s dark basement while we all recite sorority information (people’s full names, founding sisters of our sororities, the names of people in other pledges classes, etc). If we got something wrong, we did wall-sits, or they would scream at us, insult us (call us pathetic, assholes, bitches, and other lovely assorted names, or sometimes they would write on our faces with lipstick or some sort of food like marshmellow). Lovely right?
However, despite all of the bullshit that went on, my pledge sisters and I were pretty close throughout everything. I once got so frustrated with pledging that I started hysterically crying in a dining hall and threw my pledge book across the room. Actually I attempted to throw it out, but my pledge sisters stopped me. Lauren and Lisa took care of me that morning and told me to get home and get some rest. Another night we were given these massive coloring books and were told to color the entire thing in, along with other projects they had given us, by the next morning. By 3 am we still hadn’t finished and we were all so stressed and tired. Someone made a joke, and we just started laughing hysterically…and we kept laughing because we were so sleep deprived and stressed that there was nothing else we could do. Little things like that just make me laugh even now…
One time we were doing a scavenger hunt, and once again, we were sleep-deprived and stressed. We were all walking along on a sidewalk when Lisa, who has a habit of talking with several different accents during a conversation suddenly says, “It smells like coochie!” in a Southern drawl. I thought it was so funny that I started laughing so hard that I fell into some bushes lining the walkway. I had no idea what a ‘coochie’ meant by the way. Anyway, they started calling me ‘Coochie’ and so now that’s what my nickname is.
One of the last days of pledging, some alumni sisters had come back to Binghamton for a visit. My pledge sisters and I got a call from them at 3 am, while we were working on some other projects. We were in that house until eight the next morning. That night was honestly the worst and scariest nights of my life. One of the girls, who I’ll call Angel (although she’s far from it) was horribly drunk and proceeded to scream at us for the next three hours. We sat in a circle blindfolded and were asked information that we couldn’t possibly answer. We had no clue who these alumni were, and yet we were supposed to know things like their favorite colors, their majors, and their nationalities. If we didn’t know the answer we were forced to do push-ups, sit-ups, and then they would insult us and write on our faces with dark red lipstick. One of the girls, Emily, kept yanking back our heads and pushing on our back to make us sit-up straight, even though we’d all probably gone for two days without sleep. The entire time, she would keep saying in this horribly perky, yet condescending voice, “Ladies, you’re beautiful. Sit up straight and be confident with your answers.” Ironically she was saying this while Angel was screaming at us and stomping around. I honestly thought Angel would hit one of us at some point. She was so drunk, and I am so incredibly bitter at all the sisters in that house for allowing that shit to go on. How does this promote sisterhood?
Afterwards, they made us clean their kitchen. We’ve had to clean their house before, actually. Ashley and I scrubbed the bathroom. I ruined one of my favorite blue sweaters because one of the cleaners I was using had bleach in it and it ruined the sleeve. I’ve been forced to make someone’s bed before. I have thirteen dollars in my account, after spending almost a grand this semester. The girls would take my meal card because they had ‘accidentally’ forgotten theirs. Almost every single night we were forced to go out and buy stuff for them, or for one of our projects. And now I’m supposed to call these girls my sisters.
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