Sorority Girl
Brittany pledged a sorority right after Christmas break and moved into the Alpha Gamma Delta (AGD) house. I wish she could have been a Kappa Delta like I was so I could have passed my pin down to her. They don’t have KDs at Western Carolina, so she settled for taking my pearls. (The AGD “jewel”)
After she joined I dug out my diaries from college. Yes, I had diaries from about first grade until my senior year in college! Mostly I wanted to see how much of Greek life is the same as when I was in school and how much is different.
A lot is the same. For instance Brittany participated in Sigma Chi’s Derby Days. (The fraternity schedules all kinds of crazy daily events that the sororities take part in to get points and at the end of the week the sorority with the most points wins.) And there I was each year in the pages of my diaries going to jump on trampolines, help build beds on wheels to push around sorority circle and participate in field events for points.
And there are the same bonfires, parties, IHop runs in the middle of the night, mom’s weekends, song practices, (although they have a CD of their songs to learn from) long chapter meeting – which seems to be universally on Monday nights. In fact every Monday in my diary I would write, “Chapter lasted until 8:30 tonight – ugh!” or “We had elections tonight and chapter lasted until 11:00, I thought I was going to die.”
Also all the time spent sitting outside or in each other’s rooms talking, laughing, eating popcorn…John and I went out for her initiation dinner in March. The girls were all in white dresses just like I was years ago for my initiation. She’s buying AGD t-shirts for every special event just like I did, (although hers cost about five times more then mine did!)
One major difference is we used to have house phone duty. The house had phones on every floor and one girl was assigned each night to take calls. Each member had her own buzz code and if it was long distance; that buzz was followed by a solid stream of buzzes. I’m not even sure Brittany’s sorority has a house phone since they all have cell phones.
I don’t know what she would do without her cell. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:40 a.m. I get her first call of the day. It is my job at that time to keep her company as she walks to her 8:00 class. Then I get another one at 9:00 to accompany her to next class! I like that she multi tasks, but she won’t let me do the same. If I start moving around while we’re talking; making the bed or whatever and have to hold the phone under my chin, she can tell and says, “Nancy, pay attention to me!” (Yes, she calls me Nancy. I would say it’s an only child thing, but really it’s a Brittany thing.)
One byproduct of reading my diaries; I realized I needed to stop giving her such a hard time about some things. Staying up ‘til all hours, skipping a class here and there or even about grades. I found I had her beat in all areas! When I first started reading my diaries I thought I would let Brittany read them this summer. By the time I got to my sophomore year though I thought I should probably bury them in the backyard!
Once I started reading I couldn’t put them down. Every night I would be reading way past midnight. One night John woke up, looked at the clock and said, “You’re still up?” I said, “I have to see what happens!”
He patted me on the shoulder as he rolled over and said, “Don’t worry too much, I happen to know it has a happy ending.” 
Nancy Geiger and her husband are empty nesters with their daughter Brittany (their only child) now a junior at college. When she left home Nancy started writing a monthly column for their local weekly paper about parenting a college student long distance. After 17 years as a travel agent for American Express, Nancy decided to commit herself to freelance writing and starting an online store, 2 blogs, a website and LOTS of volunteering! She even just published a cookbook called A Brides Cookbook or surviving the First Year. http://abridescookbook.com
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