It's HERE!

As temperatures break records... hundreds of Miami students scurry to Shriver for something....

No... it's not to sunbathe, no... it's not to purchase tickets to Kid Cudi (that was last week!)

Miami hockey is playing in the final four! Miami is even offering bus passes up to the game in Detroit for only $15!

However, for all those students who have classes, or cannot afford the $189 ticket into the game Campus Activities Council is offering a exciting alternative!

"The Road to Victory, Frozen Four" party takes place on Central Quad starting right when the game starts, 8:30 p.m. A huge tv screen will be placed for viewing pleasure! Not only will there be a screen, but Miami Concessions will be available for a little snack!

Just another exciting week on Miami's campus!! Oh... GO REDHAWKS!!!

Spring is Near!

"I see trees of green..."

Spring has finally arrived! Although I'm sure that I just jinxed the weather.. the sun has finally shown itself from beneath the dull and dreary clouds of winter.

Kids have come out of their dorm and started being social on the big green lawns. Girls laying out on blankets, chatting with their friends, or reading a book. Boys playing frisbee, throwing a ball, or running around.

I felt like I had finally become social again... after a long winter of being cooped up in the dorm I was starting to see familiar faces that I recognized from the fall.

I talked to people who were planning on going to lacrosse games and outdoor events! Uptown was bustling again as people decided to emerge from their winter siesta and decided to fiesta!

Sitting in my classes I anxiously watched out the window as the beautiful sunlight streamed through. I couldn't wait to get out of some of my classes just so I could walk down the street and feel the warmth on my body and the sun on my face.

There is nothing like spring in Oxford. It is beautiful... I can't wait to watch the trees blossom, and the grass turn green again. The nice thing about Oxford is, no matter the season it is always beautiful!

In the fall the red, orange, and yellow leaves complemented the brick buildings, in the winter a blanket of snow quiets the town, and in the spring beautiful flowers sprout and the trees begin budding!

What a beautiful place Oxford is!

Rushing at Miami: Part III

I suppose I could have titled this post "Pledging at Miami" because once you submit your choices for sororities to Panhel then you are in the process of pledging a sorority.

On Sunday I laid on my bed impatiently waiting on my GLG to deliver my bid to my dorm. Finally, around 4 p.m. she knocked on the door. She handed me an envelop and left. I slowly tore open the envelope and received a formal bid that announced that I was apart of the Pi Beta Phi Baby Angel 2010 Pledge Class!

There was an invitation to meet at 6 pm at the suite. I was so excited! I could hear screaming outside of the room. Girls were running up and down the hallway to their friends rooms, knocking on the door and announcing their new sorority.

I opened the door and came eye to eye with the girl who lives across the hallway. Kathryn had excitement in her eyes, "I'm in Pi Phi! I'm a Baby Angel!" She announced. "I AM TOO!" we started screaming and she picked me up and spun me around "You're my sista!" she kept saying.

Her roommate Liza was also a Pi Phi, and two girls down our hallway, KK and Julia, were Pi Phi's too. We all got quick showers and had to wear a white top with jeans. I was so confused as to whether I should wear a nice white shirt, or if it would be a shirt that would just go underneath a new shirt we would get.

Millions of questions were going through my head, who was going to be in my sorority? Would I know anyone? Would the girls be nice? Were they as nervous as I was? What were we going to do tonight? Were the older girls going to be nice and welcoming, or are they going to be mean and unwelcoming? When do we get to start going to parties with fraternity boys?

The most important question was, am I going to find my new best friend in Pi Phi?

We showed up at the suite. I could tell everyone was nervous... I noticed that one of the girls who was in my Travel Group was in Pi Phi. I was so excited! She was really nice... I walked over and sat down next to her.

We spent an hour getting to know the other girls in our pledge class. We told embarrassing stories, and then we were assigned our Beta Buddies. Our Beta Buddies were partners for the night, our seat partners when we got on the bus, and we got to know them better.

My Beta Buddy was Charlotte. She was loud and boisterous. We got along great! We spent the evening laughing and getting to know some of the other girls in our pledge class. We were introduced to the sophomores who would become our bigs and took our PI BETA PHI PLEDGES 2010 PICTURES.

It was a very exciting evening, and suddenly I had lots to do. We had sisterhood events, philanthropy events to participate in, and parties with other sororities and fraternities. My life seemed to be engulfed by the Greek system!

Wonderful things happen both when you are in a fraternity/sorority, or when you are not involved in Greek life. The only thing that matters is that you are having a great time!

Rushing at Miami: Part II

The whole purpose of such a long and rigorous rushing process is to ENSURE you will end up in the sorority that best fits your personality. You are not only choosing which sororities YOU like, but the sororities are choosing which girls they see fitting into the pack.

The girls who were rushing came back to school on the Tuesday before school started. It was a freezing, snow covered day... the dorms opened at one o'clock and the girls hauled our nineteen suitcases up the steps and back into our dorm rooms.

I was kicking myself for bringing my entire wardrobe home... I had spent most of my break soaking up the rays on the beach of Cancun (sorry... I had to rub it in a little) and couped up in my house recuperating from my lack of sleep over the first semester of college. Needless to say, I hadn't worn half the outfits that I packed, so as I sweated up the steps pulling my 100 pound suitcase I was definitely upset with myself.

On Tuesday evening our GLG called a mandatory meeting. We all gathered in the lobby, anxious to find out what this week brought us. Meg (our GLG) handed out t-shirts that were to be worn during the Open House round of rush.

She told us to go get ready for the next day, and that our schedules would be e-mailed to us around midnight... I basically freaked out. I am the kind of person that needs a solid nine hours of sleep to function properly. If I didn't find out my schedule until MIDNIGHT and then I had to wake up at 6:30 to get ready for my first "party"... that's only 6 1/2 hours... I would not be a happy camper.

Open House was split into two days. You were assigned a "travelling GLG" and you, your travelling GLG, and your travel group went to all 18 sororities. We spent 15 minutes at each sorority, learned a little about them, and chatted with some of the sisters.

My GLG travel group was assigned 15 parties in one day... we basically went to parties non stop from 8 am to 10 pm.. talk about a long day. My face was frozen in a smile, and it hurt to walk... my flats had rubbed the back of my feet and left big blisters. (TIP #1: wear comfortable shoes for the first couple days)

When you have down time you pretty much lay down and die on your bed. Make sure that you bring lots of movies and snack food for when you are not at parties because all you are going to want to do is eat, relax and sleep! CAUTION: DO NOT HANG OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS WHEN YOU HAVE DOWNTIME... you are so tired all you should do is sleep!!!

The evening of Thursday we gathered in the lobby with our GLG and we narrowed the 18 sororities down to 12. We also ranked our bottom 6 sororities (the 6 that didn't make the cut) just in case we didn't get asked back to the 12 that we liked. We went to bed, and the next morning at 10 our GLG showed up in the lobby and gave us our schedule for Round 1.

Round 1 took place Friday and Saturday. In this round we were told to wear a cute shirt with jeans and flats. I was happy to begin Round 1 because I could put my own personality into the clothes that I chose to wear.

I was very excited when I got my list on Friday morning... I got my top 12 sororities that I had hoped to get. I had to race upstairs and change because my first party was at 11.

The rounds progressively get more fun because you cut the "small talk" and really start to get to know the different personalities of the sororities. Also, you would learn more about the history of the sorority and got to help create a craft for the different philanthropies.

Sunday was round 2. We received our narrowed down 7 sororities that we were going to visit. The night before we ranked our bottom five just in case we didn't get one of our top 7. This round was business casual attire, and was forty five minutes long.

Many sororities did a skit and a video about what life is like as their sister, and their was more time to talk. By Sunday my face was numb from smiling so much, and my eyes were watery from being so tired, but I tried my best to remain interesting and fun to the sororities... I really wanted to make a good first impression.

What killed most of us was the fact that after Sunday we had to wait until the following Saturday for our final round... PREF ROUND. We didn't even find out if we got our top three picks until Wednesday. School dragged on for those 72 hours, and when we finally got our top three we had to wait ANOTHER three days until we could go back to those sororities for a visit...

Pref Round is unlike anything that I had experienced so far. I wore a nice cocktail dress and high heels to the sorority suites. Each sorority had decorated their suite so that it was almost unrecognizable, and we spent an hour in each suite partaking in different rituals and talking to more of the sisters.

After we went to our three parties we were finished. We returned to our dorms and waited anxiously for Sunday..... Bid Day.

Greek Life: Part I

Greek life is a very hard topic to talk about in one blog post because there is so much information to share, so I decided to break down the topic into part I - about Greek life, part II - rushing at Miami, and part III - being a pledge.

Ever since I started high school I always wanted to go Greek. I went to an all-girl's high school and loved the closeness and "sisterhood" that had developed between my class and girls in other grades. I wanted to continue to form close bonds with my new friends, I wanted to be able to participate in fun Greek events, and I wanted to continue in the philanthropy work that I had done in high school.

I was looking for a college with a big Greek system... but I was also nervous that I wasn't going to get into one, so I wanted the campus to also have lots of non-Greek students... and that is another reason why Miami appealed to me so much!

Miami's campus is composed of over 50 Greek chapters... these sororities and fraternities focus on learning, leadership, philanthropy, community, scholarship, and brotherhood/sisterhood. To learn more about the Greek system visit: http://www.units.muohio.edu/saf/GRA/

The nice thing about Miami Greek recruitment is that rush is not the first week of school... so many of my friends had to deal with not only entering a new and strange environment, but they also had to deal with the pressures of rush. The first formal introduction to Greek life at Miami is through the Greek Mega-Fair which took place in October.

After the long trek down to Millett Hall we were able to visit all the sororities (and fraternities). They set up booths around the outside of the basketball arena and we could chat with girls (boys) from the sororities (fraternities). It was nice to be able to talk to girls who had gone through the recruitment process the year before. I found myself asking thousands of questions about the different rounds, and I got more and more confused as they attempted to explain the hectic week of girls rush.

Throughout the fall we attended things called "sprite dates." These were informal parties that took place in the sororities suites. They had cute themes like "Desserts with DG" or "Fondue with Fuzzie" and it gave us the opportunity to check out their suite, get to know the personality of the sorority, and meet girls in the sorority that we could talk to.

The boys did a similar sort of informal introduction... these events were called "coke dates." Many of them took place at the fraternity house, but some of them were at other places and required an invitation.
One thing that both boys and girls had in common was a Greek Life Guide. A GLG was assigned to each corridor in each dorm. He/She was our guide to the Greek world. We had meetings once a week where they would go through the ENTIRE recruitment process and answer all of the thousands of questions that we threw at her. The nice thing about the GLG was that we didn't know which sorority she was in... this allowed us to ask questions without worrying about her feelings. She did a great job at answering questions without giving us biased answers like "MY SORORITY IS THE BEST!!!!"

The boys attended open house before they left for Christmas break. Open house was on Saturday and Sunday of one weekend, and the GLG led the boys to each house to visit for 15 minutes. When the boys returned from Christmas vacation they spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights revisiting the houses that they liked.
Us girls on the other hand... [insert chuckle here] we had QUITE a different experience...

First Semester Reflection

First semester freshman year was full of unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs, and surprises.

I came into college expecting something completely different than what it became, but I am so glad that it was not what I expected because it turned out to be so much better!

I came to school figuring that college would be much like high school, i would have a select group of friends that I would hang out with, and we would all be as close as the group of friends that I had in high school. Sure, I quickly made friends with a couple girls down the hall and we started going out together, but what I didn't realize is that I would make many other friends in the classroom and in extracurricular activities who I would also spend a great deal of time with.

I was so nervous for classes. I realized during my first week of school that yes, my professors did care about how I did, but they were not going to hold my hand through the semester like some of my high school teachers did. My professors were not going to approach me and suggest we sit down and discuss how I was to improve my grade, instead... it was up to me to approach them.

However, I tried my best! I spent days trekking to the library, and long nights making color coded study guides for biological organisms that gave me nightmares. I wrote papers that I never thought that I could produce, and I learned all about the jazz music that originated in Africa up to Jimmy Hendrix's rock-fusion. All the late nights, coffee runs, early morning workouts, thousands of notecards, hand cramps, and tears produced a GPA that I am very proud of!!!

The outstanding academics is the main reason why I chose Miami, but there were also other parts of college that I wanted to make sure I altered in, like a campus that felt like home, students who I felt that I would fit in with, enough extracurriculars that I could keep busy, and of course the most important thing... food that will satisfy my picky taste buds.

I was so nervous to leave my high school friends and meet new people. It might sound silly but I thought that they wouldn't like me. I guess I didn't realize that everyone was in the same situation that I was in....

And I have to admit that I have never met so many nice people in my life. In every class I would nervously look for a seat close to someone who I could be friends with. Before I knew it my phone doubled in the amount of numbers that I had, and when asking people for the phone numbers you had to ask for their area code!

I made friends in my business fraternity, CAC, classes, dorm, even in the dining hall!!! When I left for Christmas break I was strangely sad to leave my newly founded friends. And when it was time to return to Miami I couldn't help but get excited to go back and see everybody.

Gorgeous brick building, spacious areas of grassland, TREES... these are all things that are most often not located on college campuses. When touring other schools with my parents I couldn't help but feel depressed by the cold, concrete and clustered campuses. I didn't want to live in a dorm that looked like a prison, and I didn't want to go to school in a huge city. I wanted a college experience that allowed me to immerse myself solely in the campus, the student life and my studies.

Miami is located in the small town of Oxford, Ohio... and while there are not skyscrapers, shopping malls or speed limits over 35 miles an hour there are lots of things that I have come to love during my first semester:

1. Instead of pedistrians looking both ways before they cross the street, cars have to drive 5 miles an hour, staring intently in front of their car, to make sure that they don't hit a student who decided they could dash across the street... if Oxford was located in a big city those student's would be "road kill"

2. Uptown on the weekends caters to the college scene. Restaurants turn into nightclubs where kids can go dance and hang out with their friends and fast-food places serve late night specials (some even deliver!!). You might even catch a few "townies" (residents of Oxford) selling food on the sidewalks.

3. The bell tower... although some kids hate the clanging of the bells at all hours of the morning I personally love them. I suppose I don't mind since I had an 8 am 3 days a week and so I had to be up anyways, but there is something magical about walking down a snow covered sidewalk and hear the bell tower playing "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music.

There are many more wonderful parts of Oxford that I have come to love over my first semester of school, but why would I ruin the adventures that you would soon experience?

FINALS Have FINALLY come

At the end of the semester no matter what year you are in school, everybody seems to just relax and kick back... even though school is still going on.

After Thanksgiving break I honestly was ready to just ride out the last two weeks until exams. I figured that I would have PLENTY of time the weekend before exams and the week of exams to study... after all it is not like we even had classes that week and my exams were spread pretty far apart.....

Needless to say I am VERY glad that I kept the pedal to the metal, and cruised through those last few weeks of class. I kept up with all the assignments my teachers gave out and I printed off the final study guides. I tried to do everything that my professors recommended...

I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning cranking out notecard after notecard. I ended up with stacks of color coded notecards that even I did not understand!!

In the end it all paid off. The best advice that I got while preparing for finals was to START STUDYING EARLY!!!! As much as I hate to admit it... it was indeed my mother who gave me that advice. I rolled my eyes and thought she was just being a mom, but when it got to "crunch time" for most people... I was ready to take the exam!!!!

A couple tips that I learned with taking my exams.

#1. Get LOTS of sleep - it may seem like a dorky thing to do... to go to bed at 9 or 9:30 but when you are well rested you will not only keep yourself from getting sick, but you will also keep yourself from falling asleep when you should be studying.... or worse, during your exam

#2. Make sure that you start studying ahead of time - this also may seem dorky, but you won't realize until exam week comes around how EXHAUSTED you are... I know I was glad that I had time to relax since I had already been preparing for my exams.

#3. Make sure you know where your exam room is - lots of professors end up giving their final in a different room... finding the correct building amongst thousands of two story brick buildings is like trying to find a needle in a haystack for us freshmen.

#4. If you are going to go to the library you are going to need a tent so you can camp outside the doors until someone leaves... if you are going to try and get a cubicle you need to get to the library at the crack of dawn!

I tried to do all of these things, and in addition to hours and hours of studying, it did pay off! First semester not only allowed me to meet new people, but it also led me to believe that I CAN AND WILL SUCCEED IN COLLEGE!!