Alpha Gam Thanksgiving

What do you call over 100 people cramming into 5 rooms in a small house? That’s right! Alpha Gam Thanksgiving!J It is one of my favorite traditions in the chapter because it reminds me how much I am thankful to be a part of something so wonderful. I am thankful for my sisters who are there for me at all times and for the alumni for reminding me that these friendships aren’t just for college years, but they bond you for life. I love how it gives a home for everyone to come back to no matter how much time passes. I am an Alpha Gam, can’t you see how proud I am? Jillian Sauer, our interim alumni relations, did a great job organizing the event and helping the event run smoothly all day. Not only did our sisters bring a whole chapter room table filled with delicious foods, but there were 6 whole turkeys! It was so great to be able to watch the alumni get to meet our new members for the first time and for us all to get to catch up and relax. It was the most delicious, loud, wild, beautiful and lovely days I have experienced in a while. Because what is better than eating food with sisters? I am already looking forward to next years’ Thanksgiving!

Meghan Sawicki 

The Wonderful World of WPI

A “Special” Week in Review

Sunday: Wake up late, Brunch in DAKA, get Material Science homework out of the way. Shower before Chapter.

Monday: We get the news at noon. A water main has broken in front of Worcester State. There is now a water shortage through out the city. No more showers or toilets.

Tuesday: Up early, go to breakfast then I realize….. MY IQP INTERVIEW IS TODAY AND I HAVEN’T SHOWERED SINCE SUNDAY!!!

Insert panic here. 

Classes had been canceled until noon, and since my interview was scheduled for the morning, I am blissfully hopeful that it is canceled.  I send an email to the professor, PRAYING that she intends to cancel. Just as I click send a new message appears in my inbox. My interview is still on… and I still haven’t showered since Sunday. This is the moment that I am eternally thankful for Wet Wipes and Dry Shampoo. 

Fifteen min later I don’t feel any cleaner, but I do look cleaner. Add some appropriate clothes and I was as ready as I was going to get. Totter up the hill in heels as I battle the rain (Rain during a water shortage, how ironic), and campus looks like a ghost town.  I arrive as Salisbury Labs and the panic goes up another notch. The Red Lights are on the Card Readers, which means NO ACCESSE to poor sophomores that haven’t bothered replacing their broken idea cards yet. Which would be this kid.  I hover around the door, hoping that someone will come up and rescue me. Insert thank you to the student that wanted to go work in the computer labs.  I have made it into the building.

 Next I must get past the Gate Keeper. In the lounge waits a facilities person to turn away anyone who wishes to be at school before noon. My rescuer from before is denied. It is my turn to get past him. He asks me my purpose inside, I launch into my tale and my anxiety makes my voice inch up an octave. He attempts to deny me, first by asking if the professor I’m looking for is in the building (she is), then by telling me to call Campo and make sure it was bueno. I pull out my phone, dial, and hope that I don’t have service. I don’t. After my phone rings for a few minutes, he tells me I can go to the professor’s office and I can stay as long as I don’t use any of the facilities. I agree, and he allows me to proceed.

I make it to the professor’s office, make it through my interview and then I head home.

As I make to back to my place (which is on campus) I pass one of the Residential Services Professionals. I let the nice man in, he turns on the faucets, checks that everything is working, tells me we can now use the showers, then goes merrily on his way.

Timing, 

Morgan Boyd

2015

Recruitment from the other side

Most sisters have had the experience of going through formal recruitment and also done it through the sister side; both of these involve talking to people for a couple hours every night of recruitment and struggling to make decisions about who you want to be your sister. I joined Alpha Gamma Delta my freshman year, but through continuous open recruitment, not formal recruitment. Sophomore year I had the experience of a sister through recruitment, and then junior year I was a recruitment counselor, and this year, my senior year, a head recruitment counselor.

Being an RC brings a very different view to recruitment, as you are not deciding anything. Your job as an RC is to help the girls find the best fit for them, whether it is flipping a coin, writing a pro/con list with them, or just listening long enough that they justify their decision to themselves. Being an RC my junior year I met many fabulous women, some of whom are now my sisters, some of them who now part of the Panhellenic community, and some who made the decision that Greek life was not something they wanted to or were ready to be a part of.

Being a Head RC is even different than that. Being an RC I spent a lot of time talking to the potential new members helping them with decisions.  As an HRC I dealt with more of the logistics side of things and made sure things ran smoothly. I was in charge of the Recruitment Counselors and making sure they were ready to handle the potential new members and get girls where they needed to be. I also got to be one of the people who talked to girls when they needed someone else. I didn’t have much face time with the potential new members, though was there when the RCs needed someone else whether it was to tell someone unfortunately they didn’t get a bid, or talking to someone who couldn’t decide what to do.  It’s a very different job dealing with the background of recruitment versus talking to the girls.

I think my favorite memories of being an RC and head RC are things centered on bid day and reveal. Bid day is exciting for so many reasons and when the girls are deciding what they want to sign I loved talking to girls junior year helping them see what they want. It’s a great experience to talk to someone and help them see their fit into Greek life, something I hold so near and dear to my heart.  I had a couple really awesome conversations with girls both last year and this year that I still talk about and look back on as moments to explain what being an RC really is. Reveal is amazing because you have 400-500 girls standing there cheering for you, it’s an amazing feeling.

As a HRC I did have to have a couple of those uncomfortable conversations, trying to tell a girl that she didn’t get a bid. I was backup this year for the RCs, going for support so that they had someone else if it was needed. From this year I think I will remember this moment a lot, and although it was a tough moment, it’s a great one. When a girl doesn’t get a bid she generally is either really excited, or really upset. This girl was the latter. But I talked to her about continuous open recruitment and about the snow outside, and about how bad it feels to feel rejected, and how to increase her chances of being able to COR into a chapter she wants. Then we started talking about chemical engineering (since both of us are chemical engineering majors) and then about how she wants to get more involved,  and how I am going to be there for her and help her get involved into SocComm (since she was interested) and will be able to help her with her chem. Eng stuff if she needs. Yes, it still is sad she didn’t get the desired outcome from recruitment, but I hope that she see’s it’s not the end of the world and it’s not the end of the road either. This example to be represents what being Greek means to me. It’s not just the letters on my shirt or saying ritual. It’s learning to be there for people, especially sisters, but anyone. It’s learning to be a good sister and friend and reaching out to people if they need someone to come over and help them through something.

Being an RC it feels like you lose touch with your chapter slightly as you aren’t with them for probably about 40 hours when they are getting ready for recruitment, but for me it reinforces my decision to go Greek and join Alpha Gamma Delta. It reminds me that when you are either having a bad day or maybe just need a hug, there’s always someone there for you to talk it out and give you that needed hug. And even if a girl doesn’t want to join your chapter you can still make a new friend and help someone out. 

Catherine Duffty 

November!!!!!

November is one of my favorite months of the year! The weather is starting to get colder, the leaves are falling and the smells are wonderful. I also love all of the fall clothes you get to wear cute little scarves, boots and jackets. But since coming to college I have realized that fall is more then all of that, it is the season of change and excitement.

Recently fall sports here at WPI are coming to a bitter end with many new accomplishments under our belts. As a member of the Women's crew team I can speak directly to this. This past weekend I woke up at 4:30 am to travel with 45 other men and women to Saratoga Springs, New York to Head of The Fish!!

This race was super exciting for all of us because we don't really travel as a team, but it was even more exciting for me because it was 20 minutes from home. We arrived in Saratoga at 8:30 after about a 2 and a half hour bus ride, just in time to see our Alumni Four race down the course to a 3rd place finish, what a great start to the day. With my race, in the mixed 8+ (does that mean boys?) not until 3:58 pm I had lots of time to walk around and get a lay of the land and do some light knitting while watching the races. At 10:13 and 10:30 are women's first two varsity boats came RIPPING down the course to 5th and 9th place finishes. Later on in the day our Novice women raced in their SECOND RACE EVER, having a strong performance coming in 7th out of 30 boats. After all of these races I still had some time until my race to spend with my family who came to see me!!!

As it got closer to race time I got more and more excited and a little nervous! At 2:30 our men's 1v and 2v raced down the course like beast to 8th and 5th place finishes. As the men finished I raced down to the docks with the 8 women in the two mixed 8's to meet the boys. Me and my women swiftly got into the 2 mens boats with the men's 1v, and headed to the start of the race!!!!! After waiting at the start for 25 minutes and lots of heckling from the men, our race went off. Forgetting all my nerves I quickly got right into the swing of things leading the 8 others down the course. We quickly started passing boats (4 in total), and flew down the course.

After the 3,350 meters were over we found out we finished only 2 boats behind the other WPI, who had started 4 boats in front of us. Now that the racing was over we starting taking our boats apart, and painfully waited for the results...... About 20 minutes after the race the results were in!!!!!!! I raced over to the board like a kid on christmas, and saw First- WPI, Second- WPI!! OOOOOOOO yeah second place and a metal!!!! This was the perfect ending to a great season for me, and now I can't wait for spring season.

Now for my new favorite part of fall RECRUITMENT!!!!!!!!!! 

Recruitment started on Wednesday with round 1. Round 1 was great, over 220 young women came through Higgins House to meet the wonderful women I have a pleasure to call my sisters. With the hard work of the recruitment team the room was great and things ran smoothly. Recruitment also means the arrival of the LC.

Hope our LC was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, but due to Sandy she did not get in to Logan until Thursday afternoon. Myself and Nikole Dunn got the pleasure of picking her up, whoever thought that was a good idea I don't know. After a small detour we finally made it back to Worcester all in one piece , with even more excitement for round two. 

As I sit here writing this I keep getting more and more excited for round two of recruitment tonight and hope that ever one is just as excited as I am. Can't wait to see all of you lovely ladies again tonight and to meets lot of awesome women. Get excited.

Loyally,

Jess P <3

Hello from Venice!!

Ciao from Venezia!

Happy November! I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween, especially seeing as you were all in Round 1 of recruitment. Hooray! From the sound of it, it seems as if it went very well! I’m so excited for new members, even though I will have to creep hardcore on Facebook to find them all. Now that Bid Day is taking place at night, we will have to stay up extra late to get in on all of the excitement!

Things are getting more and more interesting as time goes on here in Venice. I’ll start with last weekend. For our project, we have to count people getting on and off of the ACTV water buses, which are the main form of public transportation here since there are no cars allowed past the parking garage as soon as you get onto the island from the mainland.

So last Saturday, we began our field work and started counting people getting on and off of boats at the Piazzale Roma stop, which is one of the closest stops to the main cruise ship port. Besides the flooding that changed the boat lines a little bit, things seemed to have been going okay. That is, until an ACTV worker approached us and asked what we were doing. The tricky part is that he asked us in Italian, and he didn’t speak any English. We must have looked like complete idiots, but we told him that we couldn’t speak Italian (because our Italian class in A-term was kind of useless). He left, but ten minutes later he came back with another ACTV worker, who could speak some English. He asked what we were doing, so we explained it to him, and then he asked to see our papers (on which we were writing down numbers so that we could reset our counters after each boat). After that, he told us that we could not do what we were doing because we didn’t have the proper authorization from the boat company. So, he basically told us to GTFO.

We mildly freaked out, and by mildly I mean probably more than was necessary, but we called Fabio and told him what happened, and then met with him the next day to discuss a new game plan. He now finds entertainment in joking with us about how we’re going to get arrested and go to jail for a few days. Good one.

So, that was our super fun weekend. I bet you’re all jealous. But actually, you probably are because I’m in Venice and you’re not. Mwahahahaha.

While all of you were braving the storm that was Hurricane Sandy, we also got to experience some stormy weather that brought high tides, or “acqua alta” as they like to call it. It’s kind of fun wading through the waters, only to a certain extent though. It’s a good thing that they had a few extra pairs of rainboots at the project center. Here is a picture of a flooded street right by our apartment, and this wasn’t even the worst we’ve seen so far!

So after a few stressful project days and a lot of stracciatella gelato (my current favorite flavor), things took a sharp turn for the better. On Tuesday, we basically spent the entire day with our advisors, beginning with a group meeting in the morning in which they told us we’re doing a great job. After that, we met up with them at lunch with a few people from other groups. The place we went to was a little sandwich shop close to wear the old project center used to be, so the owners are all pretty familiar with Fabio. The panini we got were pretty good, and really cheap compared to other places.

After lunch, Fabio and Kyle—who went to Venice for his IQP a few years ago and is now an intern for the project center—took us out for a row down the Grand Canal. The reason behind it was so we could get pictures of the boat stops for our project, but we all figured that this way was much more fun than sitting on a regular ACTV boat or walking to each stop. We even got to learn how to row Venetian style! Not to brag or anything, but I was pretty much a champ at it. Fabio said I was a natural. I guess it’s just in my Italian genes.

Following our rowing adventures, our group had dinner with our advisors at a restaurant closer to where Fabio lives (of course, he knows the owners there too). We had a full-course meal of bread & oil, appetizers including shrimp cocktail, sardines, and cod (which was mixed up with a little mayo, so it looked a little bit like tuna but tasted way better), spaghetti with a choice of sauce with some sort of fish in it (I got shrimp and it was delicious), more fish (which required deboning), a dessert of Irish coffee, and espresso, which I tried for the first time while here and am now addicted. I was beyond full afterwards, but it was so worth it. Our advisors had plenty of nice things to say about our group, and overall it was a great day.

That leads me up to Halloween. Of course the holiday isn’t celebrated here as widely as it is back home, but it definitely still exists here. There are a few shops and restaurants that get into it. I’ve still seen a fair share of skeletons, jack-o-lanterns, and witches, so it’s nice to have a little piece of home here with us. I even saw a few people with their faces painted, and a small group of kids trick-or-treating! A few of us bought Venetian masks to wear in celebration as well. Of course, I used the holiday as an excuse to get some candy too. They didn’t have Crispy M&M’s at the store this time (they still sell those here!), so I had to settle for peanut ones.

Now that Halloween is over and it’s November, Thanksgiving is on my mind. Sadly, being an American holiday, it is not celebrated here. However, the group of students here will be putting together a dinner to have during the week before the holiday. Thanksgiving break is when most students choose to do more long-distance traveling. A few of us have planned to take a trip to London and Dublin for a few days. I’m so excited! Maybe I will have to write another post about those adventures, too.

It’s hard to believe just how much work we’ve actually gotten done while having this much fun. I can tell already that this term is going to fly by!

I miss you all and hope that everything goes well in recruitment. I know you will do awesome because you are all wonderful ladies! See you in a few weeks!

Marissa :)

P.S. – Maybe when I get back I will make you all some tiramisu. Not in a bag.

The adventures of Alex Jaeger in Costa Rica!

First Real Costa Rican Weekend

Today we as a group visited Volcán Arenal, a volcano about 3 hours from our hotel here in San Pedro. It was a little expensive just because we had to all take a coach bus to and from the hotel, and we got lunch, dinner, breakfast buffet style at the hotel, and we booked it through a tour company because we were going to all be going. But I personally think it was definitely worth it for the first big trip to take. Because it was so easy, we just had to get to the bus at 6am (which kinda sucked) and meet at the front desk at the right times for our events, which I did kind of skimp on because I was so excited to take a relaxing weekend (and I’m cheap) and I am so glad that I did.

In the morning I signed up for the hanging bridges tour (pics to come), which was so much fun. There were 8 of us, but we kind of split up into 2 groups of 4, which was really nice because the 4 of us in our group were all fine with the pace we were going. We took a bunch of pictures of the bridges, the wildlife and the views; we took our time and just had a relaxing walk, until we came to the waterfalls. We stopped at the first waterfall for like 15-20 minutes and again took a bunch of cool pictures and enjoyed the view, and then spent like 20-30 minutes at the second waterfall because we decided to take our shoes off and wade in the water, at least us girls did. And it was so much fun. And it was really refreshing because it was a very hot and humid day and the cold water was so nice. We almost waded under the waterfall, but the rain looked like it was about to hit us and the sun was being covered, and we didn’t want to freeze for the second half of our walk. Soon thereafter we realized that we were half way through in distance, and we only had 30 minutes left to get back to catch our ride back to the hotel (and it had taken us 2:15 to get to that point). So we started running, there is a nice video of that, if it ever surfaces, because I wasn’t the one who took the photo. And we had to run for like 4 minutes straight uphill. That’s when we took our first break :P. Then we walked to the more or less top of that particular hill, and started running from there again, and surprisingly, none of us fell, even though we were running up and down mini dips and hills, and through mini streams (like as in the trail was the stream, not like it crossed the path). We got back like 10 minutes after we were supposed to get back, but it didn’t really matter because the ziplining group still hadn’t gotten back and the bus goes on their schedule, and not ours because we didn’t have an official tour guide, we guided ourselves (hence why it took so long for us to hike…) Moral of the story, we ran like 1.5 miles up and down a mountain for no reason, if we just hadn’t taken any more photos (which we didn’t anyways because we were running, well maybe like 1 or 4), we would have made it to the end no problem, we even had enough time to take a leisurely stroll through the butterfly garden and cool down a little before entering the hot as balls bus-thing back to the hotel. And we got out of there at the perfect time, because like right in the middle of the drive back to the hotel it started raining (like it does pretty much every day at like 1 or 2).

Also hadn’t eaten since like 8am, and we had just hiked in the Costa Rican humidity, I was so tired and hungry, and so happy for the delicious buffet they had for us. And right after lunch, it was time for an epic hike, that I was so not prepared for. We went off on our hike thinking it would just be a short little trail around the hotel, oh were we wrong.

So the trail started pretty smoothly, pretty straight and flat, with these weird like cement things that were supposed to provide traction, which I am sure they did when they were new, but they were like all mossy n shit, and well kind of slippery. And so dangerous, especially because we were like at the edge of the cliff… then we got to this really sketchy slim part, and we had to take it slowly, but no one fell, I might have twisted my ankle a tince, but it was no big deal. Finally, the downed tree, and this takes a lot of explanation, and you might not get it but, bear with me. So the path kind of zigzagged down this steep cliff thing. So we got over the tree once up near the base where it was mainly only trunk and a few vines, jumped off of it onto a super skinny branch and it cracked and scared the crap out of my and I scraped my ankle, but all and all not bad. Then Cori made it over, then Mariel got on it and I decided that maybe I should be smart and check the rest of the trail to see if we could get down it farther before we made her climb over it, and it looked like we couldn’t because the tree crossed the tree two more times (here is where the zigzag thing comes in, so we crossed once, did a little U-turn thing, but still decline, and then we got blocked again by the tree, and beyond the tree the path U-turned again and was cut off by the tree again). So, we could see the trail, down a very steep mudslide type-thingy, and were contemplating going back, but then we kind of were just like screw it, there are enough trees to hold onto, because our footing was going to suck because it was soft mud that gave way real easily and we would have slipped down had we not had hand holds. This is when I almost killed Cori because I was slipping and tried to grab a rock that I thought was much deeper in the group, turned out it was just lying on the surface, and I set it lose and it fell like right in front of her as she was moving out of the way so that she wouldn’t get hit by a rock we might dredge up… but it missed, so all is good. So we all had to like buttslide down this thing and grab our trees with care, and then kind of like hope for the best at the end and just slide to the solid ground and hope to land without rolling farther :P (it’s cool because I’m alive to write this :P). So that was the hardest part, but at the same time we didn’t really know how to get to this waterfall we could hear, or how to get back to the hotel, because we clearly couldn’t make it back up that path. So we just started following the waterfall and finally made it, by the time we got there we were so sweaty, tired and dirty that finding the water and the waterfall was like the greatest thing ever! And naturally we had hiked in our bathing suits so we went swimming and took some pictures at the waterfall, it was so much more beautiful and satisfying because it was such a journey just to get there :). But then my camera died, so I got one pick of me and that was it, but it’s cool because you can’t exactly take a picture of the emotions that come with a landscape, and that really was the best part. We felt like we had finally found the “real” Costa Rica, the “oh, we just went for a hike and found a waterfall” Costa Rica. So we swam around for a bit, enjoyed the views, enjoyed the water and the falls and the rapids. It was awesome

Anyways, we had found a trail back up on the way down, it was the horse trail from the hotel to the river, so it was an easy, though still tiring because it was steep, hike back up to the hotel. At that point it was like 5pm and I was sooo tired I like almost passed out when I got back to my hotel. We went to the hotel bar and played so pool for an hour or so, and dinner wasn’t until like 8:30 so we just sat around trying to stay awake until dinner. Basically as soon as dinner was over I went back to my room and passed out.

This morning I opted out of doing an activity and got my tan on! It was awesome! Now imma be so tan when I get back to the States! :P But the bus ride sucked because now my back hurts like nobody’s business and I am in so much pain! So tomorrow to the gym to try to exercise my back out of pain… the ride back was so scary as well because we were in this big ass bus, and going around these sharp turns that ended in cliffs, and I happened to be awake the whole time watching out the window… yay!

Happy to be back, but not happy about the fact that my back is entirely erupting in pain, hopefully it feels better soon :/

Missing everyone!

Katie Fitton and Hurricane Sandy!!!

Today is seriously the perfect writing weather, so I figured I would step in and write an entry. I am currently lounging on my couch in my living room, surrounded with blankets, candles, and homemade hot chocolate. I love it, and how cozy and relaxed I feel. The only reason I am here right now rather than sitting in class is due to WPI’s decision shut down campus in preparation for Hurricane Sandy. I’ll take it. 

This term academically has been off to a slow start. This was due to change today, which would have been that slap in the face of homework and project changes that everyone gets at the beginning of each term (I see you all nodding your heads in agreement). This week is also the beginning of recruitment, and while recruitment is one of my favorite parts of being an Alpha Gam, it still takes out a lot of time and energy from my day. Even though classes have not been crazy yet, this past week personally/emotionally has not been a fun one for me. I felt drained coming into today, rather than rested from the weekend. I was nervous that I would have a hard time handling the load with everything else being steadily added to my plate.

But, today was cancelled. I get a free pass to rest. For once it is actually encouraged that I stay in my apartment for the day. I do not feel like I am stealing time to do this, or that I am not worthy of having this break. This is the biggest relief that I could have hoped for. Some of you might get this, and others of you might just think I am crazy for saying this. But for those that understand, read on.

So, now that I’m done rambling about my schedule, my life, blah blah blah… I’m hitting the main point of my post. Before writing this post, I did not plan on resting much today. I was going to be doing homework and cooking and cleaning and laundry and letter writing and then maybe take an hour of well-deserved rest. In general, I still struggle with feeling guilty when I “steal” time from my daily schedule to rest. For this reason, I only fill my Google calendar with mandatory classes and meetings. Optional ones do not make the list. Otherwise I would feel stressed if I were to miss it. Much of my “unscheduled” time is still dedicated to being busy. 

I believe this is a problem that all high-achieving women struggle with. That basically encompasses the whole female population at WPI. Fill your schedule with activities to feel validated. Feel guilty when you miss a commitment or do not perform as well as expected, even if you have a reasonable excuse. In your head it is not reasonable, and you just feel like you are letting down everyone else. The last thing we want to hear is that this is actually the case, that we really are disappointing those around us. This confirms our fears and our suspicions, that we cannot live up to what we want ourselves to be. Eventually we start cutting into the time that ACTUALLY matters: our meals, our sleep schedule, our time with loved ones, our exercise routine, our overall health and well-being. I cannot stress this enough. Mainly because I have not listened to myself enough… my head and heart never like being in total agreement it seems. 

Maybe this all is not just something I need to learn. It is something that I need to consciously think about every single day, and commit myself to acting out on a daily basis. This is why my close friends feel like I harp on this issue a lot, because it IS something that should be considered every single day. If I continue busying myself until I have no time to take care of myself, then how can I expect to live a long, healthy life? I only have one body to work with, so I might as well make sure that I keep it in good condition.

But then here is the scary part: things have to start coming off the schedule. I have to start considering my priorities, and I have to turn away from some things that are important, but not totally necessary. This literally is confronting the fear of failure up close and personal. It may actually look to everyone else like I am failing, and I am quitting, which is what I was fearing all along, right? Everyone is different. Someone else’s priorities are not the same as mine. But those who are important will understand that I am taking care of myself, even if they do not agree with my priorities. I would not resign unless it was necessary.

My priorities are my loved ones, my morals, my health, and the quality of my efforts towards others and in my work, probably in that order. I believe that every Alpha Gam has these priorities too (we all love our Purpose), though there will be some variety across the board. Let us possess high ideals and attain SOMEWHAT unto them. Let us cherish our friends and invest time into our relationships. Let us gain wisdom. Let us prize health and vigor of body. Let us honor our home. Let us contribute to the world’s work. We can do all of these things, but maybe not in the way we think we can. Sacrificing one will not allow us to attain what we want. Our self-validation is not achieved by trying harder; it is achieved by being true to ourselves and focusing on our priorities, instead of focusing on our material goals. To thine own self be true.

Adoveling,

KFitt