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.