Rush Rush Rush

I have to move back into The House in a few days, which is difficult enough in itself, but now I'm being swamped with Rush planning. Luckily, since The Social Chair and I hold the most clout on The Rush Board besides The Rush Chair herself, we redistribute our long to do lists to the younger girls. We plan, they execute.

Most reputable houses hold a rush camp before rush to talk about how to recruit new members. Generally, the youngest pledge classes have to actually take part in rush camp. If you've been in The House a while and you aren't socially incompetent, we let you just spend the time moving in and decorating your room because it's inefficient to make you sit through Rush Camp four times over just because the newest members haven't gone through it before. It works out well... each member of The Rush Board is in charge of basically teaching one day of camp so we still have four days to ourselves. My day focuses around fashion and hair, which is by far the easiest day to handle... especially most people have already finished their clothing purchases for Rush.

The Social Chair has one of the suckier days. She's great at socializing... so she's been pegged with How To Talk To Rushees and Make Them Want To Join as well as its counterpart, How To Unrecruit A Rushee Who Will Not Fit In With The Rest of The House. It's a fine balance since while we are a pretty Greek campus, we're definitely not as Greek as say... The State School and we are definitely more of an academic/research oriented campus.... which means we do get a higher percentage of Awkwards who decide suddenly that they don't want to be awkward anymore and try to escape their awkwardness by joining a sorority. And since it's partially a numbers game, Awkwards do manage to get in sometimes... which means we have to do our best to recruit the girls we like and unrecruit the girls we don't.

It's irritating that The House has our own collection of Awkwards. Mostly because they don't understand this concept of unrecruiting. Unrecruiting is just as important as recruiting, even more so to some degree since we don't want our rep to be flushed down the toilet. I certainly don't want to be associated with The Girls Who Eat Their Feelings House.

It's the middle of summer. Why are people having "crises" about rush ALREADY?

I woke up this morning to find about 20 messages (voice/text/email) on my phone from assorted members of The House in various states of panic about recruitment. And I've yet to figure out why.

Yes, rush is important. It is the time where we fish out the girls who will be our successors from the girls who don't care about life enough to slick on some deodorant in the morning. But, we're not anywhere near it right now and The House does well every year. This year will not be any different, especially since The Rush Board has already put together a plan of action about our events and how we expect everyone to conduct themselves.

Miss Socially Awkward (who has always been a little slow in terms of fashion) sent me an email about not being able to find a white dress. What the hell? First of all... nobody said she needed a white dress for rush. To wear a white dress is actually a little stupid for rush, considering it's crowded and someone could have an accident with a glass of The House's Red Raspberry Cordial and your white dress would now have a giant red splotch on it. Unlike some houses (like The Dancers and Barbie's Dream House), The House doesn't believe in having assigned "colors" for each day. Honestly, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I remember when I went through rush and saw every single girl in Barbie's Dream House wearing black, grey, and red. They were like clones... which ironically is precisely what their personalities are like...

No, we prefer style over color uniformity. We instead choose a theme for the day and you must wear clothing appropriate to that theme. You may wear whatever colors you choose as long as they're flattering and fit the theme. And you can't wear colors that will clash with your Rush Team.

We sometimes hit snags with The Socially Awkward, who apparently have never seen a copy of Vogue, Seventeen, Lucky, or InStyle. Ever. But that's why we assign them to shopping buddies who must make time during the summer to go on a shopping trip with them.

In any case, I spent all morning calling these people back and approving the photos of their prospective outfits that they emailed me. I've rather envious of Little Sis #2's pumps... she got a brand new pair of Manolo Blahniks for her birthday. They're gorgeous and will fit right into three nights of Rush: Business Casual, Catwalk, and Formal.

The Sorority Prodigy came in about halfway through my replying to all these messages. She has impeccable taste, no doubt inherited from her mother. She walked in right when I was calling The Miser back. This girl drives me crazy. She constantly bitches about how expensive clothes are... because she only buys expensive clothes. I hate how hypocritically annoying she is. I swear you open her closet and it's all designer labels. She's also apparently never heard of a sales rack. She should really learn to hang out with The Bargain Hunter. That girl finds more discounts and sales than anyone else I know. Give her a set dollar amount that would seem impossible to outfit oneself for a given occasion, and she'll do it. It's amazing the rush you get when you find bargains.

The only legitimate call I got was from another member of The Rush Board, who was struggling to find a new printer for our sign that hangs outside of The House during Rush Week since the old printer went out of business and this is time sensitive since we have to get them the design and whatnot so they can print it and get it back to us by Rush.

I love being on The Rush Board

I love that I have power. Too bad I don't have ultimate power... or else I would have Miss Socially Awkward deported. Or force her to take elocution classes on how to be a normal person.

BUT the good news is that in all of her efforts in taking me to The Judicial Committee and The Student Affairs Court... is that I reversed that shit on her!!! Unsisterly behavior and an attempt to PREVENT someone from going through Formal Rush... nobody's actually ever tried that one before so now Miss Socially Awkward is on the docket for J-Comm's final meeting on two charges. I almost wish we had shitty rooms in this house like at The House's chapter at the state school to the south so that The J-Comm could knock her out of a good room and stick her in a broom closet. That would be a great punishment. One minor flaw in having all good rooms.

Oh well... minor payback for her stupid act. She'll still get punished somehow if I have any say in the matter. And I do. I love that. I'm an incredibly nice and sweet person... unless you cross me. Then watch the fuck out.

On top of that we have to formulate the budget for Rush and that's going to be fun. I hope we don't get our budget cut... last semester we had $600 a night for Rush and it better stay that way or go up... given the things we want to do.