Ohhhh We’re Halfway There
As seems perpetual, I got so busy the last month or so of school that I haven’t updated my blog since March! I am so sorry, y’all. So this is the first in a series of blog posts about the end of my semester!
Soooo—travel all the way back to Wednesday, March 28th, two days after my last blog post (and almost forever ago, it seems now). My friend Ellie had a birthday party at a local Mexican restaurant, so after our Pi Phi chapter meeting that night (like other Yale sororities and fraternities, we have chapter every Wednesday night), a bunch of us walked over to Viva’s for Ellie’s birthday celebration!
I was working on starting on my final paper for my American Political Institutions class. I wrote about state campaign finance laws, specifically about the differences in campaign finance regulations between Mississippi and Tennessee and the impact of those regulations in the two states. So that week, I met with tons of librarians as well. At Yale, each student has a personal librarian, so I started with my personal librarian, who helped a bit and then directed me to other librarians. After that, I met with a law librarian as well as a political science librarian. That’s one of the beautiful things about Yale–you’re not going it alone. There are so many people–from librarians to professors to deans to anything you can imagine–who are just dying to help you in anyway they can.
Saturday night, Pi Phi had a mixer with the rugby team, after which a bunch of us went to SigEp. As always, it was a good time.
Sunday night, my friend Lydia and I went to dinner at Miya’s, a “sustainable” sushi restaurant in New Haven, where I realized I had lost my debit card!!! Thankfully, a call to Mory’s revealed that I had left it there and they had it for me (thank goodness!), but because of the confusion, I was late to a meeting I had.
I served on the Yale College Council’s elections committee this year, and that night we had a potential candidates’ meeting. On elections committee, we basically oversaw the elections and ensured that the rules were being followed. It was quite the experience–especially when a long-neglected rule in the constitution necessitated a last-minute run-off election for YCC President.
The following Friday, my friend Marissa and I went to see Cabaret, which was directed by one of our friends Ethan (a Calhoun sophomore like us) and had several Pi Phis and Hounies in the cast and crew. The show actually sold out before the ticket sales went public, so in order to see it, Marissa and I volunteered to be ushers for the show.
Let me just tell y’all–this production of Cabaret was amazing. I had seen Cabaret before in Mississippi, but this production took it to a whole nother level, confronting head-on the issues of concentration camps and the horrors of Nazi Germany that often just stay in the background of the play. It was definitely a beautiful piece of theatre.
Pi Phi had a mixer that night after the show, but I ended up going back to my room and going to sleep–I was tired after a long week of working on my American Political Institutions paper and still thinking about the complex issues raised in the play, so I didn’t really feel like going anywhere.
The next day was Easter, and the Easter Bunny came to visit us: we awoke to Calhoun courtyard filled with Easter eggs! Lydia and I went to church at Trinity Baptist, where they had a very lovely Easter service. That evening, the debate for YCC elections was held, and I served as timekeeper during the very long event.
The Wednesday following Easter, Pi Phi had a mixer with SigEp to welcome our pledge class into Pi Phi (their formal initiation was that weekend). Marissa, although she is a Calhoun sophomore, is actually in our pledge class! Every semester, the Yale College Council sponsors a “Foam Party”, which everyone always talks about but to which I had never been. After we’d been at the mixer for a little while, Marissa convinced me to go to the Foam Party. It wasn’t quite as overwhelming as people had said it would be (there wasn’t as much foam as I though there would be due to some people’s overreactions), but I still don’t think I’d go again. I guess it’s one of those things you have to do once during your time at Yale, though, so I can cross that off my Yale bucket list.
Friday, I attended a seminar with Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, which was sponsored by the Buckley Program. Kristol’s father, Irving Kristol, was one of the original founders of the neo-conservative movement, and though I definitely do not identify as a neoconservative, it was incredibly interesting to get to speak with him about conservatism for several hours in a seminar environment. With regards to neoconservatism, Kristol shared with us one of his father’s most famous quotations, which described what neoconservatism is, one which I found incredibly witty and apt.
Neoconservatives are liberals who’ve been mugged by reality.
That afternoon, Audrey, the president of Pi Phi, and I went shopping to buy all the things we needed for formal initiation for our new pledge class. We bought tons of carnations and ribbon and straight pins and everything imaginable. That night, we had the Pin Return Ceremony and Preparatory Service at the Pi Phi House for our new pledge class. They returned their pledge pins as a symbol of their no longer being pledges.
Saturday night, several of my friends hosted a Titanic-themed party in memory of the anniversary of the vessel’s sinking.
Pi Phi’s formal imitation ceremony took place on Sunday and was a resounding success. I was in charge of formal imitation in my position as Vice President of Fraternity Development, and I could not have been prouder of how beautiful our baby angels looked as we welcomed them officially into Pi Phi.
The next week was the last week of classes!!!
Wednesday night was the Pi Phi babies first chapter meeting, so we had a cake and did super formal chapter to welcome them! I have been coordinating formal chapter and ritual in my position as VPFD. I intended to go back and go to sleep, but my friend Cathy convinced me to go to a philanthropy fundraiser for Circle of Women, an organization that raises money to educate girls in third-world countries, that was co-sponsored by SigEp. My friend Candice came with us too, and it was a great way to de-stress and have a little fun in the midst of the stress of the last week of classes.
Thursday night, we had a special Breakfast-for-Dinner dinner in Calhoun dining hall, which Marissa and I organized as Calhoun’s Student Activities Committee Co-Chairs. After dinner, the Tory Party held its inductions, at which we welcomed four new members into the Party.
Friday was Yale’s Relay for Life, at which Pi Phi won the Greek Cup for the fourth year in a row, thanks to the tireless efforts of our Vice President of Philanthropy, Casey (who is living with me in the Pi Phi house next year!). Pi Phi had a huge tent and cookies and it was great to bond with our recently initiated members.
Saturday was HounFest, the annual Calhoun outdoor end-of-the-year party. As co-chairs of the Calhoun SAC, Marissa and I planned the event. We got up early to make chocolate-covered strawberries for staff appreciation and made an all-country-music playlist for the event. We had been worried about the weather, but it was absolutely lovely! The dining hall came out into the courtyard for lunch (the usual fare of hamburgers, hotdogs, and chicken wings augmented by cotton candy, snow cones, and watermelon), and everyone had tons of fun with the inflatables and dunk tank. The man from the inflatables company told me that of all the college’s end-of-the-year parties he’d supplied, ours was the best (but we already knew that since Calhoun is Yale’s best college anyway).
That afternoon, my friend Cathy and I went to get a manicure and pedicure together, the perfect way for me to de-stress after the event was over.
Sunday afternoon were Tory Party elections, followed by the last Pi Phi Executive Board meeting with our Alumni Advisory Committee of the year.
Monday night was Pi Phi formal, and my friend Natalia (who’s in Pi Phi) hadn’t met the point requirement to be eligible to go to formal, so I took her as my date! It was great fun, and afterward a bunch of us got a Yale minibus to come pick us up and drive us to a party at DKE. I hadn’t been able to go to Pi Phi formal last semester because of a conflicting commitment, so this one was doubly as great. We also had it at a new venue, which was much larger and much more convenient!
Tuesday was Spring Fling, Yale’s annual big concert on Old Campus. The weather was a tad cold, so I canceled my plans to wear a sundress and wore jeans, rain boots, and one of the Spring Fling tanks Pi Phi had ordered (which said “Who needs Red Bull when Pi Phi gives you wings?” in reference to Pi Phi’s mascot the angel) instead. After heading to a local bagel place for breakfast, we headed over to Pi Phi’s Spring Fling party on the rooftop deck at SigEp. The concert started later that day, as Passion Pit, T-Pain, and the DJ 3LAU performed in the Spring Fling concert.
Wednesday morning, I had my Spanish oral exam. I hate speaking Spanish so much (my teacher doesn’t quite understand why I speak Spanish so differently than the rest of my classmates since she cannot tell that I have a Southern accent when I speak English), and I was so glad to be finally done with speaking Spanish–well at least until next semester.
Thursday I had a pre-departure meeting for study abroad. I am going to be at Cambridge for 8 weeks, and several friends from Yale will be at Yale or elsewhere in the UK or Europe this summer, so I’m really excited about that.
Saturday, I organized Pi Phi’s Founders’ Day Tea that afternoon, and then that night the Tory Party held its Senior Dinner to say goodbye to our senior members, followed by the annual end-of-the-year ARFS party (an acronym whose meaning is purposefully ambiguous to non-members).
Thus, reading week ended, and finals period began. I had Spanish and Intermediate micro on Tuesday, May 1st (my daddy’s birthday!), and then my last final (dilemmas of the nuclear age) was on the following Monday. After my final, my parents arrived in town to help me move things into the Pi Phi house, where I will be living next year!
I’m halfway there–halfway to the terrifying end of college! I know it’s cliche to say, but I honestly cannot understand how quickly the time has gone.
- Bright College years, with pleasure rife,
- The shortest, gladdest years of life;
- How swiftly are ye gliding by!
- Oh, why doth time so quickly fly?
Watch out for coming blog posts about a Master’s Tea held with Calhoun’s Master who has been on sabbatical writing a book this year, about some end-of-year musings, and about our great American family road trip from Connecticut back to Mississippi.
Toodles, y’all! Missing Yale already!
Southern Belle at Yale
