Fraternity Life - Part One

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to be part of a group of IIT students from the Greek community to go to St Louis for the annual AFLV conference. The Association of Fraternal Leadership and Values gathers hundreds of students from all across the country every year to discuss, entertain, and educate fraternity men and sorority women about what it means to be Greek, and how best to approach different aspects of Greek life, whether it be recruitment, perceptions of Greek life, and even stress management.

But before I get into all of that, I should maybe talk about how I got into Greek life in the first place.

Back when I was a young naive freshman, I had the same idea of fraternity life as anyone else graduating from high school did. Specifically, the idea of the "Animal House" fraternity. Or the "Old School" fraternity. Or any of the countless other fraternities or sororities portrayed on television or in the movies. Growing up with these ideas of what a "frat" should be, I knew I wanted to stay as far away from fraternities as I possibly could. The drinking! The shenanigans! The illegal recreation! The horror! It was the last thing I wanted to be a part of.

Don't lie. You know this is who you think of when you think "fraternity."

Of course, that doesn't stop everyone from joining, and our Greek community is fairly large. And I had no idea why. If that was what fraternities were about, why were so many people joining?

Well, I pushed it out of my mind for a long time, and it wasn't until the second semester of my second year where things started to change. After my year in the Architecture program, I made a lot of architecture friends, and even after I became a "traitor" and moved to the ArchE department I kept many of those. One of them was my roommate, Adam. We were both normal guys, and I really didn't think he would be one of "those guys" to join a fraternity. Well, that semester he had started hanging out somewhere and wouldn't come back to our room until later than usual, and being me, I didn't bother to ask where he was spending his time. He was an Archie, and I chalked it up to him being busy with projects and whatnot.

One day I was feeling a bit down-and-out for whatever reason and I decided to make some dinner (one of those tiny mac & cheese in a cup things) and curl up with a nice feel-good movie, The Shining (I don't know what I was thinking either). "All by yourself watching a horror movie? Wow, Tony, that is sad," I hear you say. And yes. Yes it is. But let's get beyond that, shall we? Let's.

So I was just about to get to the good part of the movie where things really heat up, when my door opens and the lights flick on. There were Adam and our friend Eric, just back from dinner.

"Wanna come to Huck's with us, Tony?" one of them said.

"Huh?" was my reply.

Huck Finn's is a 24-hr breakfast joint outside of downtown Chicago, and considering I had nothing better to do (finishing my movie couldn't hold a candle to real food), I figured I would agree and join the two of them. They just had to make a pit-stop back at the house to drop off Eric's stuff.

The house? I thought. What is he talking about? I'm hungry.


So I grabbed my jacket and we head out.

To the Quad.

Uh-oh.

Frightening, isn't it?

The Quad is where all of the Greek houses are located on campus. And we were heading straight for it. I was a bit uneasy. Were we going to a "frat?" I didn't realize until then that Eric was a member of a fraternity, and we were stopping by the chapter house to pick up a couple more guys before we left.

So we get there, and the first thing I notice was that everyone was sober. No one was running around half-naked. No one was lying on the couch in a drunken stupor. In fact, the only people I saw were a couple guys playing pool one room over. And they looked normal. I was understandably confused.

In the process of waiting, I ended up shaking hands with almost half of the house as they were coming back from whatever it was they were out doing. It was a strange experience for me. Eric's two "brothers" made it back to the house, and we all piled into a car and set out for Huck's.

I have never seen this place in daylight. Eating there between 6am-9pm is just wrong.

Now I am not going to go into details, mostly because by now this story is already getting pretty boring (don't lie to me, you know it's true--if you made it this far, isn't there something more important you could be doing?), but the important thing to note here is that I had a really good time. Sometimes there is just that moment where you realize that you are having too much fun to care that just ten minutes ago you were worried that these "frat bros" were going to go crazy and/or get a bit weird. It was an incredibly mellow trip to the diner, and I had more than my share of laughs.

Got back to the chapter house, and I went home without a second thought. They might have been fun, but I wasn't going to be coming back any time soon. And I had to finish that movie.

Next day. Afternoon. Dorm room. I was working on homework like a good little college student, and Adam comes into the room with a (somewhat exaggerated) confused look on his face.

"So, uh, Tony." He said, smiling. "You....have a bid?" He handed me a folded up piece of paper he produced from his pocket.

"What does that mean?"

"You got in."

"...To what?"

"The fraternity."

"...What?"

What?

What's this? Our second-semester student sucked slyly into some seemingly sinister situation? Set to stew in the soup of social uncertainty? Find out next week! Same bat-time! Same bat-channel!

Song of the Day:
Andrew Bird - Eyeoneye

Almost-But-Not-Quite Spring Break

One week left until Spring Break. And while I am understandably exhausted from the first half of the semester, I can't say I am as desperate to go on break as I have been in the past.

This semester is only fifteen credit hours, and one of them happens to be a lower-level sociology course, so all in all my schedule is fairly light. Not that I am complaining--far from it. It was wonderful to have a semester where I could have time for extracurriculars and friends. It was great to give myself a greater opportunity to raise my GPA. I just wish I could have done more.

But being the in-the-moment guy I am, I am extremely happy to already be done with my midterms. I know most of my friends are still struggling through midterms and still will be slogging though the academic heckscape next week. I on the other hand, have been finished with midterm exams for almost two weeks now. I am extremely lucky. That means I can devote some more of my time to my organizations and my fraternity.

Initiation for our fraternity is this weekend, so there is preparation work that needs to be done for that. We are getting things ready even now so the big day can go without a hitch. Saturday will be especially busy because in the morning I have the pleasure of working a Saturday Visit down at the office. For those of you who aren't aware, several times during the semester the Undergrad Admissions office is open on Saturday for students who can't make it to campus during the week. I will be giving a tour and there will be a presentation on academics and student life.

Also that day I have errands to run and then initiation which takes the better part of the evening. And then after that, I get to go to a concert at 10pm. So a ridiculously busy day to be sure, but any day that caps off with a Jake Shimabukuro concert is a day worth having. Jake is one of the world's best ukulele players, and I am ecstatic I was able to nab tickets to the almost-sold-out show.

Bottom line: really busy week and weekend, but in all honesty, I wouldn't have it any other way. Bring it on, weekend! I am ready!

Song of the Day

Jake Shimabukuro - Third Stream