How's about you, me and a crescent moooooon? Day 3 in the life of Katelyn A. Rapoza.

Hi Everyone.

So day three! there were A LOT of exciting things about today!

First things first, we got up after a fun & exciting night with bananagrams at about 7 oclock. we got ready in our best dressed chapter attire and all headed downstairs for starbucks, yum. Grande Java Chip Frappacino for me with a croissant. Then we headed over to the Greek Boutique, where I just got a simple blue tshirt with letters on the front and Gamma Phi Beta written out on the back. 20 bucks! and then I made my own key chain! maybe for a little, maybe just for me. =)

After our purchases we headed to the ballroom for our key note speaker. Josh Orendi, he talks about recruitment. SO GOOD. he really got us PHIred up! Just like his poster says ;) He was just extremely insightful and made us realize some really important points, one of his quotes really shocked lexi and I, we even gasped at one another; "You can't recruit people you don't know." SO true! we need to spend more time focusing on becoming friends with people then recruiting them. His quote that really "spoke" to me was "Greek life is the Fillet Mignon of Student Organizations." I think this is so trueeeee. In addition to PC of course. ;)

After Josh Orendi I headed to my first Ed Session. It was called Incentive-Based Approaches to better your chapter. Some of the issues all of our chapters touched upon was attendance, lack of motivation, low GPAs, and people not paying their dues. Some of the solutions was to implement a point system in the organizations. Gamma Phi already has the point system but maybe we could be more consistent when letting people know that they missed points for the month? just a suggestion. Also, maybe cutting out a big refrigerator and putting it on Maribeth's door and when us fabulous greeks get good grades, we'll post it on the fridge for everyone to see. I think it will really encourage people to try and get great grades! Also in this session I came up with the idea, after hearing what some other girls do, to implement granny dates for the seniors in our organizations. We'll be able to connect with them as sisters and make them feel like they are still needed in our organizations, because they most definitely are. (= This session was good, but I feel as though the facilitators didn't really talk, they just gave us ideas that were obvious, but we all ended up with good ideas by talking to one another.

Then it ws lunch time! definitely the best time. We had sandwiches, cookies, and soup that I did not like. We ate lunch with Sandy which was delightful. There were also little mini sodas that reminded me of NACA, love ittttt.

After lunch we went to a lecture, showcase, ed session thing with Jessica Pettitt. Her lecture that she does is called "Elephants and Onions" haha. SO EFFING FUNNY. She reminded Lexi and I of Chrissy so bad. She talks about Social Justice and how it's basically just talking about yourself, maybe I should switch my major because god know I looooooooove to talk about myself. She talked about how to make yourself a better person by: tracking, knowing your triggers and listening. Jessica said that you know all your friends triggers usually better than you know your own, which is really interesting and true. One of her quotes that made me laugh was "It's so much easier pointing out how someone else can be better and what they can improve but you can't figure it out about yourself. She also opened us up to a whole new vocab, "GP"- good point, using this all the time. ahaha. My favorite quote of her session was "I am a hot mess, and it's a full time job keeping my shit in order." Favorite quote of the day and possible of the conference. SO true.

The next session I went to was one called "Ethical Leadership: Challenges for Today's Members." This session was really confusing and didn't really teach me anything. I'm not quite sure if I didn't understand the description of the session, the content or maybe the presenters just weren't good at presenting. Whatever it was, it didn't appeal to me or teach me anything, I was lost and confused. I was nemo and I just wanted to go home, well...anywhere out of that room.

After that Ed Session was another one! I went to "6 steps for your Chapter's Enema." It was really informative and made a lot of sense. After leaving it I felt as though I could take on all of my chapter's problems, which I know I can't but it gave me the inspiration to do so. I think it'd be reallllly beneficial if we could bring David to Bridgewater, maybe Panhel and IFC could co-sponsor?

After that ed sesssion we had a closing session with Mike Hartley, it was kinda weird but I feel as though I was being yelled at by my vice principal. I can understand that it was frustrating with what happened with certain boys in the elevators, but it felt very downing listening to him. After that we went back to the room and got ready for the Banquet!

As always the bears were the first ones there. We had a nice little photo shoot before we went it. We also watched this cool, stepping, fraternity call. It was AWESOME. I wish we had one! We were let in an enjoyed a fabulous dinner, including cheesecake, SO good. We also watched the awards be given out. A gamma phi won one, toot toot. ;) After the dinner we watched this very cheesy magician/comedian, he ate a marshmallow off a machete. so bizarre. Then when he was done entertaining the crowd of 4 we left an began our photoshoot. Including the many dimensions to Maribeth's counseling career. after we finished our fabulous pictures(including the banister/arm picture.) So precious. I have been working on this blog for about 2 hours now. I will reflect on the remainder of the weekend tomorrow night, in addition to adding pictures.

peace, love & greek life forever!
-Katelyn