"Here have this tissue. BUT YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU!"

The adventures of the day began by being woken up by my lovely roommates and Nick. I had set my alarm for 7:15 (so early) and had woken up a few minutes before my alarm so I was just chilling until Nick knocked on our door and Amanda warned me that she was going to turn the light on in the room to get me up, and it barely did anything so Nick took it upon himself to open the shade and let the light from outside shine through the window and completely wake me up. Now for those of you who have not had the pleasure of experiencing Sadie before a coffee, she is not her happy and typical self, so needless to say this was not a very lovely experiencing. Me and Kristen then decided that we would venture down to Starbucks but we missed the memo about wearing our pin attire so we showed up in our unmatching pajamas and shoes and looked quiete interesting. We thought that this was typical for us and could not help but laugh at the situation.

After we got dressed we headed down to the opening ceremony where David Spollman was the key note speaker. I honestly could relate to him so much, because he emphasized the point that we are always in our letters and this importance of this idea. This idea is very important to me and no matter where I am, what I am doing, and who I am surrounded by I always remember this. I pride myself on the idea that I always are representing my letters, my sisters, my organizations, my values, and my ritual. I think that this is an idea that is often forgotten and needs to be reinforced. The speaker made several comments that stuck out to me such as "We're all about the same thing" and "If you can't have a social life without dragging your letters through the mud, then you can't have a social life." Both of these quotes stood out to me because I truly believe that even though we all wear different letters across our chests, we all are promising ourselves to something to bigger than us, and a bigger meaning, and I believe that if you can't be a proper represenation of your letters while trying to have a social life, then you need to take a step back and realize where your priorities are. I truly believe that everyone is allowed to have fun and a social life, but not at the expense of their letters, and their chapters. Everyone needs to be more aware of what they are representing, and that once they decide to join a Greek organization, they are part of something greater than themselves, and need to always remember this.

Next, we attended our small group sessions. This was interesting because we were given the oppurtunity to reflect on ourselves, our dreams, our chapters, and our Greek community. I was really intrigued to see that although we may have our issues at BSU they are not as bad as they could be, and I enjoyed seeing Greeks come together to help each other out and reflect on their own struggles. I also really enjoyed this because our facilitator was Kristen, a sister of Delta Phi Epsilon who came to BSU this semester to work with my chapter. It was also awesome to talk more on an individual level with Greeks about how things at their schools run.

I found that all three of the sessions I attended were a bit similar. The three that I attended were "The Persuasive Greek Leader", "Crucial Conversations", and "What is Your Fraternal Truth". In an essence all three got me to think about what kind of Greek I wanted to be and most importantly what kind of leader. In my first session, "The Persuasive Greek Leader", we were taught different types of language and hand gestures that help us be more persuasuve and help us get our point across, and gain the support from others that is crucial to being a Greek leader. The other two sessions I attended talked about how the difficult conversations that we are forced to have in a Greek organization and in real life, and the third showed us how important it is to demonstrate the positives of being a Greek and that if we don't get rid of the negative images, then noone will. We can not expect change if we do not do anything about it, and we need to not be afraid to be the ones to bring change. I am so glad that I chose to attend these sessions because I feel as though I have the potential to be a good leader in the Greek community, but I know that I have a lot of room for improvement.

This brings me to my next point. Throughout this whole weekend I have been trying to figure out how I want to continue with leadership next year. I am not sure about what new positions I want to run for as of now, but I know that I want to continue with my involvement. I am open to any suggestions/advice :)

The rest of the evening was chill and good bonding time with my fellow bears. Before we headed off to dinner Amanda and Erin had to borrow a pair of my jeans (if that doesn't say Greek bonding, then I don't know what does). We then all took public transportation to a local restaraunt where we reflected on our sessions and our days. We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our jammy party. Before the rest of the crew came to our room me and Kristen had a life chat and decided to order ice cream. Too bad the ice cream took half an hour, we forgot there is food tax in CT, and we didn't have enough money ready for the deliverer when he came to our room, so we had to search through the hallway in pajamas to give him two dollars. We then played catch phrase and just hungout and had snacks. It was a great way to end a very long day.

I am going to end with a shout-out to Kristen with some fun facts about myself because she wants me to so I love the summer, am a sister of Delta Phi Epislon, am the Assistant Director of Programming for Panhellenic, and am about to fall asleep so I'm done blogging for tonight.

Thanks for reading and #BearsRoundup,
Sadie