Rush is the first and most important week in a young lady’s college career. Preparation for a rushee begins months in advance: it takes some serious string-pulling to somehow get a letter of reference from an alumna in every sorority she is considering, not to mention some big bucks dropped on sundresses at Neiman’s. During rush week, the rushee bounces from house to house wearing her Manolos, pearls and acrylic nails; she is welcomed warmly at the door with glistening white smiles and polite handshakes and spends the afternoon bonding with her potential new sisters over sweet tea and cucumber sandwiches. Meanwhile, her mom sits by the phone praying that when it rings, she won’t be faced with the challenge of consoling a heartbroken daughter crying about being cut from the preppy sorority she wanted. Or the pretty sorority. Or all the sororities. But if all goes well, at the end of the week, Ms. Rushee will be handed an envelope containing a sorority bid card that determines quality of her social life for the next 4 years…

…haha, except NOT SO MUCH. Maybe that’s what sorority recruitment would be like if I went to school in the South? If you’re interested in what Greek life is like down there, please by all means go read the book Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities. But here at Cornell, things work a little differently:

*The above is an actual image from Kappa Delta’s skit round (you can see rushees chillin on the floor).

So first of all, rush is done in the Spring here. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that the only thing more terrifying than moving your 18-year-old self across the country to start a new life would probably be having to go through sorority rush as soon as you arrived… and then adjusting to the rigor of Ivy League Academics while going through the pledge process. January rush was a good call, Cornell. The weather sucks in the Spring, but I’d rather have frozen snot than experience the nightmare of rushing in the fall.

Alright, so there are 12 Panhellenic sororities at Cornell. To make things fair, the rush process is pretty strictly regulated and every single girl is required to go to every single one of the 12 houses during the first two days. Skip a house and you get kicked out of the recruitment process. I know this sounds a little extreme, but trust me on this: I knew nothing about any sorority and seeing all 12 houses gave me a really clear idea of where I fit. My mom always told me to shop around before making a big purchase; you know it’s the worst when you buy a $150 bag at Saks only to see that your best friend got the exact same bag for $100 at Nordstrom.

(Read the rest of this story.)

….yes.

So…tragedy. I was able to get into the Handguns PE course that I wanted, but the only section I could get into conflicts with a required class I have. Bummer! That would have been pretty badass, right? “Yeah, I can’t hang out this afternoon, I have to go to the shooting range. Sorry dude.”

I’m taking bowling with one of my friends instead. I could have taken something that involves actual physical activity… but “running” ranks right up there with “reading/watching Harry Potter” on the List of Things I Refuse to Do. [Ok, I did see one Harry Potter movie, but it was for someone's birthday and my friends did everything but hold a gun to my head to make me sit in the theater. I mean, they probably would have held a gun to my head, but they couldn't BECAUSE THEY PROBABLY COULDN'T GET INTO THE HANDGUNS PE CLASS BECAUSE ALL THE SECTIONS WERE FULL. I digress.]

OH! I’m also doing an independent study this semester. It’s going to be pretty sweet– I don’t have an incredibly focused topic yet, but I’ll be studying under one of the communications professors at the Hotel School. The topic? Ok, get ready: I’ll be researching the rise/impact of blogging in the hospitality industry. Yeah, I know.

I have always complained about the fact that the only publications that circulate in the Hotel School are written by faculty members or by the Career Services Office. Nothing fun, really. After some research, I found out recently that there used to be a hotelie student publication called The Innkeeper. It died in the mid-90’s (leggings survived and the hotelie newspaper didn’t? Why God? Why?) and instead of whining about it until graduation… well, why not restart it? So I’m going to. Stay tuned for updates there. Rest assured: I am DEFINITELY changing the creepy name. Although I am all about being progressive, I was told I can’t put Page Six blind items in there and I guess it makes sense. The stuff would be pretty boring anyway: “which Californian brunette stole two cookies from someone else’s oven during culinary lab and served them on the demo table as her own?” Not even Perez Hilton would get excited about that. And Perez Hilton gets excited about things like the new wrinkles on Jennifer Aniston’s face.

Alright, that’s it. I promise to post a juicy, juicy entry about last week’s sorority recruitment experience soon.

Read this column.

And then go vote for Julia Levy, she’s awesome.

Tonight my housemate and I decided to go all Nancy Drew on the foul smell that has been terrorizing the kitchen. Normally we aren’t opposed to living in squalor, but since said stench has started to creep into the living room and disturb our otherwise blissful enjoyment of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, we investigated. Well, it turns out that the odor (which I would describe as a harmonious mix of ham, Easy Mac cheese powder, and feet) led us to a very special gift that our house had been hiding for us. Behold the treasure we unearthed in the back of our fridge:

Oh. My. God.
So….your guess is as good as mine here. The previous tenants did not clean out the fridge before moving out, and, well, my roommates and I are the same 6 people who once erected and lovingly cared for a 5-foot-plus tower of pizza boxes… so needless to say, there really is no telling how long this has been around. In fact, this may very well have been a slice of pizza at one point in its life.

So I did what any logical person would do: I pried it out of the tupperware container, approached that window I keep talking about that the landlord refuses to replace, and presented Ithaca, New York with a token of my undying love and affection. Thank you, fine city of Ithaca, for the torturous winters, thank you for the Christmas card you sent to my Texas home address containing 2 overdue parking tickets, and thank you for the wonderous spiritually uplifting shopping experience that is Pyramid Mall. I picked this out just for you.

I am dying to answer the questions I got about sorority recruitment (coming up next week woohoo). Unfortunately, I need to hold off on my exhaustive account of what exactly is involved in “rush week” because all panhellenic sorority women– which includes me, Jen, and Nikki– are doing something called “strict silence” right now. In other words, if you’re interested in rushing next week or next year, I can’t say anything to you except this: all the houses are great but choose the house that’s right for you, and go easy on the hot chocolate the sisters give you. “Nice to meet you, don’t introduce me to anyone else I have to go pee now”… kind of awkward.

My advice is to be yourself (seriously, don’t misrepresent yourself to fit into a house; all the houses are really different and cool in their own way so chillax), keep a totally open mind and, most importantly, pick a house that you’re comfortable in. Just like picking a college or a husband (haha), when it’s right, you just kind of…know. And don’t pick a house just cause your friends like it! Really– look at my 3 best girlfriends (Danielle, Brett, and Ashley) from freshman year: I ended up in one house, Danielle ended up in another, and Brett and Ashley chose not to go Greek at all. Guess what? We’re still best friends and we’re all living together next year. Do what’s right for you.

PS when I rushed two years ago, it was literally so cold that on the day we were supposed to wear formal dresses to all the houses that we all got phone calls at 7:30 am… our recruitment counselors telling us to PLEASE wear pants because it was so unreasonably cold that we could probably die. Nothing but love for Ithaca.

This week, I am essentially a full-time Information Specialist (ok, Senior Information Specialist if you want to get technical. Yes yes kind of a big deal) and will be spending my days raking in the dollars and my evenings doing very little since nobody is back on campus yet. Bouncing around the other 5 Life on the Hill blogs, I noticed everyone gets these really cool questions from prospective students. I’m kind of starting to think that my audience is like, my mom and dad. Questions? Anyone? Really?

Ask away cause I sort of want to be helpful and Cornell doesn’t pay me to write things like the kick ass account of my wisdom tooth extraction that you just read.

**for answers, see the “Mail Bag” page.

Guess what? I’m going back to Ithaca tomorrow. I’m sure my excitement is radiating from the computer screen and warming your heart as you read this. Texas is lovely, my friends are the best, and the sightseeing has been fantastic (fur coats in 50 degree weather are a nice treat), but it’s time for me to make my triumphant return to New York. Classes don’t actually start for another two weeks, but I need to get back to work giving tours to replenish my sad little bank account and then embark on the spiritual journey that is sorority recruitment next week.

It has been a fairly uneventful break and I spent the majority of the last few days sleeping since I got my wisdom pulled Wednesday. I had a tough act to follow; my older brother saw the same doctor a couple years ago and, post-surgery, made quite a scene when he reached into his mouth and painted pretty designs on his face with his own blood. Hot mess, maybe? I was quite the hot mess myself though– I came out of the surgery babbling on and on about alligators (?) and drooled yummy delicious blood all over my pillows for the rest of the day. I was especially lucky because my buddy Brendan from school had the same surgery on the same day, so some supportive and fairly creative text messages (thank you drugs!) were exchanged. Looking back at my phone, I seem to have mentioned alligators to him, too, and even offered to trade him an alligator for a copy of The Devil Wears Prada. So anyway, I’m for sure starting off 2007 looking like a chubby bunny, but at least I have a chubby bunny friend.

Speaking of the new year, I guess it would be expected for me to write about my resolutions:

1. Ok, nobody alert the tabloids or anything, but it seems grad school has suddenly become a possibility (the what/where/why is another story for another day, kiddies). Now I’m not going into detail, but let’s just say this: I was 150% certain that I would never, ever go to grad school. Ever. I was going to get my degree and not beat myself up too much over the difference between an A- and a B+ (ok I’ll be honest, more like B- and C+… Cornell is hard don’t judge me). When my pre-med friends would get all worked up over their GPA’s in semesters past, I would just giggle a little bit and say something ridiculously obnoxious like, “C’s get degrees!” Horrible, I know, but I will be doing a whole lot of making up for that this year. So, number one, get good grades. But really.
2. Try to pay my bills on time….even though our landlord has yet to fix the missing window in our laundry room. Said missing window has actually become a VIP entrance for squirrels and other unidentified creatures, and these new friends of ours have grown particularly fond of running circles in our washing machine and, apparently, are enjoying the sweet life in our kitchen cabinets. Let me tell you, the fear of a creature jumping out at you if you go near any of the food in your kitchen is probably the best diet I’ve ever been on…. but I digress.
3. And I’ll try to get off of Facebook.
4. And I’ll try to stop skipping Sunday evening chapter meetings at the sorority.
5. And I’ll try to overcome my disdain for libraries.
6. And I’ll try to spend fewer school nights in the living room with my roommates drinking wine, eating pizza, and watching America’s Next Top Model.

Ok let’s be real about that last one though: in 2007 I see the same scene– pizza, wine, roomies, and all– with Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency and 24 instead of Top Model. Except this year it will be different because my studying will be done! As for the bills, Facebook, libraries, chapter… well, sometimes when I say “try” I mean “briefly consider trying and then really not doing anything at all,” you know, like how Britney Spears said she’d “try” to get her life together. But watch me get good grades. Really.