Hi. I know, I know. I was really bad at blogging consistently this semester. This writing became something I’d constantly set aside these last 16 weeks and I feel really bad about it. I’ve experienced so much change that I haven’t shared publicly yet so I’m worried it’s going to be a little intimidating to read (and even harder to write) but here goes nothing!
Here’s a monthly review of my first semester of sophomore year.
August
The first day of school is usually pretty exciting, but here at Iowa, it also happened to be the day of the Solar Eclipse. I don’t remember anything from my two classes that day, but I do remember barely seeing the moon cover the sun while sitting on the Pentacrest.
The first weekend of school also brought sorority recruitment. I wanted to make a whole blog post about my experience rushing but I wasn’t sure what I could or couldn’t say about it at the time. The process honestly wasn’t as bad as some people make it out to be. However, I don’t really have a hard time talking about myself so I can see why some people aren’t willing to put themselves through that for days on end. It was exhausting, but I knew that this was going to be one of the best things to happen to me. This picture was taken after the first day and I remember being so happy and proud of myself for going through, especially as a sophomore. I could tell that I was going to have a worthwhile experience regardless of which house I chose.
September
As you can see, and probably already know if you follow me on social media, I am now a member of Tau chapter of Delta Gamma! Bid day was such a whirlwind and happened so fast, besides, of course, the agonizing minutes we had with our sealed envelopes containing the bid. All 1000 girls who were rushing started at the IMU then followed representatives from their sorority back to their houses. DG happens to be the farthest away from campus so we rode a bus and once we got to the house, we were greeted by all the members we had met through recruitment- the girls who were suddenly our sisters. There was glitter everywhere and music and free food and just so much excitement, to sum it up. I’m so happy I’m a part of this sorority. DG was actually the very first house I visited on the first day of recruitment and I could really see myself fitting in there more and more after each round. I often have regrets about not going through recruitment as a freshman, but things could have ended up so much differently if I had done it then. I’m very happy to be a part of Delta Gamma and I’m excited for my journey with these girls.
In September, I also started getting really involved with Her Campus Iowa. This year, I’m on the Executive Board as Co-Director of Social Media and my work with them really took off this month. I love these girls and it was so much fun spending a week with five of them in New York City this summer at Her Conference.
We all work really well together and have met a lot of my personal goals for the year in this semester alone! One of them was to get to 1500 followers on Instagram, so if you haven’t already, check out our page 😉 I’m one of the girls behind these posts!
October
This was a pretty exciting month for me in DG because we had our first date party, our first sisterhood of the semester at the pumpkin patch, and big-little reveals. My big’s name is Cate and I’m super excited to get to know her better throughout my time in DG! My twin, Maddie, is also Cate’s little and we’re all sophomores so I think that’s pretty cool. We are a part of one of the biggest “families” in at Tau, and I’m especially excited to be in the same family tree as my grand-big, Alexis. I talked to her for the majority of recruitment and she’s honestly one of the main reasons I chose this sorority. She’s from my hometown so it was really nice to see a familiar face, but we also have similar personalities, career interests, and education paths. She was VP Communications this past term and I could really see myself doing similar work for this chapter. After talking to her in recruitment, I knew I’d get something really great out of this experience, as well as meeting new girls and making more friends. With this motivation to become more involved, I ran for Co-Director of Public Relations (a position that works with the VP of Communications) and got it! I feel so grateful to be surrounded by girls who are so much fun but also push me to grow as a person.
November
Up until this month, things were looking pretty great for me. On the 3rd, Her Campus Iowa had their second annual coffee crawl and I’m really proud of the work we all put into marketing this event. It was super fun for the girls on our team and people in the community.
A few days later though, my world stopped for a moment. After dating for a little over a year and a half, Alex, my high school boyfriend, and I broke up. I wasn’t heartbroken and we ended on fairly good terms, but this was a huge adjustment for me. He was someone I could turn to for anything throughout my entire college experience so far, and having to adjust to life in Iowa City without him was really difficult for me. I saw this coming, though, so I wasn’t surprised.
I had been really unhappy for months because I felt like I had put in way more effort into the relationship than I was getting in return. I stuck with it for the comfortability of dating someone from my hometown and felt like there was a solid foundation that wasn’t worth breaking up for. Although, as the months went by, we were both just trying to adjust to busier work and school schedules so making time for one another was hard – but especially for him, and I was tired of being constantly rejected and ignored.
If anything, I’m just upset I lost my best friend. We did agree to try to stay in each other’s lives because I really do value and appreciate him as an individual; regardless of his inability to make me happy in a relationship. However, being friends with an ex-boyfriend is something I’m not used to and am not entirely sure how well it will actually work. We’ll see.
The rest of this month, as far as academics go, wasn’t too exciting with midterms and various projects being due. I tried to spend any free time I had outside of school work and classes being surrounded by my closest friends because it was really hard for me knowing I could no longer talk to Alex every day. I grew even closer to my best friends Sara and Liz in this month, and love them dearly for having my back and listening to all of my problems.
Thanksgiving break was also a good time to hang out with all of my favorite people. I met up with Cate and Sara multiple times and had fun doing our favorite things: hanging out at coffee shops and going to movies.
After break, I had my final choir concert of the semester at Hancher Auditorium. This was the last choir concert I’ll ever be in since I’ve decided not to return next semester. It makes me sad to think I’ve lost my passion for singing in this way, but I just wasn’t having fun anymore. I dreaded going to class and didn’t have any friends there that I looked forward to seeing. The experiences I had in choir at Iowa just didn’t compare to the ones in high school so I wanted to preserve all of my fond memories of singing for that time of my life.
December
The year (and this blog post) is almost over! Yay! I’ll try to wrap this up as quick as possible, but I finished up the year with a lot of exciting things and pictures so just bear with me a little bit longer.
My friend Emily and I took a trip up to UNI to see the Varsity Men’s Glee Club perform their annual Christmas variety show. These plans all started out when Emily asked me if the choirs at Iowa have any fun Christmas concerts we could see to get us in the holiday spirit. Unfortunately, our school of music doesn’t have insanely festive, hilarious, and joyful musical performances so I had a better idea. I went to this show last year and knew it was fantastic. Also, Emily is transferring to UNI next semester so it was a really fun excuse to visit Cedar falls. The show was amazing and we even had some spare time to look at all the cute lights downtown and, of course, get Insomnia Cookies.
To finish up this first weekend of December, I danced the night away at DG’s semi-formal. In an effort to avoid having to deal with boys, I invited my best friend Alli from Iowa State to be my date. She’s transferring to Iowa in the fall and going to be my roommate next year so I figured a fun night in Iowa City with an excused to get super dressed up would make her the perfect date that night (and I’d invite her again in a heartbeat!). I met up with a few of the DG girls in my grade beforehand and introduced them to Alli. They were so welcoming and friendly; I’m just happy I can hang out with the freshman girls in my own pledge class, but also feel welcome to hang out with the girls who are my age and joined last year. Semi-formal was so much fun and I can’t wait to attend more events like this in the future!
That next Wednesday, Her Campus Iowa and DG both had their holiday parties and gift exchanges! I’m so happy I have a friend like Liz who is involved in both of these organizations with me. We celebrated with Secret Santa and holiday cookies for Her Campus and had a white elephant gift exchange between our “families” in DG. I definitely appreciated spending my study break on a fun, festive night like this.
One of my classes didn’t have a test for our final and, instead, we presented our final projects to the class with a huge breakfast bar. I only had “real” finals on Thursday and Friday this year so I spent the beginning of the week preparing, going home for a night to see my little sister’s Winter Choir concert, and being comforted by Emily’s sweet therapy pup, Lucy. I also went out to a nice dinner at Basta downtown with Emily and a few of her friends to celebrate her transferring to UNI. I finished up this week exchanging gifts with Liz and drinking hot cocoa at my apartment ❤️⛄️
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I know this was a hefty one, but thanks for sticking around and reading the whole thing. There was a lot I needed to catch you all up on and I finally forced myself to do it over winter break! I plan on updating this website better in the coming months so be prepared to hear more from me!
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season, here’s to new all the new experiences 2018 will bring to all of us 🙂
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@rachel_crack
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