things i experienced for the first time this weekend

1. recruitment at a big school is an ordeal. and frankly, kind of terrifying. i sat through a dress rehearsal of colorado alpha's skit for rush prior to their chapter cookie shine, and wow. i give those girls major props. they have worked SO hard. and their recruitment chair - or whoever had to choreograph that - gets uber kudos. 80-90 girls, dancing, singing - overwhelming. we would have NEVER pulled that off. hats off to any big school pi phi. however, it does go to reaffirming the fact that at any other school, there's a huge chance that i would have never been a pi phi.

2. winning a wiffle ball game. yes, the notorious 0-7 helicopter trout managed to pull off a mighty win in the summer-end tournament, defeating the #2 seed 5-4. we staged a massive underdog coup so the gray team could take home bragging rights this year. this is good news, as we no longer have to change our name to "the ego boosters."

3. bachelorette parties. just make sure the bride has fun. and smile, even when you're completely out of your comfort zone.

4. a "club" downtown. while i've been to many a downtown bar, i've never been to one that was of the line-out-the-door, cover-charge-paying variety. mostly because i refuse to pay cover on a place that's going to charge me $5-7 for a bottle of beer anyway. there are certain times i will pay cover: ladies night at the rose, because i drink for free for the modest door charge of $5; at sing sing, because i enjoy the show. that's really about all. but even without the cover charge, i'd stay out of these places for one thing, and one thing alone: the crowd. the sweaty, smelly, drunk crowd that touches you constantly, that will not move when you're trying to get to the door, and spills their drinks everywhere. as a point of future reference, if anyone ever thinks that it is a good idea to put one of these places on a list of pub crawl choices for anything celebrating me, they will be shunned.

that's a lot of "firsts" for one weekend. maybe we can keep it to one a week from here on out. i'm at my quota for september.