(Photo stolen from Andrea.)

So….Vegas happened.

It was, once again, ridiculous and magical and full of hugging and laughing and inside jokes and and and me looking FREAKISHLY good in hats (and also a bit like Jason Mraz when I quickly glance in the mirror after several afternoon drinks).

(FYI I look good in all hats. I feel I may have mentioned this in a post before…oh yes, here.)

So, there was my ride with Ev’yan and Andrea, during which we stopped for SONIC, which I have not had in years and which made me flash back to sitting in the back of my boyfriend’s truck after Battle of the Bands when I lived in Alabama in 10th grade. Yes, that happened.

Then there was the mad sprint Nicole and I went on while trying to get to the Planet Hollywood “I Just Came from a Theme Party” Bar Crawl before everyone else, caused by the fact that instead of actually, you know, walking towards the giant hotel marked “PLANET HOLLYWOOD” we walked in the opposite direction, forcing us to haul ass back the correct way in order to beat the large group slowing converging on the bar and causing me to almost knock down a small child.

A little later was the time I fell asleep (also known as passing the eff out) only to wake up to Kerri to shouting that she needed to go out and “live my life!”

The next day, there was us getting free stuff by the pool before  Chelsee and Michelle (and husband) ran around the strip like crazy people looking for a giant statue of David and taking some photographic evidence.

After that there was a ridiculous amount of laughter, Kori teaching us that life is never that bad when you’ve got a jaw and that hooker cards are meant to be organized, me rediscovering I look great in hats, a delicious meal that was made “breader” by bread, Amy and I discovering we are clearly soul-mates, fountain-jumping, 60-year old brides belting out “Simply the Best” (“Maybe her husband IS simply the best…”),  insane amounts of dancing at Margaritaville (but sadly, NO Ke$ha!), AND a tiny penis straw.

Lastly there was an incompetent cashier, creepes covered with bacon, (finally!) champagne, and more carbs than I care to mention.

And after that, I went home and  there was LOST. OMGLOSTICRIEDFORFOURHOURSANDSTILLCANNOTPROCESSWHATHAPPENED….

But, yeah…Vegas. Vegas was awesome, as I knew it would be. The end.

As I’ve become tired and had a few more bad days teaching – not that they’re all bad or that I’m not happy- I’ve wondered, and I really hate admitting this, but I have wondered if I made the right decision. Is this really what I want to be doing for the next two years? Would I be happier if I’d taken my other proposed path – staying in Boston, studying theater education, possibly working at my old theater job?

This weekend didn’t help. I spent most of the weekend driving back and forth between LA and Berkeley, as my friends and I took a quick road trip to see American Idiot at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. During the show, I almost started crying and not just because the show was phenomenal, which it most definitely was. (If you will be in the New York area next year, get tickets to see it on Broadway! I’m predicting it will be a hit. I mean, Green Day music PLUS the creative team behind Spring Awakening? What’s not to like?)

I got emotional and nostalgic because it reminded me how much I love theater and how much I miss being connected to it. Theater was my life growing up, and I definitely took my ridiculously amazing work-study job at the professional theater connected to my university for granted. I mean, I got free tickets to Broadway-caliber professional shows and got to spend my weekends hanging out with the cast of those shows…as my job. I had conversations about art and life, as well as boggle tournaments, with professional actors from all over the country while doing my homework, and I got paid for it. I mean, I definitely enjoy that my job now is much more challenging and, ultimately, more important that that job was, but I miss being around those kinds of people, I miss being around stage doors, and costume designers, and opening night parties, and overtures. I miss what I experienced this weekend, and I hate living in a town where that experienced is consistently undervalued.

And all that makes me think I’m not yet where I should be. I know I won’t be teaching forever, or at least, not teaching English forever, because theater is too important to me. Eventually, I hope to combine my love of theater with my teaching experience now by getting my Masters like I planned if I hadn’t gotten into TFA, but in this moment, riding the high of live musical theater and my road trip fever, two years feels like forever to be away from that world….and I keep wondering if I made the right call.

However, after getting the afternoon off yesterday (Happy TFA Day!), which then allowed me to get four hours of sleep from 7 until 11:30 before I drove across town to a midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Stephanie before returning home at 4 to get two more hours of sleep, and after finishing three lesson plans tonight without breaking a sweat (and before 10:00PM!), I’m feeling like the two weeks and 2 days of Institute I have left are totally manageable. Especially since tomorrow at this time, I’ll be rocking out to Kris Allen, Adam Lambert, and Allison Iraheta at the American Idol concert…..andagainonSaturday.

Yes, I am going to the American Idol concert twice. And yes, I am aware that the do-gooders here at TFA probably judge and don’t understand my pop culture obbsesions. I know in my heart, though, that the fact that I’m going twice is just the consequence of a weird set of circumstances that involved me not thinking I could make the LA show, buying tickets to the San Diego show instead, and then finding out I could go to the LA show….but I digress.

The seeing HP and the seeing Kris Allen are the things that are keeping me sane and allowing me to plow through these last two weeks. I went into this thing telling myself that I would not change. I would not let TFA consume my life. I would not burn out by pushing away the things I love and becoming scary-serious-sanctimonious chick. I do want to give all I can to my new job, but not at the expense of my life. So…yeah, no guilt. And I won’t complain if I’m tired, which surprisingly after last night’s weird split up sleep situation, I’m not. (I still got 7 hours of sleep, which sadly, is more than I’ve been getting on a regular basis) Although, this post is sounding more and more like I am super tired. Or like I’m drugged.

Whatevs. The whole point is I’m alive. I’m going to make it through Institute, and I’m going to allow myself to have some fun along the way. The end. Good night.

Luckily, my good friend, Nick, lives in the area, so I stalked him until we figured out when we could meet up for dinner. Nick and I met my freshman year of college, as we both lived on the same crazy dorm floor, and we became pretty quick friends. Sadly, he transferred back to CA our freshman year (he wasn’t such a fan of snow), but I’ve seen him every time I’ve come to Cali since.

Nick and I enjoying his first snow in the Fall of '05

After dinner, we, of course, had to pop over to the nearby Pinkberry, since I haven’t had any since returning to California. While enjoying my granola and chocolate chip covered yogurt, I looked at Nick and suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my god, Nick! We’ve known each other for FOUR years!” I keep having these time related revelations lately. I know four years isn’t that long of a time period, but for me, who moved every five years and who rarely keeps in close contact with friends for much longer than that, it seems like a long time to still have this kind of connection with someone. Plus, he’s my college friend. They are supposed to be my new friends! Nick knew exactly what I meant – we are done with college. It’s just life now. My college friends are now going to be my older friends, replacing my high school friends as the ones I reminisce about old times with. We kept referring to the last few months as last semester, until we each corrected each other – there are no semesters now! Just months and years and time. It’s crazy

Despite the madness of the revelations and feeling old, Nick and I had a great evening. I love my grandparents, and I’m having a surprisingly nice time with them this week, but it was nice to get out with a friend, eat some sushi, and talk about the crazy people who ride the bus, TLC’s amazing reality programming (“You have to watch Woman with the Giant Legs!”), and failing at quitting jobs that you hate.

Crazy, right?

Although I don’t think I can do justice to the weekend on my own, I do hope to add my voice to the chorus of wonderful bloggers saying that this weekend was something special. Sure, it looks cool enough on paper: 25 people from around the country who know a creepy amount about each others lives but don’t actually “know” each other converge on Sin City for a weekend of fun, but what actually happened was somehow so much more than that. It was instant connections, heartfelt conversations, and hours and hours of laughter. It was looking around the room and feeling like you really got everyone who was there. It was not being self-conscious or fake, but just being able to be 100% yourself after “knowing” someone for about 5 minutes. 

Sure, there were highlights:

• Discovering an “all-day” happy hour (which, I’ve gotta ask, aren’t those just your actual prices at that point) with Steph, Kerri, and Rachel, and four hours later, realizing that EVERYONE ELSE ON THE TRIP had converged there for $5 wine and bathroom photoshoots. (#1 bathroom in the country!)
• Discovering MORE people who love the Kaitlin/Rick sketch as much as I do and acting out said sketch in said #1 bathroom in the country. (“I don’t wannnaaa goooo, Rick!”)

• Eating ridiculous amounts of fried food outside a wedding chapel with Doni and Nicole, where Nicole pronounced that if you are within a stone’s throw of corn dog nuggets, maybe it isn’t the best place to make a life-long commitment.
• Watching Matt achieve an EPIC goal on the strip. 
• Dancing and belting out “This Kiss” with Nicole and others during the Bellagio fountain show. 
• Watching Cirque du Soleil with my mouth hanging open, looking away only to look at Nicole and make my “Whattheeffjusthappened?!?” face.
• Getting the most rich and delicious $30 meal ever with some lovely Chicago gals at Stack, even if the waiter wasn’t so happy with us. 
• Discussing marriage and hot boy body waxing with Allison and Kerri in the Luxor pool. 
• Staying up late, chatting with my new favorite people about the internet, life, drama, growing up, and….oh who am I kidding, this entire trip was a highlight.

I cannot express how happy I am that I decided to go. I knew it would be fun, but I don’t think any of us expected it to be…what it was. Thank you to everyone who came and made it so fun! I can’t wait to see you guys again.

And now, some internet appropriate photographic highlights: 

Rachel and I in the ridiculously nice bathroom

Nicole, Doni and I dancing in the streets.

Andrea, Kerri, and Allison with...a pink gorilla suit?

Kerri, Rachel, and Doni looking fierce.

Nicole and Stephanie being rockstars.

Allison, Kerri, and Nicole getting excited for some Mario Batali food.

Friday night, I decided to go to make an appearnace at a sorority event, even though, technically I’m not in the sorority anymore. The event is the first one after bid day when we get a new class of girls, and it’s basically just an apartment crawl so the new girls can meet all the current sisters. It was really nice to see the other seniors again, but as the night went on and the freshman girls got drunker and drunker, I just felt older and older. I don’t think I was the only one – other seniors said they felt a little past apartment parties and questional punch mix drinks – but I just kept thinking “I shouldn’t be here anymore.” 

The rest of the weekend wasn’t as jarring as that first night, but there were some weird moments: sleeping on the couch in “my” apartment, while a new, unknown roommate slept in my old room. (I kept walking out of the bathroom and going for the bedroom door only to catch myself before intense awkwardness ensued.) Listening to everyone talk about activities I was involved in and finding myself not caring nearly as much as I used to. Hearing about classes and thinking how soon, I’ll have to teach one of those myself. It’s like, all the sudden, I had become an outsider without realizing it. 

I did have a lot of fun with Jillian, Josh, Megan and some of Jillian’s friends. We ate delicious Mexican food, danced at at euro-trash bar in downtown Boston (along with a 50 year-old lesbian couple and some Mickey Rourke look-a-likes – if only my camera battery hadn’t died! Those pictures would have been EPIC.), went bowling at Lucky Strike (where I got a whopping score of 36), and sang karaoke. I attempted to avoid the drama of last semester (as I have successfully avoided talking about it here to my constant amazement), and I even got to spend some time with my uncle and cousins (one of whom wrote on the chalk board at my uncle’s house “Amanda you are so nice!” and then told me that I would make an excellent teacher because I have excellent chalk board handwriting. I need to hang out with 2nd graders more often. Big confidence booster.) 

I think the weirdest part was when people kept saying to me, “You’re at home? God, you must be so bored!” I kind of nodded and laughed, but I couldn’t really agree with them. After 18 years of constant work and schedules and goals, it feels nice to take a break, to read a book, to cook a big dinner, and to wander around a mall. I thought I would be so home sick for Boston or ready to pack up and move to LA already, but I’m really enjoying this time off. I’m losing some weight (more on that soon!). I may have found a perfect part-time job. I’m saving up for a computer and (hopefully) a Nikon D90, and I get to spend time with my family. I know that come June, my life is going to be one giant ball of stress and craziness, so right now, I’m just trying to enjoy the break, accomplish some things I haven’t been able to, and relax. 

_______________________________

And now a quick announcement for any Delaware, New Jersey, and Philadelphia area bloggers! The lovely Rachel of Confessions of a Jersey Girl and I are trying to organize a little blogger meet-up for the greater Philadelphia area! If you are at all interested, shoot me an email, and I’ll fill you in on all the details!!

Saturday was a big day for us. We started out in the morning by heading to Victoria Market in the heart of Melbourne. It’s a huge outdoor market with anything you can think of: food, clothes, shoes, jewelry, souvenirs, bags, and hats. It was overwhelming. We had to just take it row by row. I picked up a fun pocket watch necklace and presents for my mom and dad, while Sharon made out like a bandit, with souvenirs for all her friends. Sarah and I wasted time proving my theory that I look good in all hats. (It’s totally true, and Sarah agrees. I credit my haircut.) 

After a quick food court lunch (it sounds lames, but was actually amazing – their food courts are kind of lovely.) we took a tram to the South Bank (I think that is what its called…Sarah, you can correct me.) where we planned to go up in the Eureka SkyDeck, a new residential building that is now the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s a sweet building – the top is actually coated with gold!  They have an observation deck on the 88th floor, along with something called the Edge Experience. Basically, it’s this little room, a little bigger than an elevator, that is entirely made of glass and moves out of the building! So, you are standing in it, the glass windows are all fogged up, then you hear a cracking noise and the windows go clear, and it’s like you are floating 88 stories up. Being mildly afraid of heights, I had a minor heart attack, especially because Sarah kept making worried faces at me when there was any weird noise just to freak me out, but in the end, it was just ridiculously cool. Also ridiculously cool – the entire thing was free as Sarah knows the people who run the SkyDeck. Our tickets even said VIP. Score. 

Saturday night we finally met the rest of Sarah’s friends for our big night out. We started out drinking some Australian wine in Sarah’s apartment with new friends (to Sharon and I) Nick, Dan, and Steven – all of whom, I must say again, were awesome – then headed out to Chapel Street, a very posh shopping and dining street by Sarah’s apartment. We met some more people at the bar, while I marveled at the relative cheapness of cocktails. We then, for some reason, stopped at Friday’s (as in TGI – yeah they have them there too…), and Nick and I instantly bonded over our intense desire to leave.

Finally, we headed out towards our final stop, a cool Irish Pub, where the rest of Sarah’s friends were. Anna, Taryn, Sheeho, and Kate were all there again, and my love for them further solidified. We drank and attempted to dance the rest of the night away, while Sharon and I rejoiced in staying up past 9PM. All in all, a successful night out. 

Sunday, we headed to Sydney! After a short plane ride (before which, no one checked our ID’s! It must be nice to live somewhere that doesn’t anger the world…) we met up with our camp friend, Matt, at the airport, as he was nice enough to pick us up. After a short driving tour that included driving over the Sydney Harbor bridge, Matt drove us right up to Circular Quay, home of the famous Sydney Opera house. You should be thankful at this moment that I’m using Sarah’s photos and not mine, as you are being saved from my 100+ photos of the Opera house from varying vantage points. (“Here’s me right in front of it! Here’s me on the other side of the Quay! Here’s the back! Here’s the view riding away on a ferry!” What can I say? I was excited!) It was extremely cool, though, to be in front of something I’ve seem in pictures hundreds of times (not to mention animated in my favorite Pixar movie, Finding Nemo.) 

That first day is a blur of lunch, photos, dancing to terrible street performers (where is the video, Sarah!?), and taking in the city. At some point, I think Sharon and I walked around Darling Harbor, which was right behind our super fancy hotel (thanks again, to Sarah’s dad!) 

The next day, after riding in a circle on the monorail singing the song from The Simpsons, we headed back to Circular Quay to go jet-boating! This was by far my favorite activity from Sydney. Basically, you get on a poncho and get in what is essentially a 30 person jet-ski. The driver does all kinds of tricks and turns and you get soaking wet in the process of seeing the entire harbor, which was absolutely gorgeous. It was ridiculously fun. I would recommend it to anyone. 

The next two days in Sydney were filled with shopping, eating, movies (I’m ashamed to admit I may have seen High School Musical 3 a…hrmmthirdhrm..time. It’s an addiction I’m dealing with…) There was room service and long waits for buses and museum visits and entirely too much fun. Sadly, by Wednesday it was time to leave, but luckily for us, it was Christmas Eve! 

And with that, I’ll break for the day. Up next, Carols by Candlelight, Christmas presents, Boxing Day madness, and a ridiculous amount of food. Stay tuned…

New Year’s has become one of those holidays that always sounds better in theory than it ends up being in practice. Last year, I spent New Year’s puking and having the flu. 

This year had to be better by comparison. I drove down to Virginia to see my friend Beth who I hadn’t seen since her wedding last summer. My best friend from college, Bonny, also drove down from Pittsburgh. It was nice to see them before I set out west. 

So the New Year’s party took place at Beth and Mike’s apartment and consisted of a bunch of couples and then Bonny and I. It was very Bridget Jones. At the start of the night, Bonny and I sat on the floor by the food and talked about television. We then decided to play Mad Gabs (can you feel the excitement?) This was a fun game, just not New Year’s Eve fun. We decided we’d just do boys verses girls, since that was almost even (we single girls sort of screwed up the balance). Luckily, Beth’s annoying friend Claire decided she was too cool to be on the girls’ team. Maybe she thought we would be less smart. I guess she never paid attention to gender studies, though, because girls are better at language arts. And we kicked serious ass. It was almost embarrassing how much better we were at that game than the guys. 

The game was abruptly stopped short when one last couple showed up with this announcement:
“Sorry we’re late guys, but we were…getting ENGAGED!”

This was met with an eye roll from me to Bonny and from Bonny to me. Then we peaced out of the congratulations circle and went to the kitchen to take pictures of us pretending to stab ourselves with various cutlery.

I then proceeded to drink myself into a stupor and passed out with my clothes on at 12:30. In the middle of the night, I woke up, still drunk, and desperate to wash my face for some reason. This resulted in me dumping out my suitcase trying to find my face wash in the dark. The commotion woke up a very annoyed Bonny. But gosh darn it, I got my face clean.

The next morning I lamented that I didn’t even get to have any champagne. To which Bonny replied. “Um, yeah you did. You had two glasses.”

Goood times.

I think the final Bay State has been the hardest thing yet. I’ve been working on that show since the first month of my freshman year, and I’ve climbed through the ranks, starting as a PA and ending as a Co-Executive Producer. All my best friends are now from there, and it has definitely been the biggest constant, besides sorority stuff, in my college life. It still hasn’t hit me that I won’t be back. In fact, it hasn’t hit me that I only have one more college class left, and that at this time next year, I’ll be in charge of my own class. 

The only thing keeping me sane is not thinking about leaving here and instead thinking about going to Australia. I’m leaving next Tuesday, so its unbelievably close. I got an email from the lovely Sarah asking me if I was ok spending New Year’s Eve at her beach house with some friends. Um..is that even a question? When I wrote back, I had to note that last year, I rang in the new year in Israel, and I’ll be ringing out the year in Australia. In between, I’ve lived in two major cities (LA and Boston), and shifted my entire life plan. That makes my life sound much more exciting than it is…or maybe I just don’t realize how exciting my life is. 

Anyway, it looks like my sister will be guest-posting while I’m gone, so that should keep you all entertained. Look forward to that and an emotional breakdown type post come Saturday when I’m in my parent’s car with everything I’ve accumulated through the last 3 and a half years of my life piled around me, driving away from Boston, the closest thing to a hometown I’ve had in a while.

Friday I slept in til noon, because I’m lazy and because it’s my only sleep-in day. I made mself some french toast, so obviously, the weekend was off to a winning start. I hung around in my apartment, working on my plays and watching Food Network. (Who’s excited for Thanksgiving week?!) Friday Night, Jillian and I headed to a Senior’s only Hard Hat party at the new dorm/apartment building they’re building next to ours. It’s times like those when I realize how big my school is, because I hadn’t ever seen most of the people there, and supposedly, we’ve been going to school together for four years. Oops. After that, we headed next door to the arena for a basketball game, brining the total number of sporting events I’ve been to at this school to two! (The first being a hockey game freshman year.) I blame this sad situation on the fact that I love the one sport we don’t have here (football) and our teams are generally not great (well, except the hockey team…but I don’t really like hockey so that falls under reason number one.) The game was super fun, though! It didnt take me long to become a rabid fan, so when we tied the game at the last mintes, I was freaking out with everyone else. Sadly, we didn’t win, but I did get to relive my middle school dance team days while watching the dance team out on the b-ball court. Good times. 

Saturday, I dragged myself out of bed to go to work, but afterwards, I headed to Josh’s, where I awkwardly woke  him up (it was 2:30PM, so I didn’t feel that bad), because we’d made plans to see High School Musical 3 again. (Before you judge, the first time, I missed A LOT because of the rabid crowd AND we now know all the songs and could sing along, making the movie infinitely more enjoyable.) Anyhoo, I didn’t want to walk all the way home then back over to his apartment before the movie, so I figured Josh and I could get lunch at the new Chipotle (YUMM!!!) that opened by the theater. I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer, which, I learned when I knocked on his door, was because he was alseep with his phone on silent. Oh well. He got up, and we headed to lunch and then to the movie. I didn’t feel too bad about us seeing the movie again, until I looked at the crowd which consisted of a couple making out in the back, a girl sitting alone eating a large popcorn, and a row of five-year-old girls. Whatevs. The movie was awesome. Again. 

Last night, Jillian and I headed out for sushi at Fugakyu in Coolidge Corner, which was amazingly delicious. I got a roll with eel and tempura sweet potato. It was insane. In a good way. Afterwards, we headed to a bar for my friends 21st birthday. Here, my weekend hit a low point. I had to act as Jillian’s wing woman, but I was too good at it, because about halfway through the night, she started dancing with some guy, leaving me to sit alone in the back of the bar texting my sister, during which, I broke my quasi-new necklace, sending black beads scattering all around me. Coolness Fail. I finally almost left with another friend, but when I went to see if the guy could walk Jillian home later, she decided to leave with me. 

This morning, I, of course, woke up nauseous, but sadly, had to get up early to go to my sorority’s Founder’s Day celebration. Now, I’ve decided in retrospect that my motto for this day was “Really?!” (in the vein of “Really?! With Seth and Amy” on SNL’s Weekend Update.) My little, her roommate who I love, and I headed out around 10:30 to overload on caffine and catch the buses that were supposed to drive us to the other campus around 10:45. Luckily, we got there on time, because when we arrived, we learned that “Buses” really meant “15-passenger vans.” Two of them. For our 80 person sorority. Awesome. We got to be in the first round of riders over, which proved to be almost as bad as going on the second round, as we had to sit for an hour and a half at this other campus waiting for the event to even start. At least it gave us time to eat the packed lunches we were advice to bring. (They couldn’t even feed us? Really?!) I ate my cold bagel from Starbucks, even though I’d just finished a Starbucks breakfast sandwich an hour earlier. It was at this point that I started getting pissed that I’d had to get up at 9AM. Luckily, the girls in my chapter are cool enough that we could entertain eachother. 

Then the event actually started – some woman from the international office came to do a “workshop” with us about living the values of our sorority. She bestowed information on us like, if a girl doesn’t share the same values as her sisters, the chapter may have no choice but to ask her to leave, that is, unless you can conform her to your ways. You should never wear your letters when you look bad, because people will judge you and your sorority, as evidenced by the time she saw some girl on the campus where she works from a rival sorority looking like “garbage poo” (Yes, friends, that’s a direct quote), and she thought it made them all look trashy. No, sweetie, I think that makes you look trashy when you trash talk girls 30 years younger than you. (And my fellow sisters and I were glad SHE wasn’t sporting letters along with her RED PLEATHER VEST. Ick.) We were all so disgrunted by the time we had to question eachother about our values and name adjectives that describe ourselves, that all my little, Lynn, and I could think of to describe ourselves was sarcastic, bitter, and judgemental. All true, but not somehting you want to bring up at a job interview. 

It was at this point that I thanked god for my sisters (the ones in MY chapter, not crazy alumni “sisters”) who all saw most of what this woman said as judgemental bullshit (like most of the things advisors tell us.) One of my sisters actually said, “Really. I thought what mattered was what’s on the inside.” Seriously. At least the girls I know can make me laugh through these ridiculous events. 

After what seemed liked forever, the event ended. As people on the first wave of buses coming up, my family (that is my little, grandlittle, and me) wanted to make sure we were on the first wave of buses out, because I was not spending another hour in suburban Massachuettes with crazy sorority women. Sadly, we headed out the wrong door and feared we’d been left behind. Luckily, after circling the building, we spotted the vans across the parking lot. We literally sprinted down a grassy knoll to push ourselves onto one of the vans, and by the time we were inside, we were laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of our desperation, I couldn’t breathe. We had a fun ride back, talking about so many random things (Vegan restaurants named TJ Piddleywinks, raccoons, The Office) that I was crying laughing at a few points. 

People ask me why I put up with all this sorority crap, which I seem to complain about all the time, and I think the van ride back is reason why I put up with it. Because at the heart of my sorority are girls I really do like and enjoy spending time with. I mean, I hadn’t even met my grandlittle until September, since she pledged while I was in LA, but I clicked with her instantly, because I love  my little and my little loves her. Things like that, you have to admit, are kind of cool  Yes, the bureaucracy and the mandatory events and crazy judgmental alumni make it obnoxious, but when you are stuffed in a 15-person van with 20 other girls and still find yourself laughing until it hurts, that’s not something you can leave easily.