The House That Built Me

There’s a time that comes in every Zeta journey when you begin to feel old. “Old” is of course relative but at some point your pledge class is the oldest one in the chapter and everyone else is younger than you. It’s an odd feeling because whenever sh*t hits the fan your first instinct is still to turn to the older girls who were seniors when you were a new member but they’re all gone and everyone is looking at you for answers (this is when you pretend you know what you’re doing and hope for the best). 

I’m Clara, the social media/PR girl (more formally known as the Historian Reporter on our chapter’s 2016 Executive Council). So basically I’m the girl who follows everyone around with a camera like a proud mom. I’ve been the voice behind our social media accounts, the one editing blog posts for this very blog, the one keeping our website up to date, and the one hoarding cute pictures of our members to post every week. Basically I have the coolest and most fun job ever that requires me to be on social media all the time (and it doesn’t count as neglecting my schoolwork -- this is the part where you’re jealous). But as all good things must come to and end, so must my term as Historian. 

                                   (Meet Claire, my successor and our fabulous 2017 Historian!)

I joined the chapter my first semester at UNT: Fall 2013.  Somehow that was three years ago and now I’m a senior, a granny in the chapter, and about to become a regular member for the first time in my Zeta career. After my new member semester I jumped right into holding a position on our programs council as the external social chair, then the social chair, and then I hopped onto EC as the VP1 in charge of programming and now I’m the Historian. It’s been a busy (and often frustrating) three years. But mixed into that list of positions and those three years are some of the most wonderful memories.

I don’t usually get emotional and cheesy but I suppose this is a good occasion if ever there was one. I’m sure you’ve heard the all classics before like “it’s not four years, it’s for life” or “from the outside looking in you can’t understand it and from the inside looking out you cant explain it” so I’ll skip over those.  But as my last act as Historian I feel the need to leave some bits of my experiences here for whoever wants to read them.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to pass down it would be to enjoy every moment (even when you wish you were napping or getting your nails done). It’s easy to be grumpy at mandatory events or complain about being cold at an intramural game but choosing to embrace those times is what makes this experience so memorable.

There are of course all the annual and semi-annual events like bid day, pink out football games, big/little reveal, initiation, Homecoming, Greek Week, Formal, etc.

                                                                  (Our LAST formal *cries for days*)

Then there are all the things you don’t plan like spending hours pomping for Homecoming (but really dancing to 90’s music), scrubbing the paint out of your clothes and hair after paint fights, spur of the moment ear piercings, or your little scaring the life out of you at the haunted house philanthropy event…

                                                (I really almost peed myself when I saw her...)

There’s the time you move into the ZTA house with your best friends (and somehow stay there for three years)…

…or always making your friends take pictures at every event no matter what (because we all know I have to have them for my scrapbook). There are the last minute costumes for mixers and sisterhood events, the time you accidentally cook the worst spaghetti squash in the history of spaghetti squash with your suitemate, and being there when your chapter wins Crown Chapter for the first time in 7 years (and crying like a child in front of hundreds of other Zetas)…

…There are the times you force each other to go to the gym and then make fun of the rude Zumba instructor, or running home after disaffiliating for recruitment, tackling your roommate to the ground and ugly crying (because a week apart was clearly too long)…

…There are hundreds (if not thousands) of attempted candid pictures that were meant to be cute but are really just a little creepy, and big milestones like 21^st birthdays and engagements…

                                                       (the newly engaged, future Mrs. Essman)

And somehow even if they aren’t all happy moments they are still the best because they are the moments that shape you; the good, the bad, and the ugly moments. They are what help you become the person you are and want to be.

Now as I step down from my last position, I want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my Zeta experience, everyone who welcomed me into this chapter when I was a wide-eyed new member, everyone who encouraged me to apply for positions, everyone who helped me paint that giant banner for our Jimmy Buffet themed mixer (because gosh that was a feat), everyone I served on PC and EC with, and especially the people who I shared those unplanned and wonderful moments with.

2016 has been…quite a year for our chapter, our 2016 EC, and me personally. But I wouldn’t have survived it without all the wonderful women I call sisters.  

So just like that, my time as Historian is over. This the Gamma Phi's 2016 Historian signing off and welcoming in Claire and all of EC 2017!

And to the house, the chapter, and the girls that built me: thank you for showing me that Zeta never gives up on you and that love really is the greatest of all things.  

Clara Warner, PC Fall ‘13

Disney Dreams

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them” -Walt Disney

If you told me a year ago that I would be working for the Walt Disney World Company on a 6 month internship I would probably have laughed in your face because I didn’t think that that would be possible. I mean its Disney for crying out loud! But here I am, a year later, wishing that my college program wasn’t ending in 6 weeks.

Back in January, my Zeta twin was telling me about her two experiences doing the Disney College Program and how life changing it was. After hearing her go on and on for what seemed like hours, I decided to apply just for the heck of it and figured I wouldn’t actually be accepted. Little did I know that less than two hours later I would get through the first round and then be accepted into the program. I was completely shocked and really didn’t know how to react. I was super excited but at the same time, this would be the first time that I was truly away from home (and be moving half way across the country!).

            Flash forward to August. I had to say good-bye to my best friends and to my family. It was hard but they were all really supportive of me and were excited for me to experience everything ahead. Moving to not only a brand new city but also a brand new state was a huge adjustment for me. The first couple of months were really rough. I wasn’t really friends with any one from work and I felt like somewhat of an outsider. But luckily my roommates were great and we all get along really well which helped so much because we are all kind of in the same boat of being away from family through the holidays and stuff like that. It sounds cliché but these girls are some of my best friends and I literally couldn’t imagine doing my college program without them. Within the past month I’ve gotten really close with some other cast members from work and it breaks my heart that in a short 6 weeks I’m packing up my car and going home to possibly never see them again (which I hope isn’t true because they’re some of the best people I’ve ever met).

            In the short amount of time that I have lived here in Orlando, it truly has started to feel like home. One of the most heart-warming things you can do is make an adult almost cry from joy or make a child laugh so hard they almost fall over. I get to do this every day at my job and it is the most humbling thing. One of the most special memories I have made here was with a little three-year-old girl. At my work place in Disney we have plastic snakes that look like they’re alive when you move them a certain way. This little girl came up to me freaking out because she thought it was a real snake. She was scared to touch the snake but I told her that I believed in her and that she was brave enough to do it. After a couple of minutes she finally got the nerve to touch the snake and she was so excited. She started jumping around and singing that she was brave enough to touch a real snake. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I will cherish that moment for the rest of my life and I know that that little girl will as well.

            My time here at Disney hasn’t nearly been long enough but the amount of memories I have made here are enough to last a lifetime. I will be forever grateful that I took the chance that one night in January and applied.

Tayler Ringberg, PC Fall ‘14

118 Years of Zeta Love

Happy Founder’s Day Zeta Sisters!

I can remember the morning of my initiation day like it was yesterday. I remember trying to soak up every last word. I remember hoping those moments would last a lifetime. Looking back now as an alumnae and General Advisor, I didn’t fully grasp the concept of “Zeta is Forever”. Today we celebrate the 118^th Founder’s Day of Zeta Tau Alpha and it has given me a chance to look back on how ZTA has help make me the woman I am today.

(A few pictures from my collegiate days...)

(And best of all, my composite from Sophomore year!)

Founder’s Day is one of my favorite ZTA celebrations. It’s like celebrating a birthday with over 245,000 other women! Did you know that ZTA’s Founders Day ceremony is an open ritual that anyone can witness? What a great way to show those outside our circle of sisterhood how important ZTA means to us by honoring our nine Founders and their hopes and dreams of our beloved ZTA.

My most memorable Founders Day ceremony took place at the President’s house at the University I attended. His wife was a Zeta and she graciously opened up their beautiful home for our Founder’s Day celebration. I was a sophomore at the time, and as the Treasurer on Executive Council, I had the honor of taking part in the ceremony and was selected by my sisters to read the role of our Founder, Ethel Coleman Van Name. Ethel was known to be the ideal of tolerance and justice. I can remember reading my part in the ceremony and taking them to heart. I knew right then that there was more to ZTA than just four years. I knew that I wanted to live out those words and one day aspire to be an inspiration to a collegiate member like Ethel was to me. (By the way, I still have that candle from the ceremony in my guest room!)

            As an alumna, I have learned to love ZTA more than I thought I ever could, or would, as a collegiate. The alumnae world unites women from all different collegiate chapters and brings a sense of familiarity that you can’t understand unless you are a part of it. When we get together for a fun game night or a perfectly planned progressive dinner, we act like we have been friends for ages. We act like sisters! We have a common bond that unities us all and the conversation never stops! It doesn’t matter what college team we cheered for during those four years, we all love ZTA and what it will bring us throughout our lives.

As a young advisor, I met a woman who took me under her wings and showed me how to truly mentor college women. Not only is she a charter member of her chapter, she is #1 in the book! She loves working with collegiate women more than anything. Over the years she has taught me to be true to myself and to have the welfare and harmony of each member of ZTA as a high priority. I now call this sister one of my best friends. Although we now advise for different chapters we still continue to support each other. We talk daily, looking for guidance and ideas to help support the women in our chapters. We are each other’s cheerleader and cant’ wait to brag to each other on what amazing things our chapters are doing! As an advisor, ZTA has taught me so many things, but none more than how to truly “be humble in success, without bitterness in defeat.” ZTA is so much more than just me, it’s about the women who I strive daily to help build up and mold into the brave, bright, strong women I know they all have inside of themselves. These women teach me something new every day and challenge me to strive for greatness. I can only hope that I do the same for them.

Each year on Founder’s Day, as the nine burning tapers are lit during the ceremony, we are reminded of the promise we made as ZTA’s to further the ideals that our Founders left in our care. On October 15, 1898, at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University) in Farmville, Virginia, nine young women envisioned an organization that would perpetuate their ties of friendship. I hope that I make our Founders proud. I wish that I could thank the Founders for all of their efforts and for teaching Zeta’s young and old that the foundation precept of Zeta Tau Alpha was Love, “the greatest of all things.”

Kati Mize, General Advisor