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