Sorority Blogger

At the end of every year, I like to look back on the past year and remind myself of all of the things I've managed to do and accomplish. It helps me put things in perspective and remember to be grateful every day. It reminds me that even when I'm having a bad day, there are always good days yet to come, and helps me start the new year off on a happy, healthy footing mentally and spiritually. So here is my list for 2017: 1. My boyfriend and I started the year off spending time with family on NYE/New Year's Day. Getting to spend a lot of time with family would be very important for the whole year. 2. In early January, we decided to continue our tradition of trying to see the tree at Rockefeller Center every year (although technically we were counting this as part of 2016's Christmas season). 3. My mother made a goal for herself to visit all of the counties of New Jersey, and she and I got to have quality time wandering the Princeton Art Museum in January, Laurita Wi...

Before I start this post, I want to apologize for not posting as much as I was earlier in the year. I decided to go back to school for an additional certificate on my degree (hence this post's title). This is taking up a lot more of my time than I had anticipated. However, I'm still going to be blogging at least once a month for the duration of the classes so please bear with me. That said, here are some things I've learned about myself and the concept of going back to school after you've been gone for a few years. This semester is the first semester I've actually been back on a campus for a class in 4-5 years. The last two classes I took for this certificate were online, on my time. Actually being back in a classroom with a dedicated time slot is a huge transition for me. I'm used to studying on my own, asking questions as I need to, and coming in for exams. Now, sitting in a classroom with a professor and a bunch of other students, I've never felt ...

I recently finished Ivanka Trump's Women Who Work book, and I have to admit it was pretty useful to me. In fact, reading was one of the things that finally helped me find the drive to start this blog again. Since it helped inspire me to restart Sorority Blogger, it only feels fair to dedicate one week to it, so here are some of the points from Women Who Work that I found most interesting. First, I love that Ivanka starts the book talking a bit about where she is at the point in her life when the book was being published compared to when she was writing it. A lot of things definitely changed for her and her family in a very short period of time. Along with that, I thought it was impressive of Ivanka to own the fact that she had some privileges when she was starting her career that other people may not have (like the Trump family name). However, she also owns the fact that she worked very hard to get where she is today. A lot of the items I found the most useful at this point in ...

Every  year on my birthday, I like to set goals for myself for that year of my life. This year, at the ripe old age of 26, I've decided that I want to actually start getting back into shape, increase my flexibility again, and learn how to do a head or hand stand. How I've decided to do this? Well, a little bit before my birthday I bought a series of classes online for 21 days of beginner yoga from DailyOm. It's now almost 6 months after my birthday, and I finally decided to actually start taking those classes. Day one was not what I expected. I've taken yoga classes before in actual studios (if you're in NJ check out Yoga Dosha in East Brunswick; Phebe's warm vinyasa basics class was amazing), but I really wanted to try to get a bit more practice in at home. Day one at home was nothing like what I remembered from the studio. I decided to try the extended class (20 minutes) while my boyfriend drafted his fantasy league team. The first 10 minutes was entirely c...

Hello amazing readers (both old and new)! I realized recently that I haven't blogged in a very long time, and I figure it's long past time for a new blog post. A lot has happened in my life since my last post and so for both new readers and old, I thought I'd start with a (Re)Introduction. First here's some basics: My name is Kelly. I graduated from Rutgers University and am a sister of Alpha Chi Omega. My favorite color is blue. I love reading. I can sometimes be a dork and other times be totally basic. I have two cats and a dog, and sometimes think I'm destined to be an epic cat lady though I think my boyfriend might try and put a stop to that. (After all, he's a dog person.) I don't believe I fit into any one stereotype, and I don't believe anyone else does either.  What you can expect from SororityBlogger: A lot of times we see Greek Life get a bad rep in tv, movies, books, etc. Greek Life seems to get an awful lot of negative pre...

WARNING!! THIS BLOG POST DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS!!! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET GO DO THAT BEFORE READING THIS!!! So everybody’s been raving about the movie Frozen, and after finally watching it: I totally am too. One of the major things that everyone loves about Frozen, is that it promotes ‘girl power’. AKA the idea that you don’t need to spend your entire life looking for a man just to be happy.  More specifically, in my opinion, it tells you that you don’t need a man when you have a sister. Or  sisters. Or idk sorority sisters. (Or if you never went Greek, friends that are like sisters) In any case, it tells you that as long as you have each other, you don’t need a man (they’re just an added bonus if you find the right one) I think that’s a very important point. Why, as sorority women (or women in general), should we spend  so much time searching for ‘the one’. (And then possibly fighting with each other when we think we’ve found him, and our sisters ei...

So with Valentine's Day having just passed, love is in the air. This post is dedicated to the question I got asked throughout college. "Why don't you ever date ' frat boys' "? Well, my answer is simple.  And comes in two parts.  1. Most of the time in college  I had my sights set on only one guy  ( my boyfriend) who I've known forever.  And no he wasn't (and isn't) Greek.  Scandalous I know. 2. For the rare periods of time that  I was single and ready to mingle,  I had some rules. First of all,  I was over dating 'boys'. High School  was over, and I'd raised my standards  with my age.      Now, I didn't have anything against  guys in fraternities; I just wasn't about  to date anyone that acted like a child  (fraternity or not). I had grown up, I'd  seen the way I felt guys were supposed  to act towards their women, and I wasn't  going to settle for anything less.    ...

Once you get to know me you learn one very important fact: I have the biggest woman crush on Jennifer Lawrence. For so, so many reasons.  1. We would totally be friends in real life. In fact, I would totally try to recruit her into my sorority. Then I'd want her in my fam. Actually, she kind of reminds me of my big. 2. She makes awkward cool. I'm not always the most put together person. I like to make funny faces, and I sometimes say things at the exact wrong time. I once talked to a girl during recruitment about how I had 'chimpanzee hands'. (My hands are really tiny, and my thumbs are kinda short). Luckily, she still thought I was pretty cool (or so my little tells me). Good news is: JLaw can be really inappropriate at times too. And she makes it okay. 3. Girl knows how to eat.      (This is where this post gets serious.) In High School I suffered from anorexia nervosa. There was a lot going on in my life at the time, and I think it was in part lashing out a...

      With Formal Recruitment reaching it's close at my alma mater, so many memories are coming back yet again. What better way to start a sorority blog than with the story of how I joined my sorority. Enjoy!      I remember going through Recruitment not that long ago. Just a couple of years really. I remember being really nervous and stressed out. Thinking ‘what if they don’t like me?’ ‘What if I say something stupid?’ ‘What if I have a bad hair day?’ ‘What am I going to wear??’ It felt like the first day of High School all over again. Only worse.       My High School was pretty small. 200 to 300 kids per grade, and within each grade everyone knew each other. We’d all grown up together. For the most part we’d all been in the same school since 6th grade. Coming to a big school like Rutgers was a huge transition for me.       College to me was a brand new start. A start that had one real requirement: join a soro...