1. Wake up at 4:30. The earlier the better. Each morning you’ll want to drop, cursing the girl who came up with the oh so welcoming idea of rush and all the girls already in sororities.
2. Sprint to Tate when you realize 4:30 just wasn’t early enough after you hit the snooze button 5 times. Dreaming of a delicious breakfast after all your hard work (the hair, the make-up, the general getting dressed part), you find half of the thinnest whole wheat bagel you’ve ever seen. You glower at the girls that came early enough to get the Chick-fil-a breakfast because they seem to have it all: the perfect curls, the enviable outfit and most importantly, the sweet satisfaction of a chicken biscuit in their hand.
3. Now comes the first house of the first round on the first day. If freshman year isn’t overwhelming enough, add about 200 girls screaming at the top of their lungs at you at 8 in the morning. If you’re lucky enough to be ushered into the first row during the earth shattering cheering, you will feel forced to look straight into the eyes of a girl two inches from your face for what will seem like an eternity.
4. Next, you will have to refuse the urge to hug, hand shake, side hug, touch or make any kind of friendly gesture to the girl who’s about to kill you with small talk. Your only defense is to take the water she gives you and hold on for dear life. But before you can even take a sip of your weapon, between the staring and smiling, she snatches the water out of your hand as you’re passing the doorstep to go outside.
5. By the 11th house that day, your hair is flat with sweat dripping down your face. You feel worn out, judged and out of conversation topics when you take the bus back to Tate and find the happiest Gamma Chi ever in a sea of exhausted, uninterested girls. Let’s be honest, the Gamma Chi’s are still excited because they didn’t have to go through an unending amount of speed dating that day.
6. You make it through house tours and philanthropy round and you’ve gotten yourself to pref- aka the funeral round. The dresses are black, the small talk’s over and the tears are flowing. Most of the tears actually come from sheer exhaustion, but the girls rushing you eat it up. They’ve finally decided to use your full name, go on one knee and pop the question, hoping and praying that you like them just as much as they like you.
Rush was long, but keep hope. UGA has not turned into the all girls school that rush makes it out to be. The songs that have been ringing in your head for the past week will eventually fade. And 4:30 will most likely serve as a bedtime rather than an alarm clock for the next year. You may not remember what it means to speak to a boy, but that day will come; just try not to pull a Eunice from She’s the Man when the first kid approaches you at the first social. Hang in there- the small talk does end when you realize rush does, more times than not, give you an encouraging push to the girls that turn into your best friends. And seriously, it’s not every day that football players parade down Milledge or families in minivans stop to capture hundreds of girls waiting outside antebellum mansions. Let rush week be your week to embrace the celebrity status. Allow rush to make you feel like you can conquer anything UGA throws at you, walking around way too confidently, until you get lost on the first day of class, fail your first test, and gain the Freshman 15. Just remember, at least you survived a week of rush.