shafted.

Earlier this summer, I got asked to write a short "promo" article for Purdue's Fraternity & Sorority publication aptly called The Greek. This goes to all of the incoming freshmen, and every sorority was asked to pick a girl in their house to send in an article explaining why they chose their sorority.

So the publication came out today, and I looked at my article only to discover that the editors completely took out, altered, and shortened my piece. I mean, don't get me wrong, I would understand if they were limited on space, and gave everyone the same word limit, but some sororities were given an entire page to blab about why they love their house.

The requirement I was given was a 300 word maximum. I wanted to write something less generic than “I chose my sorority because they have strong values!”, so I went ahead and basically compared being in my sorority to my short-lived song-reviewing job. I thought a bit of creativity would provide me the opportunity to earn a larger word maximum when in reality, it only got me cut. They even changed my punctuation! That gets me the most. I can see them cutting out my stuff...but why change the meaning and tone of my article too?!

I am not entirely upset that they cut my work. I know my writing isn’t genius and I understand the gate-keeping workings of publications, but I am more annoyed at how unprofessional they went about it. For courtesy sake they should have at least e-mailed me informing me of the changes they made to my work. I am putting my name behind the article, and I feel shafted that they thought it to be ok to still put my name as the author even if they went ahead and changed my words.

I want to write a strongly worded letter to this editor, but I risk the chance of getting my opportunities as a regular writer for The Odyssey (the weekly Fraternity & Sorority newspaper) cut.

The sororities that were given a higher word count weren’t even that mind-blowing. For example one line that one girl (who had an entire page for her article) wrote:

“I chose to go through rush out of random thought. Before I go any further I have to declare that it was the best random thought I have ever had.”

…really? I probably shouldn’t be too surprised knowing that the editor is in a sorority that is our “rival” house, and the girls that were given a higher word count were her friends.

For lack of better words, that is bullshit.

to anyone who reads this...

I need your email addresses that you use for blogger because I'm setting this particular blog of mine private. I'm writing for the Greek newspaper and I decided to try to make my articles more interactive, with a followup blog my reads can reply to after they read my articles.

With that said, I don't want them all up in my private businass of me complaining about my bitch-ass ness.

go ahead and follow my other blog too! kaquinoOdyssey.blogspot.com

About Me: sorority edition.

my sorority would hate: that i think being a "Twin Star" is absurd and unrealistic.

along with junk mail cluttering my inbox, (i really should've made a separate account for stuff like that), i get at least a handful of daily e-mails from my sorority about all things concerning 'rush' (for my non-greek readers, Rush is the term used for sorority recruitment. easily one of the most important times for any sorority) because you can never be too prepared to welcome over 1,000 new freshman girls into your home and making it seem like your sorority is the shit and better than all the other 29 houses on campus.

but anyway, after that hell week is over and you get the new wide-eyed, i've-never-touched-booze-in-my-life-and-i'm-ready-to-be-corrupted girls into the house, we give them a huge ass binder of information for them to read and familiarize themselves with the rest of the girls in the sorority.

This year instead of giving us the freedom of designing this page (like past years), we have to follow this template below.

this is what i would answer if i had my way. i'll repost my real answers when i get to it.

***

Get creative! As long as you answer these questions in some sort of fashion and add at least one picture of you and your kite family we will be golden!

Name: Kimberly aka "kimmi." i don't know why everyone started calling me kimmi in college. maybe it sounded more asian to them. ( Add a nickname to if you’d like)

Year in school: junior and still dont know what the f*ck i'm doing with my life

Hometown: PENNSYLVANIA. the best place ever. i kick myself for thinking going to school so damn far was a good idea.

School Address: my sorority. this has got to be the most daft question on this because everyone forced to do this lives in the house.

Major: anthropology. i like indiana jones.

Favorite thing about being a Theta: paying for my friends was a good investment.

Favorite Food: anything that isn't served by our cooks. did you know I was one of the few girls in our sorority who wasn't affected by the massive salmonella poisoning that swept over our house? Cheers to having a 3rd world stomach!

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: why the f*ck would you care? would we really start a conversation focusing on this topic? where would this topic even take us...there's no room for progression here.

Favorite pizza topping: i don't remember pizza toppings when i'm blackout.

Favorite class at Purdue: again, dumb question. no freshman would even be taking the same ones I'm taking right now.

Hobbies/Interests: booze, boys, poor life decisions.

Favorite restaurant on campus: Indiana's poor excuses for restaurants warrant no promotion in their favor.