If you found yourself on almost any college campus, it wouldn’t take a trained eye to gather a small idea of the trends that are dearly adopted by the vast majority of the female population.

If I were a betting soul, I’d bet that you know that exact ensemble that I’m referring to: perfectly imperfect top knot hair style, oversized “frocket” tee from one date party or another, barely noticeable Nike shorts, and (depending on the type of girl) either tall socks and Nike Free’s or Chaco sandals.

These are the girls that make funny shapes with their hands when they take pictures. They are the type of girls that always have their posse close by. This is the type of girl that refers to certain people as their “big” and “little.” This is the type of girl that I didn’t want to be when I grew up.

Sorority girls are infamous on college campuses across the country for being stuck up, thoughtless creatures who have a special talent for spending their daddy’s money. They’re thought to be the first girls to a party and the last ones to drunkenly leave. Their only concern in the whole world is in Greek letters printed across their chests on their 3-sizes-too-big comfort color t-shirt. Or at least that’s what everyone thinks, isn’t it?

When it comes time for a senior in high school to graduate, they’re often bombarded with questions about their future goals in all aspects of life from academic to career goals. I rarely had a solid answer to give anyone who would come at me with their 20 questions. However, the one thing that I was absolutely sure of was that I, Abbie Sanguinetti, would not, under any circumstances, be affiliated with any sort of Greek life that would take place in college.

There was nothing about the “srat” life that enticed me - like, don’t you know that t-shirts aren’t all one-size-fits-all? What don’t they understand about having more than one way to pose for a picture? I mean, I could surely think of better ways to spend my time than drowning in a bottomless pit of estrogen. I was just not cut out for that life. 

If there is any one quality about the South that makes us more proud than any other region, it would have to be the traditions that we’ve forged through the years. One dapper young man enrolls in a Jesus-approved SEC school where he finds a proper, young, sorority-affiliated Debutante and sweeps her off her feet. They then live happily ever after in a quaint home where they raise their two children; one boy and one girl that grow into a dapper young man and a proper young Debutante, and the cycle continues. Little girls grow up with the understanding that they follow in their mother’s footsteps and join the sorority that she and all other ladies in the family had spent years and college careers building onto the legacy of sisterhood. That tradition was all well and good, but you wouldn't find me repeating that history.  

Well from where I’m sitting, it's September 11, 2014. The time shows 6:41 on a foggy Mississippi Thursday morning, and I’m writing this article from the chapter room of the Pi Beta Phi sorority house where I am part of the lifelong legacy of sisterhood that started with my mom’s two older sisters; she soon followed, then my younger sister, and now me. I choose to wear XL comfort color t-shirts that may hide my Nike shorts every now and then. Some days I wear tall socks with my tennis shoes, and other days I wear my Chacos. 

I take pride in wearing ΠΒΦ across my chest in ‘the wine and silver blue’ because I know that being in a sorority is so much more than a group of overly cheerful girls taking perfectly-posed pictures and spending night after night at date parties and swaps. My sorority is made up of incredibly talented, intelligent, and genuine women that make dealing with life’s daily qualms just a little bit easier. My sorority is made up of women that come from every which walk of life who are all holding tightly to their place in the future that they are creating for themselves. My sorority is made up of a group of daily encouragers who are unwaveringly there through the good times and the bad. It’s probably for the best that I’m not a betting gal. Never did I think that a day would come when I would be part of a sorority but each day spent surrounded with the ladies in my chapter is more evidence that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. 

So, maybe this is what my momma meant by “never judge a book by its cover”?