First Job I've Ever Had

Last week I sent in a contract to work for my fraternity's national organization. I signed a two year contract with BYX Nationals as an MA, or Ministry Associate, which is what we call our national advisers. I'll travel from chapter to chapter and give make overs. Top two tips: tank tops and Audio Push.

I'm kind of serious about that. My chapter, the Xi chapter, is a little different from the rest of the chapters. The fraternity was started in Texas and had most of it's early growth in the mid-west. Fraternities in the SEC are a little different. We're a little more fratty. The chapters in the mid-west run great - they have their own style, and we have ours. What I'll be doing (I think - I signed the contract without reading it. They made me do it in blood, too. The notary present had horns and a tail) is bringing a little more SEC to national pledgeship and rush. And it all starts with tank tops and Audio Push.

I'm running into a problem here that I've experienced before. As a counselor at War Eagle, I was always the one to push the envelope. In fact, I was told that was my job. Once, in a skit in front of all 400 kids, I accidentally made a racial slur. My good friend Ricky Shade and I were acting out a scenario where we were at heaven's gates trying to get in, and I said something I shouldn't have. With skits usually I just make things up on the spot, and so here I felt a joke and went with it, but I ended up saying that all of Ricky's ancestors (Native Americans) were in Hell. Afterward, I apologized directly to the camp supervisor, and he said to me that it was alright; I was the counselor who pushed the envelope, and I was allowed a few mess ups in exchange for energy and creativity I brought to the table. Then he said this exact quote: "Now, if you had said something about Muslims, we would've had a problem." Apparently those people are worth more than Indians.

Now I'm on Top Staff at War Eagle; I got a phone call a few months ago from the supervisor strictly about the things that I did as a counselor that I'm not allowed to do now that I'm in charge. I will push the envelope no more.

I've been the envelope pusher for BYX for some time now. I do questionable things in the name of energy and creativity. Sometimes they work out great, and sometimes the officer core sits down with me and disbands the secret society I made up because of complaints from out of state chapters we pranked. And now I can't do these things before. I've been making suggestions to the Xi chapter on pledgeship activities (human television remote, campus rickshaw service, sorority lawn mowing with safety scissors) that I would never make as an MA. Those have hazing written all over them. So now I'm having to think inside the box, which I really hate. I spent my whole seventh grade year inside a box after I was kidnapped by gypsies, and I have some bad memories from it. I have some good memories from it, too, but overall, bad.

I'm moving to Ft. Worth, TX, on May 12th to start. I'll have five chapters in the fall, and then nine from January onwards. The first five are:

Vanderbilt
LSU
Flordia
Texas
Texas Tech