Moving in with a sister for the first time and learning that beautiful people have fat legs, use mouth wash, and wear last year's coat.

Long tired eternities of drinking coffee and staying up late when you still can't remember your Shakespeare or your Seven Ideas.

Listening to music, and when your favorite song comes on, having five other people to sing it with, even if you're all off-key.

Sitting in the corner and listening with all your heart, because she's lost and she's lonely and it seems that the whole world is just falling apart...

And it's gathering together in a circle waiting for someone who you've seen through her darkest hour to blow out a candle and tell you she is getting married.

And it is, I suppose, a kind of evaluation.

You grow up within the chapter and perhaps you do learn more of this grissly ungraceful circus we call life than if you had lived it somewhere else. 

You learn that not having a date for formal doesn't mean the end of the world and whoever your date could have or should have been, he is the one missing out, not you.

You learn that library nights are not always for studying and that silent rooms work best.

You learn that the world is made up of people you're going to love, sometimes, and people you're not going to like always, and you have to live with them anyway. You learn that there's still a lot to believe in and a whole lot more to hope for...

You learn that love is never easy and it is a long time coming.

And if you are very smart or very lucky, you learn that no matter how big or messy the world becomes, what is precious and permanent is always the same.

And in the end, Phi Gam can only be a better way to stumble down the back stairs and out the front door of life.

...Anonymous