Throw it in the bag.

via 

Towards the end of my travels, I started fielding a lots-a questions from future NPC traveling consultants (Hellooo out there again--pumped for y'all!). One of the biggest/most repeated?

"Um... How exactly do you pack?"

Ah, yes, dear one. 'Tis an art. An art that includes a 10-lb. shipment home to Mama within month uno. Those Hunter wellies I thought I'd need? Negative ghostrider. You streamline.

For those wondering, I had to type up an entire packing list for the 2011-2012 ADPi LC group. And for those curious, I'm brave enough to post my personal items on the internet. Wow. New low.

Carry-on/"The Office:"

20" Heys piece with 1-liter clear bag with fold-up toothbrush | 3 oz. mini-products (hairspray, toothpaste, lotion, deodorant) | Tide To-Go pen (to whom I owe my solidarity) | bobby pins | Emi-jay ponytail holders | lipgloss | laptop | Hobo wallet | pens | business cards and company stationary | ADPi Ritual Book, ha | passport | Vera Bradley jewelry case | umbrella | the "Emergency Outfit" | camera | a Longchamp bag | Lilly Pulitzer planner | bible/journal/books | iPod | about 20 DVD's | as much candy as they'd let me bounce through TSA with


Suitcase #1/"The Closet:"

3 sports bras | 2 long-sleeved Nike running tops for Yankeeeeeland | 2 running tanks | 2 pairs of Lululemon yoga pants | 2 pairs of Hudson jeans | 1 pair of jeggings | 2 J. Crew tanks for layering | 4-5 J. Crew cardi's to throw over dresses | 2-4 fun tops for under a jacket at work or for going out | 6 t-shirts | 1 Alpha Delta Pi sweatshirt | 1 Patagonia pull-over | 1 pair of high school football sweatpants | 1 pair of pajama boxers | my bikini, duh | 30 pairs of undies. K, that's as personal as I'm gettin' over here | 2 LBD’s | 1 black Urban Outiftters blazer |  7-8 dresses | 4 skirts | North Face rainjacket | Francesca's peacoat | 3 pashminas | gloves/hats/#ihatethenorthfrigid

Suitcase #2/"The bathroom cabinet/laundry room/pantry:"

1 large Kate Spade “Colin Bag” with manicure stuff | q-tips and cotton balls | toothbrush/toothpaste | face lotions | make-up | comb/brushes | 1 Vera Bradley Large Cosmetic Bag with vitamins | any and every medication ever |  band-aids | Airbornne | Crystal Light packets | Starbucks Via packets | infinity supply of gum | 1 pair of black Jessica Simpson stilettos | 1 pair of Private Gallery nude stilettos | 1 pair of Jack Rogers | 1 pair of Tory Burch Revas | 2 pair of Nike running shoes | 1 pair of shower shoes | 1 pair of cute boots | large Zip-Loc bag of laundry supplies | Downy Wrinkle Release | lingere bag | roll of quarters | dryer sheets | 1 resistance band | 2 3-lb. free weights. Yes, I'm crazy.

5 Tips from a Jetsetter:

1. Dryer sheets in your shoes that are going to be right up in your clothes' business for 12 hour travel days.

2. The heavier, the further to THE WHEELS it goes when packing.

3. Roll all clothes so you have room to shop pack better.

4. Give old magazines away at airports unless you think 10-lbs in glossy paper sounds fun. And new friends rule.

5. You'll love yourself more if you travel with baby hairspray, concealer, and lipgloss in your carry-on.

Dang, I'm sorta gonna miss this life.

Just kidding, I get my very first apartment key today after work.

This is how I feel about that: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greater love.

Photo courtesy of Bippity Boppity Boo.

I get to the Austin airport bright and squirrley.

2-hour delay, no big. Normal.

Then "We're gonna turn around and go back to the gate
because this engine shows signs of being faulty."

Touch down in Chicago.

"Ma-am, you've missed your connection. We got you on the next flight out."

In 3 hours.

Which is delayed 2 hours.

Then a bunch of us miss the gate change because they called it out once.

So they put us going into LaGuardia, and me and my new friend-pack
sprint to L6.

Board.

Wait 40 minutes because one of the flight attendants was delayed in Tulsa.

Land around 2:30 a.m.--but in Newark.

Not LaGuardia. i.e. half the plane is outraged.

Really.

(I'd doubt my intellegenece/competency as a human if it weren't for 10 other humans missing the whole "destination city" thing, too.)

I call the girls, and they drive from Newark to LaGaurdia.
So we can drive to Connecticut.

We get in around 4:45 a.m. and I sleep for a couple of hours.
Back to work.
Oh but wait, my luggage has been shipped to another airport.
No one knows where.

I basically looked like a shacker all day.

Miserable.

** American Airlines, I hope you enjoyed the last business you will ever get from this girl raised on Delta. At least they're nice when they're delayed. Which is well, every Delta flight, but still. They'd have put me in a hotel. No one fly American ever.

God, ya sure lot of craziness to happen, and I kept blinking back tears in my sleep-deprived eyes. Thinking "'Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the Author of your circumstances. The best way to handle unwanted situations is to thank Me for them.' Satan, shove it. Just try to steal my joy. Just try."

Western Connecticut State University

Danbury, Conn.

Eta Omicron Chapter

So all this, on my last visit. Of what they say will be the hardest job I'll ever take. And after a day of meetings yesterday, I trudge back to the little dorm room I'm crashing in.

And see this:

This, accompanied with "You're almost done, Ashlyn!"

Dam broken. Flood gates opened. I bawled, literally, in front of the collegians.

Ha.

Oops.

Someone did that. For me. Someone went and printed off two pictures from my Facebook and put them in frames. No wait, not someone--my sisters did that. Joe Schmoe would tell me "I do not know" the girls I meet. I meet them for the first time in my life when I land. I'm usually gone in less than a week, and I may never see some of them again.

But when I tell them they shouldn't have:

"Ashlyn. Come on. 'I live for you.' It's no big deal. We're sisters."

I mean, how can a sorority consultant argue with her sorority's open motto?
Dangit. They got me on that.
So I laugh.

And sometimes cry.

They live for me.

"Greater love has no one that this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends."

John 15:13

I love it when God uses a Greek organization--what some people consider as the antithesis of Christ following--to bless me. Why. Do. We. Ever. Put. You. In. A. Box...

Snap yo fingers, do yo step.

Roar. Photo courtesy of Tiny White Daisies.

History Lesson for Wednesday, March 23, 2011:

Greek diplomats would drink vino (No wait--that's Italian. Whatever.) while listening to their colleagues speaking. They didn't want to put down their drink to clap.

So they snapped.

Thus the origin of the sorority snap. Boom. I srat, therefore I snap.

And today, I'm headed up to Knoxville, Tenn. for some good 'ole Southern hospitality (I can already tell from the sweet emails fillin' up my Outlook box) at University of Tennessee. Strike up "Rocky Top," y'all--I'm headed to Alpha Kappa! Snaps to that.

Blog post title: "Buy You a Drink" by T-Pain. Throwwwbaaaaack...

On leadership.

I love when I get floored by NPC members who don't necessisarily wear ADPi letters. It's a reminder to me in my little azure-blue-and-white-24/7-world of the testament that not just ADPi, but every NPC group out there is working to challenge and inspire young women. Times your organization by 26. That's our power as NPC.

Happened at a Virginia Tech Panhellenic round table meeting

for the chapter presidents I just left.

Daaaaang. They get it. The Panhellenic President showed the video below to challenge these chapter presidents. I know the audience for this little blog is all over the place and that the guys have already quit readin', but I do know for a fact there's a sector of Greek women reading that serve on your Executive Committees. Somone needs to tell you thanks. Holding two EC offices in my sorority, honestly, taught me more than any other university organization position, honors society, or even internship ever did. Steering, encouraging, listening to, motivating, challenging, goin' to bat for, promoting, holding accountable, and inspiring 156 humans (now make that 18 to 22-year-old women) was rough some days. But remember that you do it so their experience is a cake-walk. So they can look back at pictures sorority-squatting on a beach in Destin, Fla. and still feel that sisterhood decades later.

So it's kinda cheesy. But worth a watch.

And for those younger sisters who wanna go a bit further than cooler-painting and nametag-glittering (Kidding. But really.) and give that whole leadership element of sorority a go, it's your job to plant a little bit of the emotion from the above video into them. Succession planning. You get 4 years to call the chapter shots. Use 'em wisely.

Life of Pi.

Oh, glitter paper, paint pens, and grosgrain ribbon. #sororitygirlproblems.

Here at University of Maryland, fellow LC Megan and I had a brilliant idea this weekend: we're chillin' around a round table with some members of Grand Council (aka our mother-figures this year) brainstorming PR ideas for this chapter.

Monday: Pi (3.14) Day.

Idea: We must celebrate.

So we delivered off blueberry and apple pies to our neighborly Pi houses--AOΠ, ΑΕΠ, ΠΚΑ and ΒΘΠ. So presh. Meg and I--Lilly P. koozie'd Diet Coke in hand--crafted the cards with a golf theme to get buzz out about the chapter's Lion's Share Challenge Pi Putt for Ronald McDonald House. Again, I get paid to do stuff like this. Hollaaaaaa.

The sisters of Alpha Delta Pi wish you one, too.

Happy Pi Day, y'all!

Worth it.

Alpha Delta Pi Foundation Video by Mitch Hardison.

The above Foundation video dropped at the 6 Alpha Delta Pi District Leadership Conferences across the nation this winter. If you're an ADPi and that doesn't make your heart speed up, we have an issue. Because I swear my heart rate jumps and I think for half-a-sec I could do this LC thing for 5 more years (Ha. Riiight.).

I just feel like we miss the point of sororities sometimes. We sorority squat at our little campuses and forget that women got in there and fought to make us national, then international. We forget that our chapter's donations combine with 137 others and make something big. Really big. We forget that women in our own chapters are benefitting from international scholarships and grants just to continue higher education. Now that's sisterhood. Dear everyone: Do you see what we're doing?! And ADPi is just one of 26 National Panhellenic Groups...

Suz and Tara. I love my home chapter and buddy I love RMH-Birmingham.

This is why I'll give to ADPi my whole life:

Because God used it to turn my life around.

Because it helped supply me the confidence to stand up in front of 160 women and lead them.

Then 500 women.

We're talking a girl who bought the lowest-priced diamond-shaped badge because I thought I'd only wear it once a week for 4 years, maybe give it to my kid, 

and that's it.

Ha.

It gave me the tools to understand myself.

To work for something I believe in.

To meet thousands of women who believe in the same thing.

To meet role models at every turn.

Like the one last weekend that got me going on church-planting and fostering children because the gospel demands it of us...

And watch younger women grow up into these role models literally before my eyes.

Because it encourages me that I'm doing something pretty alright with my life right now.

p.s. Next life mission: Convince Greek organizations that while we're social in nature, there is a deeper reality that we can no longer raise thousands of dollars for each other's national philanthropies and call it a day. There is this thing called service. Called not calling Daddy for a check, but looking people in the eye and helping make things brighter for them. Imagine the force we could be if we reached past our wallets and committed to interacting with those we throw checks at...

Sorry, soapbox.

Aaaaaaand this post is why I work for a sorority. I would. Ha.

To contribute to the Alpha Delta Pi Foundation, click here.

Gettin' lucky in Kentucky.

Dream come true. But next time I'm here, I want a hat and julep.

If you follow my little story, you recall I was last in the icy glacier that was University of Maryland. I'd like to report that the Beta Phi women did a gorgeous job with recruitment! After the advisory board treated Megan and me to a little toast at a real-live speakeasy called Gibson in D.C.'s U-Street district (Legit prohibition style. As in, the door isn't marked, there is a waitlist, my drank put me back 20 bucks--'erything.), my blondie and I waved so long and I hopped a plane to Kentucky...

University of Louisville

Expansion Visit

Louisville, Ky.

More snow. Whirlwind of notes, memorizing lines, and BAM--you're on stage. Multiple meetings with deans, administrators, and Panhellenic members. 1.5-hour-long presentation. Crackin' jokes in the middle of my part of the presentation (you gotta make 'em smile). Greek row tour. "Don't step on the cardinals!" Q&A. "Hi!MynameisAshlynStallingsandIserveasaLeadershipConsultantforAlphaDeltaPi." Visit from UK's Beta Psi sisters. Mini-tour of Louisville. Dinner at Bristol. Sweet tea for the first time in a month. (Then I got reeaal sick. Go figure.) Hanging out with CBG, ADPi's International President herself. Expansion trips work like bidding, so when the university has room for a new chapter, the word hits the National Panhellenic Council street... Fingers crossed, this would be a cool one for Alpha Delt!

Centre College

Eta Omega chapter

Danville, Ky. 

Tuesday and Wednesday I spent officer-training style down the snowy, antebellum mansion-lined roads of little Danville, Kentucky! Check it: Centre is so small that the girls said other students spied me hanging out with them and knew I was an outsider. So much for fitting in... But this school is bumpin' with tradition (streaking, no class cancellation since before the Civil War...) and a pretty sweet chappy of precious ADPi's. You craft me a sign for the door, and I'm putty in your hands, collegians. Sold.

Scenes from the Eta Omega house.

Wish we had more than two days, because we sure "clicked" fast, Eta Omega girls! I coulda spent cozy nights in PJ's giggling over rediculous YouTube videos in the chapter room while the snow poured down for another day...

Dinner with the girls. Danville's eating establishments aren't too shabby...

So yeah. I loved Kentucky.

"Somethin' bout a southern girl."

Photo courtesy of Pink and Green Owl.

I said "yes ma'am" to the Panhellenic advisor during our meeting today.

Not once, mind you, but twice.

She's 24. I'm 22.

I do this all. The. Time. Like, ALL the time.

Sometimes I freaking hate being so Southern...

#embarrassing

Blog post title: "Southern Girl" by Amos Lee

Blue and white we'll always be.

Photo courtesy of Southern Darlin. I think we are the same person.

University of Maryland

Beta Phi Chapter

College Park, Md.

 

Alpha Pi. Iota. Delta Theta. Alpha Chi. Gamma Rho. Theta Zeta. Kappa (KAPPA!!! Shout out to my girls. I miss y'all.) and Eta Rho, obviously.

I may have feet planted here in Maryland for recruitment at Beta Phi chapter,

but we're pulling in from Alpha Delta Pi chapters across the nation.

Above translated from Greek: George Washington University. Valdosta State University. University of California-Los Angeles. Arizona State University. Washington & Lee University. Samford University and California State University-Chico, obviously.

Alpha Pi girls came over on Sunday to help us practice! Thank y'all! Meg and I shall be hoppin' on the Metro soon to come see your pretty townhouse.

 

It's like going to Grand Convention or a district conference--we need to be reminded that we at our little campuses do not make up _____ sorority. You're actually pretty new to Greek life, comparitively speaking, if you're still in college...

Dear sorority women of America: I do not care how "good" you think your chapter is. Well, first of all, right now I don't care if you're a KD or Alpha Gam or an ADPi or whatever, but second of all I do not care how "good" you think your chapter is. How old, how prestigious, how many awards you've won. Improve it. Lead it. Lead Panhellenic life at your university. Look to your left a few miles, to your right a few hundred miles. Get ideas and implement them. There is no sorority chapter in this whole nation doing everything perfectly, regardless of the letters are on your Vineyard Vines bag (or frocket tee. I could thump people that pen annoying articles like this in the Auburn Plainsman. Get. Over. It.).

See? They were here before us. And stinkin' cute, too. Photo courtesy of Alpha Theta chapter.

I know I have a really, really warped view on sororities because I am constantly traveling. But I'm passionate about this idea because I'm guilty of being a total ADPi snob. I was a member of a single-letter, ancient ADPi chapter that is at the top of the international awards chain for our organization. Guess what? That's not good enough. Improve. Get better. Stay current. Reach out across America to see what other chapters are doing. Refuse to rest on your laurels.

Then you'll really see some sisterhood. It looks dang pretty cool when it spans our great nation and a bunch of generations.

Disclaimer: This is not a rant. I'm passionate about it. And by now I know through fanmail or whatever that a lot of Greek women read my silly blog. And when I find a soapbox, I stand on it and preach. Story of my life.

So I live in this weird, Greek, fairytale land...

The colonade at W&L. Snow-dusted style.

Washington and Lee University

Theta Zeta Chapter

Lexington, Va.

They say Virginia is for lovers. And I loved this past week in VA. I'm back home for 48 hours after an amazing, exhaustive week tucked in a valley in Virginia. But I loved every moment of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, and the beautiful women of the Theta Zeta chapter...

But lemme back up and explain that title.

I need a photographer to follow me around and capture the odd things I do all week that are totally normal to me. Since I haven't found a photographer desperate enough to follow my fab lifestyle gratis, I'll commence with what you would see me do:

1. Get to bed at 2 a.m., wake up at 7 a.m., and start the work day all over again. Sustenance includes: LexCo coffee, Starbursts, coffee, Skittles, coffee, and Blue Sky veggie sandwiches. To finish, I pound more coffee.

2. Trek around through 6 W&L sororities' recruitment parties with a Panhellenic brigade. I see nothing abnormal about 100 18 to 21-year-old women banging on walls, stomping, chanting, singing sororitized lyrics to We R Who We R/Hall and Oates/Teach Me How to Dougie, and having conversations timed to the minute to equate precisely 25-minute rounds. Nothing. Totally standard. Hence why sorority membership is a common thread between female hires for HR and recruiting jobs. We got it on lock.

Srat row and our almost finished hizzy since we're the new kids on the block.

3. Miss the entirity of the Auburn-Oregon BCS Championship Game after living my whole life as an obnoxious Auburn fan because of (you ready?) sorority recruitment. I had a sweet friend text me every play during the Open House Recruitment party. To which I donned my Cam #2 jersey pulled over my work ensemble and heels. Number of Potential New Members (aka rushees) that asked for the score: 3. I also updated the anxious southern-bred Alpha Dee's between every party. Thus my lack of professional attire was pardoned. WAR EAGLE.

4. Take morning exploratory prayer runs through W&L's 200-year-old campus and Lexvegas. The Stonewall Jackson House, Robert E. Lee's old house, Virginia Military Insititute... I love old buildings. I love history. I love praying. I was in heaven.

Lee family crest, admissions office, Lee Memorial Chapel, front gates.

5. Ponder purchasing a Barbour jacket, considering every other female at W&L rocked one. I like my clothes a tad masculine sometimes. They're on to something.

Alexa Chung doesn't go to W&L. But you get the idea.

6. Grab coffee/eliptical trainer-cize alongside the Pi Beta Phi and Kappa Delta consultants also stationed at "dubyanell." Verdict? We're totes presh. There's no one that can relate to you, living out of a suitcase, or discussing insurance and legacy policies like a fellow consultant. Instant friends.

7. Put an upside-down penny on the grave of Robert E. Lee's horse, Traveller. It's tradition to, because as the saying goes, then Lincoln has to kiss Traveller's, well, you know...

8. Visit the founding sites/headquarters of Kappa Alpha Order, Alpha Tau Omega, and Sigma Nu. I know, I know: I'm a Greek nerd. Sue me.

Dad goes, "Sigma Nerds, Ashlyn? Cool." Intense SAE-Sigma Nu rivalry in his day, apparently.

9. Celebrate reaching quota on year numero 3 of chapter existance with these pretty ladies. To get cheesy, though I'm 6 months in to the job, it's still always so amazing to me how these women take in and care for a total stranger and then hug me at the end of a week. And they say college-aged kids are selfish--I beg to disagree. Deep in my heart, I love my ADPi...

Next stop? Iowa on Tuesday. Brrr.