secret society

Last night the brothers of Phi Gamma Delta (better known as FIJI) hosted "Guidopalooza". Needless to say, the Jersey shore is a little misplaced in lower middle Tennessee.
But this really has to do with a conversation I had with a sorority sister by the name of Sarah Pinson a couple days ago at lunch.

Why did they chose Phi, Gamma, and Delta as their Greek letters?
Do they mean anything?
What about other Greek organizations like SAE, ATO, ADPi, and PhiMu?

There is an answer. On the FIJI crest there is a Greek motto (which I am spelling phonetically from the original Greek): philotes glukutate dunasteia. But if you were looking at the original Greek it would be pretty clear that the first letter of each of these 3 words spells out Phi Gamma Delta. Translated to English, this phrase means "Friendship, the sweetest influence".

For SAE, the crest actually says Sigma Alpha Epsilon, just spelled out in Greek.
ATO is more based on Christian principles, not really Greek. Their crest says "pi epsilon pi", which is probably a huge chapter secret. I'm not too terribly interested in learning this secret either.

The sororities actually started out as societies, the Adephean Society (ADPi) and the Philomathean Society (PhiMu). As for my own sorority, good old Alpha Delta Theta?

Who the hell knows. We don't have a Greek motto. Sometimes I feel like we knocked off ADPi and/or the security company.

sticky sap

Story:
Today I noticed that PKE, a local sorority, had decorated its front door with wrapping paper to make it look like a present.

Rant:
It is November 14. Thanksgiving is still over a week away. I'm very much against Christmas decorations going up so early. This is not wholly directed at you, PKE. Wal-Mart and CVS have their decorations up as well. Oh Christmas, you consumer holiday! It's not surprising though, considering that even the wise men brought Jesus gifts. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Gold, well, is gold. That's a pretty nice present.
Frankincense is a type of incense that comes from a tree. It was also used to make Egyptian eyeliner. Nice smelling makeup is still a good gift.
And myrrh. Well. The Romans used it as an additive in their wines as well as a cover up for the smell of burning corpses. According to a Greek myth later adopted by the Roman poet Ovid, the myrrh tree was created when Myrrha was punished. Myrrha, daughter of either Theias or Cinyras (Ovid), was in love with her father and slept with him. She became pregnant and bore Adonis of all people after turning into a tree. Adonis was the most beautiful man that ever lived, which says something really weird about incest if you stop to think about it.
But backtrack another second. Myrrha was punished for wanting what you can't have. The wise men gave Jesus myrrh. Is this a subtle message that we want what we can't have!?!?! That's a little too philisophical/theological for my taste, but it just seemed interesting.
On a last interesting side note, Myrrha also appears in Dante suffering from rabies. How she got rabies is unknown, especially since she is a tree, but it's worth mentioning.

That was a long rant that really didn't have much to do with Christmas.