Last week was Secret Week for two of the sororities on campus, including my sorority, Pi Beta Phi! For those of you who don’t know, Secret Week is what happens after bigs (members of an older pledge class in a sorority) have been given their littles (members of the newest pledge class!). Bigs spend the week leaving their littles gifts and sending them clues about their identity! It’s one of the best memories that many sorority girls have about their own days as new members. Going into Secret Week, I was crazy excited for the presents, and clues, but mostly just getting my big at the end of the week!
For me, Secret Week started with an email from my big, the same night that bigs found out their littles! My big made an email account called obsessedwithjesse@gmail.com and emailed me to say hi and give me instructions for the next week. It was so exciting to open my Hopkins email and find an email from her, using an email account she made just for me! A few nights later, on Sunday night, my big emailed me to tell me that the next day, I should leave my room unlocked while I was in class, so that she could sneak in and leave me a surprise! When I was leaving my room, however, I totally spaced and forgot to leave my door unlocked. As I realized this (and started freaking out in the middle of IFP!) my phone buzzed with a text from a random number telling me that it was my big and that everything was fine and that she still loved me, but needed me to be out of my room (and leave it unlocked!) from 4-5pm. I felt so bad that I had forgotten to leave my room unlocked that I ran back to my room right after class and left it open early! I spent the hour between 4 and 5pm napping in my friend’s room and then came back at 5:06pm to find that my big had left me a party-themed surprise on my bed! She decorated my room with streamers, a garland that spelled out “DISCO PARTY”, tons and tons of balloons, and a bunch of adorable Pi Phi gifts and candy. She also left me a cute little note welcoming me to the family, and explaining that the reason she chose to use a party theme for the first day was because every day with our family and with Pi Phi is a “party!” My personal favorite was a bracelet spelling out the Pi Phi letters and using our wine and silver blue colors!
Day One of Secret Week definitely made me really excited for the rest of the week. The next day I woke up and got an email from my big telling me to be in front of the FFC at 5:15pm sharp, wearing the tiara my big had left me and with lots of friends! I texted a few of my close friends (both Pi Phi and non-Pi Phi!) and made plans to meet up a little bit earlier. Coincidentally, one of my best friends, Jess, (who’s also a Pi Phi!) got a text from her big saying that she had a surprise in the BLC at 5pm. We didn’t want to split up our friend group, so we decided to head to her surprise then rush over to mine! We went to the BLC and found the study room her big had reserves for her—it had cute little notes written in dry-erase marker on the walls, a huge inflatable monkey and palm tree, a basket full of gifts for her, and the Hopkins student body president, Moses Song, waiting for Jess with a message from her big! Moses read Jess a really cute letter from her big and then performed a dance for her. It was hilarious, sweet, and really entertaining! After Jess’ gift, we headed over to the FFC, where I was greeted by four guys wearing suits and bearing gifts for me! They serenaded me and then, as the grand finale, one mock-proposed to me with a ring box containing a ΠΒΦ ring! It was super cute and really funny, and the ring is gorgeous! They also gave me a bouquet of flowers, a letter from my grandbig, a cake cut and decorated to look like a monkey, and a bunch of my favorite candies! My grandbig’s letter told me that she had left me a clue about her identity in a locker in the BLC, and said she’d give me the locker number later. She told me in her note that she’d use Pi Phi’s founding year (1867!) as the locker combination, and then welcomed me to the family (and dropped a hint about our family liking monkeys!). Later that night, I got a text from a mysterious number telling me that the locker number was the number of languages my grandbig spoke plus 19. My friends and I figured she had to speak at least a few languages, so we went to all the lockers in the lower 20s and tried 1867 on all of them. Three of them opened, but none of them had anything inside! After texting my grandbig in confusion, she texted me to tell me that she didn’t speak many languages at all—and I figured out that the locker number was 20, or 1+19. I opened the locker and found a note with another clue and some more candies for me!
The next day, I left my room unlocked and came back to find it that my big had decorated it with the theme of “winning!” She left balloons and streamers everywhere, made a huge poster card with a paper bunny, pictures cut out from magazines, a letter, and a moustache necklace holding lots of cute little award ribbons with my name and “BEST LITTLE EVER” written on them. She also left me even more candy and a bunch of little Easter eggs with clues to her identity written inside. I was super excited for the clues and opened them right away. I already had a pretty good idea of who my big was, and the clues definitely helped me confirm my suspicions!
The next day was Day Four of secret week, and it was totally amazing. Unfortunately my big had scheduled another serenade for me during one of my classes, so I had to miss it L She did, however, still sneak into my room and leave me lots and lots of Pi Phi goodies! I am now the pride owner of a Pi Phi pillowcase, a Pi phi notepad, Pi Phi magnets, a Pi Phi to-do list notepad, a Pi Phi glass, and a Pi Phi wallet/keychain! She also left me marshmallows, a cute scarf, an adorable note, and a collage of photos of cute guys on my basket!
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I woke up the next day super excited for Revelation Night. My big texted me to tell me that she had one more surprise in store for me…and I came back from class to find that she had made me a jungle in my room! There were masks, a sign saying WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, a huge inflatable monkey, green streamers and balloons, an adorable stuffed monkey, and lots of chocolates with hazelnuts—my favorites! It was super adorable, and I felt really excited since my friend Jess had also been getting lots of monkey-themed gifts, and we were pretty sure our bigs were in the same family.
That afternoon, my friends and I spent several hours baking cupcakes and decorating them for our bigs, just to say thank you for all the amazing stuff they had done for us in the past week. We finished them just in time to speed over to revelation in Levering. All the members of our pledge class were walking around nervously, and nobody really knew what was going to happen. When we finally went downstairs, we walked into the room to find that sheets had been hung up over a line, and our bigs were lined up on the other side. We were each given a costume/pajama set that our big had gotten for us, and told to find the matching leg on the line of bigs. My big got us the cutest, most ridiculous clown suits ever to wear! Finally, the moment of revelation came, and the older members started counting down. When they finally finished counting down, the bigs pulled down the sheets and we all screamed and hugged each other!
My big turned out to be Becca, the girl that I had wanted all along! Luckily, it turns out she wanted me as well. We sat down with our family, which included my grandbig, Ilana, and my big’s twin Ann, and her little, my friend Jess! The Funky Monkey family, I am happy to say, is now four generations strong! We were super excited to hang out with each other and get to know each other, and after grabbing dinner with another family at Paper Moon, the Funky Monkeys headed to my big’s apartment to hang out and talk. We spent the rest of the night bonding and sharing stories about ourselves and our lives, and I laughed so hard that I almost cried. It was an amazing, lovely night and I can’t wait until next year when we’ll have our own littles and I can spend a week showering my little in gifts, food, and Pi Phi Love!