Do you think this Alumna will make it to 10 National Conferences?

1. UH-Houston,TX

2. Depaul-Chicago, IL

3. UT-Austin, TX

4. UMCP-Maryland

5. FIU-Miami,Fl

6. Gamma-Philadelphia PA

7. Rutgers-Newark, NJ

That’s how many National Conferences Anita Patel (Founding Mother of UF Colony) has been to. Here’s what Anita has to say:

I was encouraged to attend my first conference by my RT, who were NFM.  It was amazing to meet so many sisters from around the country (many who are my close friends today…….).  This weekend I will be a bridesmaid at Devitri’s wedding, who I met at my first conference in Houston TX!  Each conference has led to many memories and a lifetime of friendship that has surpassed the miles between us, moving, life events, and most of all time.  Each year I continue to meet a new generation of sisters, and aside from having a great time, I think it’s important for us to discuss the future of our organization.  When you become an alumnus, its truly an honor to say you are a part of the Greek system and a member of a sorority to your employer and colleagues.  It’s very important to me that DPO is represented as the great service and professional organization that it was founded as.  I think conference has been the perfect place to revisit our purpose and show off how strong the sorority has become.  So it goes without saying, you will meet me at the next national conference in WASHINGTON DC !!

See you there 😉

Think you can beat her? Register now for National Conference 2012 today!

I’m going to National Conference 2012. Are you?

National Conference 2012 registration deadline is coming up quickly – are you planning on registering?

I’ve round up a couple of alumnae, who are going to tell you their DPO Conference stories, but since I’m the voice behind this blog, I thought it only fair to tell you mine first.

I went to my first conference 4 years ago, I had just crossed 4 months prior, and me and 5 of my line sisters jumped on a plane, and flew to Miami, Florida. We were all kind of overwhelmed, and nervous, me particularly because I really don’t mesh well in a HUGE groups of girls. Honest to god, it freaks me out. And, well, here’s something a little bit personal but, the morning of conference, I had a really early flight, and I’d asked my best friend from Zimbabwe to wake me up at 7am. So when an unknown call came through at 7am, I answered it haphazardly without any worry. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my best friend waking me up, it was my sister.. letting me know my grandmother had passed away.

Being in West Lafayette Indiana, and my family back home in Zimbabwe, and summer finals in a week – it wasn’t an option at the time to jump up and fly home. So my parents told me to the best thing to do was keep on trucking, and not to cancel my plans to Miami.

While I’d be lying to say it was the smoothest three days of my life, if there’s one way to distract yourself, its by having over 100 sisters in the same place, reminding you that you’re not alone. We got roomed with girls from USF, now Lambda chapter, and hit it off immediately! I still remember the girls I met at NC in Miami like it was yesterday. And I’ve met a lot of people through being on National Council and other DPO committees, however the Tampa Girls (who I also got to hang out with in London) and the Texas Girls (who we were reunited with again at OSU-TX) and singing on the bus, and running down to the beach at midnight to draw deltas in the sand, and learning the “TAKE A SHOT” chant, and the call, and realizing, #4’s are the best numbers nation wide ;).

I definitely CANNOT forget learning the 5 stages of FAWKWARD. Unfortunately, if you’re a new active, we’re not letting you in on that until you get there. 😉

Let’s just say, during a rough time, it’s good to know you have a ridiculously huge family to keep you on your feet.

I’m pretty sure its that National Council, and that weekend with my line sisters, that kept me going this long and I’m definitely excited to experience it this summer and reunite with some of the girls I met 4 years ago.

I’m going to National Conference 2012 in Washington DC, are you?

Introducing for the Very First Time: MRS Bhumika Patel

It’s that time in my life, where I’ve just started to get wedding invites, solely addressed to myself. Oh dear, I can’t remember the last time I met a boy that mildly fascinated me for more than 5 minutes, and my friends are getting married.

But when you come from a fantastic line of 14 Founding Mothers (Biggest line in the nation other than NFMS, just saying) – it is the MOST exciting moment when your first line sister sends you that SAVE THE DATE Email! And, without a second thought of course, I found myself booking flights, packing outfits and jewellery, and dragging myself on one of my favourite flight destinations, Chicago Bound!

One thing I’ve learnt from weddings is that, they’re all very crazy, and a very very different experience for the guests attending and the bride herself! So, although I had an absolutely fabulous time at the wedding, I really wanted to know what the bride herself was going through.. and more of the detail behind the scenes.

Introducing, (now), Mrs Bhumika Patel, a founding mother and graduate of Purdue University. Bhumika (Femi #10) was a Environmental Science Health Major, who was then accepted into the Myron E. Rubitz Medical Technology Program at Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Hospital in Hines, IL. She is now, wedding chaos all over, currently working in the blood bank department at Hines VA Hospital.

The first thing, EVERYONE wants to know, when weddings come about, is how did he propose? Bhumika and her now husband, Ankur, were in Florida for a friends wedding, when he guided her away from their friends at the bar to go to a beach in Fort Lauderdale to look for seashells for their friends’ honeymoon suite.

“I am not kidding you these seashells were tiny and hard to find. I was starting to get annoyed and was telling Ankur maybe we should just get seashells from a craft store and put those in suite. Ankur was like “no no maybe we should dig deeper into the sand we’ll find more there.” I told him “I’m not digging I just got my nails done!” So here is Ankur digging away at the sand and I’m still looking for shells on top of the sand. Finally Ankur yells out to me and tells me to come over he just found a bunch of shells in the hole he just dug up. I’m walking over to him and suddenly this wave comes in filling in this hole Ankur just dug up with water he quickly picks something up and turns around on his knee asking me to marry him! I am in utter shock, it felt like it was a dream of some sort and everything around me started to feel unreal here is the man of my dreams asking me to marry him! He is telling me “I know that you’ve waited so long for this day to come and I could not be any happier to ask you to be my wife.”  He said some other stuff but I have no clue what he was saying after that because I was practically shocked and crying. People that were around the beach were clapping and cheering. It was just perfect.”

Before the wedding, Bhumika was “stressed to the max”, and called our line sister, and one of the bridesmaids, Aparna, to help her with making the appointments and keep lists and Aparna graciously took on the full role of being her personal assistant! During the preparations Bhumika describes that..

“It was a crazy emotional roller coaster for me but those burst of excitement just made me realize that all this was worth the end result of two us starting our new life together.”

Just to say, I was actually at this wedding, and if Bhumika was stressing out, you couldn’t notice it for a moment. Every single event was absolutely beautiful and it felt like every single moment had been meticulously considered and planned to the T. As guests, between our changing and moving around (and by this I mean, from one place that served alcohol, to another), we didn’t really know what was going through Bhumi’s mind..

“Around the time of the wedding I was actually very calm, sometimes a little stressed, but all in all most of it I was calm since I had a great support group that took control of any situation, especially my sister Nikita. She looked more stressed then me but she made sure I didn’t have to deal with any last minute situations so I could actually enjoy my wedding.

During the wedding, I was so emotional it didn’t hit me that this was my wedding until I was standing by the door ready to walk down the aisle. I felt this sudden blanket of joy/excitement/nervousness overcome me. I hardly cry when it comes to happy moments I just smile a lot when others are crying around me, my line sisters can vouch for me on that, but being in that moment walking down the aisle and everyone’s eyes were fix on me just brought me to tears. I was so nervous when I got up to the mandap had no clue what I was doing, but when they took down the cloth that Ankur was hiding behind I felt so at ease. Both of us just stared at each other and we were both crying saying soft “I love you” to each other. 

After the wedding it was reception times I exhausted but excited to finally celebrate! That night it was perfect just seeing everyone all there to celebrate mine and Ankur’s wedding! “

To top of a perfect couple of days.. and the union of a PERFECT couple, Ankur let Bhumika know just before the reception that he was whisking her off the very next day to a honeymoon in Rome and Paris. I do know this was a long post, and I do hope I managed to keep your attention, but there was very little of Bhumi’s words that I felt I could leave out because it genuinely was a gorgeous experience. I’ll leave you all with a few words from the bride, and advice for future brides, and well.. just anyone going through the crazy stress we call life:

Step back and remember that no matter how perfect it is or not that everyone is already looking at the perfection that is reflected upon the love you have for one another. Enjoy this moment it will go by so fast that you’ll wish you could relive it again. 

Purdue University Founding Mothers and Our Dean =)

Meet Passion Pursuer: Kiran Meghani

One thing that tends to be a common feature among a lot of DPO girls is we have a lot of pharmacists, doctors, optometrists, sisters in med school, sisters studying pre-pharm, pre-med.. I mean, a South Asian Sorority, what do you expect? So most of these girls, or anyone for that matter studying or planning on studying medicine, understands that you wouldn’t ever dare to have a conversation with your parents that started with…”I’ve decided I don’t want to go to med-school”

This sister did EXACTLY that. Introducing, Kiran Meghani (formerly Kiran Lakhani), an Alpha Class Sister from Denton City-Wide Colony. Kiran has been happily married for 2 years and living is in Frisco, Texas with her husband and yellow retriever labrador, Sunny! She graduated in May 2007 and then recently completed her Masters in Education  in Teacher Leadership. Crossing in Spring 2003 as Sister Snorts (#2), Kiran says the best thing she ever learnt from DPO was ‘Time management! and using a planner!‘

When I sent an email out to our entire listserv asking for alumnae sister who they thought was ‘worth knowing about…’ I got a lot of emails asking me to interview the ‘DPO CELEBS’ (they will feature, and possibly guest blog here eventually.. but for the mean time, I’m shoving them out of the limelight!). When Kiran’s name was emailed to me, it came along with the words..

” I think she would be a wonderful sister to broadcast.”

And I must say, I most definitely agree! Let me give you a little bit about what I learnt about Kiran! Instead of her initial plans of going to med-school and becoming a doctor, Kiran currently teaches 6th grade science at Blalack Middle School. When asking her what made her become a middle school teacher, Kiran says:

I went all through college as a biology major thinking i was going to do pre-med, until my senior year. I had the opportunity to work for the local school district (Denton ISD) and fell in love with designing curriculum for their after school program. So i decided to build up the courage to tell my parents that their med school-bound daughter decided to go into education. Of course I wasn’t happy about the fact that I’d be making a third of my potential salary but I was going to happy knowing i was doing something I really found a passion for. So I decided to finish school, get alternatively certified for science 4-8 and began teaching middle school right out of college.

One of the things I’ve personally always found fascinating, is how much little kids know and what they teach us. I feel like we learn a lot from children subconsciously.. (What am I saying, I still act like a child most the time..) When asking Kiran what’s the most valuable thing she learnt from a student, she said:

It’s actually a quote I heard that I experienced in my classroom with a student.

” People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”- John Maxwell.

Honestly, it couldn’t be more true. I realized that in my first year of teaching, when I was so determined to make a good impression on my students, I literally lost the engagement of half of them! It was a struggle trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I mean i was saying all the right things, knowing all of my facts, being on top of discipline… Little did I know I was doing everything wrong! I needed to realize that I was doing everything BUT connecting with them. i got so caught up with the technicalities, that unknowingly I ignored that sincere personal connection. They never saw me as someone who really cared and took moments to delve deeper in their lives but simply as a robot who was trying to be the “perfect teacher”. Could you blame me? I was just trying to get through the year and not screw up. I took that first year as a wake up call and really switched my game around. in fact, i find myself switching up my style every year – it’s healthy! I change up certain routines, try new systems and techniques and I learn to take the best and worst from each year and make the next one better. I realized this was working when i saw positive feedback from my students. My reluctant students were more likely to take risks in the class and volunteer, my hesitant students didn’t mind sitting up front, they stayed back and talked to me about their middle -school love lives, laughed and shared their most personal and sometimes heartbreaking issues in the home. I knew then that they were trusting me and that was one of my biggest victories. 

Think she’s pretty impressive so far? It doesn’t end here! Kiran is also a Henna Artist in her spare time, which has been a secret passion of hers since she was a child.

I picked up my first cone at the age of 8 and doodled on everyone and everywhere!

It’s always inspiring to see somebody following their passion and doing what they love, however Kiran took this one step further. What was just a bit of a hobby at the age of 8, has now turned into a huge success, as Kiran has taken this passion online and created her own brand!

About a year ago, I took my brand online. KM Henna Artistry got its own website, facebook fanpage, and showed face at the popular bridal shows in Dallas. More and more of my brides wanted to see work online so I jumped on the bandwagon and began marketing…. I am so blessed that I have such amazing clients and what’s better is that I can use my passion as my de-stresser! After a long day of crazy middle schoolers, tests, and grading papers, I never mind coming home to a henna session..It’s therapeutic for me 🙂 

I’ve just checked out Kiran’s website myself. And it’s pretty amazing! And she blogs =) I’m pretty excited to follow a new blog. I got a couple of pictures of her work to share with you…

The above one is a Hum Tum design! I’m not really a Bollywood fan but that is one of the few Bollywood movies I absolutely LOVED!

Check out more about Kiran and her work at www.kmhennaartistry.com