Alumni Get Together at BJ’s in San Jose on March 24th 2011

picture via: Christine Shieh

For the recent graduates, “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

Own Your Experience

Dear Actives and Pledges,

While I can’t point to a “best” moment in my pledging process, I’d love to share a great message found in my pledge binder when I first joined Alpha Phi Omega, and what I got out of it. It is tradition for every pledge class namesake to issue a challenge, and this was the one I got:

To tell you the truth, when I first read it, they were just some nice-sounding words to me at first. The message didn’t make an impact until a couple years later when I got really invested in APO. By then, I had grown a lot since pledging.

As a pledge, I wasn’t a really popular and talkative guy. I knew absolutely nothing about Fraternities or Davis itself since I had just transferred. I didn’t even know anyone I was pledging with, and to make matters worse, I’m really awkward around new people when I’m outside my comfort zone. I had two goals: do my requirements and don’t rub people the wrong way. I never ran for any pledge officer positions because I felt like all the really social people around me were much more in the loop with how the Fraternity works. To give you an idea of how reserved and average I was in most respects, I’m pretty sure there were superlative awards for “Quietest Pledge” or “Shyest Pledge”. I didn’t get those either. I hadn’t really planned on being all that active afterward, since pledging was only an okay experience and nothing too amazing.

In my first active term, I planned on leading a pledge group and nothing more. That is, until the pledge educators asked me to be the Sneak Chair. For those of you who don’t know, Sneak was a big pledge class-planned fellowship that had an active member as chair to help pledges out. I had no idea why I was picked since I didn’t even fill out an application for the position, but I figured if no one else would do it, sure, why not. So I did the position the best I could and got plenty of help from other actives. It was stressful at times, but it was a great foray into practicing how to plan a project from start to finish. It was one of the highlights of that term, and I felt like I really got to know more about how the chapter works. If nothing else, it felt awesome to have something run successfully under my watch.

Some time toward the end of that term, I went to the National Convention. I have to mention Nationals because that was by far the best single experience I ever had as an active. I went with around a dozen other Iota Phi brothers to Boston, and we stayed in a couple nice rooms at the fancy Hilton. I must have gone to around 16 hours of workshops during those four days, including three of the five APO LEADS courses. I met the APO National President, the National Fall Pledge Class Namesake, APO Philippines National President, legendary Iota Phi alum like Beth Tom and Dave Emery, the Region Director and more. Yes, people: those names on your quizzes and in your pledge manual belong to actual people, and it was pretty surreal meeting them face to face. At the same time, I got to experience some real interchapter bonding with Section 4 and Region X, because at the convention, we just roll deep. Beyond all that though, by far, the most important thing I learned at Nationals ’08 is that no matter what little imperfections you might find in your chapter or people in it, the greatest purpose of the Fraternity is service. Nationals is a professional event, where people act professionally. People go there to create better leaders, to become better leaders, and make the world a better place. I got a glimpse at what Alpha Phi Omega is really about.

After being Sneak Chair and going to tons of workshops at Nationals, I thought hard and decided to run for Membership Vice President. I put in a ton of work: I synthesized all the ideas I got from the convention, analyzed the project-planning experience I got as Sneak Chair, studied that term’s MVPs, and I drafted my budget before the election. I was set. My game face was on and I thought to myself, “This is the only position I want to do in APO. I’m going to make it the best damn term I’ve ever had.” By election day, I was dead nervous, but determined even though my partner and I didn’t think we were nearly as popular as our opponents. We gave it our speech and handled the Q&A, and I’d say we looked like pretty decent candidates. And then our opponents went up. They were smooth like butter. Their slide had every bit of information ours did and more, they were stylish, and charismatic public speakers. After both speeches, I was tense as all hell, but I didn’t lose hope that we could win it. And wouldn’t you know it? The results were in!

We lost. I’m not here to give you one of those cheesy Little Engine That Could stories; this was the reality. Losing is a crummy feeling, it really is. But the thing I took from that first election, though, is that even though it was a loss, a loss not a bad thing. It’s not a reflection of me, and it’s not the end of what I could do for myself and for the chapter. I just made a simple resolution after that: “I’m going to turn losing into the best damn thing that ever happened to me.”

Since then, I’ve had a lot of adventures through APO and have done lots of different things. I have held most of the chair positions the chapter had to offer. I created leadership positions and rebuilt what I proudly and genuinely believe is the best resource we have for learning about Iota Phi. I became an advisor, joined section staff, and joined region staff. I’ve gotten to work with more incredible people than I can even remember. Every term since pledging was just something I tried to make better than the last. The lesson I learned about taking my opportunities was just so unbelievably important for my life.

Even today, things like popularity or winning and losing haven’t made much of a difference for me. I may not end up in the top law school of my choice, and I might not become a Fortune 500 CEO some day. But there’s one thing I am capable of doing partly thanks to APO: I can own my experience.

In LFS,

Ashish Bhatt

Iota Phi ‘08

Dearest Alumni!

Instead of asking you to just blog about whatever you want, we will help you out by giving you a topic each week! That will give you a starting push :) Don’t feel limited to the question though! You can still post anything you want. Perhaps, the question will spark a memory? ;)

For this week, the question is: What was your favorite memory during your pledging process?

Pledges will read this! Give them something to think about! Happy writing!

Godzilla strikes!

This weekend, I attended Family revealing.  The fact that I, myself, was there was astonishing in and of itself, but I was even more surprised to see the number of alumni there.  It still paled in comparison to the numbers we used to see “back in the day,” but there was a significant increase since the past terms of just me, Dinh, and Sophia.  One of the biggest surprises was to see Merry Chin (nee Chen) there!  For those of you who don’t know, Merry is from Tran class, and she was one half of the best FVP pair I have ever seen.  As an FVP pair, she and Albert Tong were the bar to which I have since compared each and every Fellowship team, and no one has reached that bar yet.  (Merry actually skipped out on her one-year wedding anniversary to come out to revealing)  

Something else you may not know about Merry is her nickname: Godzilla.  You see, Merry was once the terror of Japan.  Also known as “Gojira,” Merry is known to have destroyed whole cities and crushed people under her feet.  However, there were some Japanese people who had eluded her.

Enter Mika Nishiya.  A Japanese citizen (who was almost not allowed to return to the US were it not for the unrepayable help of one Angela J Cheng), Mika happened upon Merry’s path.  Merry sprang into action and acted as the giant dinosaur she is.  Hence, the brutal smushing of my beloved pledgebro on the corner of the State Capitol.

[Post by Rachel Loh]

Breaking my turtle shell

When I heard Iota Phi was starting up Assassins again, I began thinking of all the crazy stories that happened when I played. For those that don’t know, this insane game was created by my big bro Christopher Takemori, who played this game with his own friends at home. He of course had to tweak it a bit because instead of 5 people playing, we had 100+. I’m unfamiliar with the rules of the game now, but their Task Force was indeed scary. If you weren’t hunting - they were hunting you - and they came HARD on you! At night they would be dressed in all black and rolled up with super soakers. They invaded in an apartment and even shut off the power supply (how did they do this? i have no idea!). I believe this a one time deal since neighbors were hearing screams at night, and a bunch of people dressed in black with “guns”. Oh boy.

One of the best parts were the daily obituaries he wrote each time someone died. They were pretty intricate and funny to read. I somehow managed to win the first round, and was able to make it to the last three? or five? of the second round we played.

It was probably due to the fact that my big bro was the one hosting it, and I wanted to support him. Surprisingly, that game changed my attitude and revealed a whole side of me to aphio as a pledge. As a pledge I was quiet, and always looked down when I walked. I didn’t quite say hi, or even pay attention to my environment or people around me. I kept to myself, or just a small group. It’s not that I was rude, I just looked down a lot —- oblivious to the world. This game made me change this. I was always alert, kept my head up, and continuously scanned my environment. I wore hoodies a lot since I was able to hold on to my water gun in my pocket, and my knife in my other hand. My roommate, Marissa, and boyfriend at the time helped me look out for aphio suspects, my target, and as well as car bombs before I entered any vehicle. At the same time my roommate was also pledging for her sorority so she was also keeping an eye out for actives to greet. She never left the house without her pledge pack, and I was never weaponless.

In addition, I took different routes on the way home or to class. When there was a party going on, we knew it was fair game, and lots of people died. I attempted to do my first kill there — I was dressed as a boy. With the help of some black eyeliner, baggy jeans, and a big sweater,  I literally looked like Mario from the mario brothers. Gross. Well I didn’t make it to the party, but I ended up stalking one of my targets , Sabrina, in front of her apartment —- ironically 3 years later Marissa and I end up being roomates with Sabrina’s roomate, Nami in that same apartment — and I believe a bunch of you guys have been/ lived there too — Allegre 1041! Random note, we’ve been releasing that place ever since it was BUILT through different fraternities/sororities - so yes that means its insanely cheap! haha. anyways back to the story..

Stalking didn’t always work. I somehow was able to kill my first few targets just by walking outside their apartment — perfect timing — hey — I was trying to impress my big bro! I’m not creepy =( Towards the end, it was me and an advisor Andy. Eek. Come on - a pledge vs an advisor? I was really scared!

Since he lived in Sac I didn’t bother to try get him at his apartment. When it became obvious he was stalking/waiting for me at my apartment I started staying at my boyfriends house — which he too started stalking me there. At one point I saw him waiting in front of my door, but I had to leave to go to class! So I ended up going out my window of my room in Tanglewood. I called my friends to pick me up out on the Cowell Blvd. I know right? Madness!!

So how did I win? Andy made a couple of mistakes of running after two of my roommates, Marissa and her sister Andi, mistaking them for me — I guess all asians look alike? haha. But to give him credit, lots of people mistake me for my roommate/ best friend Marissa. But it finally gave me the idea. Using my big bro’s rules - “if a innocent bystander was killed in the process, the attacker couldn’t harm anyone for 24 hours”. When we spotted Andy waiting in front of the apartment once again, Marissa put on my glasses, hoodie, and backpack. She started to walk out the door to my car. She felt something hit her twice. She looked down and saw two cardboard ninja stars. Finally she screamed, go Michelle!! I ran out the door and saw Andy fleeing the scene. He was weaponless, and apparently sandal less - they fell off when he was running away from me. I finally caught up to him, and stabbed him. whew. over! I can sleep in my own bed at night! lol.

My big bro was really proud of me. I surprised the chapter and even myself with the sequence of events. After the game, I continued to keep my head up, and actually greet people with a smile. After several disguises, panic attacks, five cardboard knives (weighted with pennies — they throw so much better!), and popped windows, —I finally opened up. Hopefully for those shy/quiet pledge/actives out there they can open up an easier way. Oooh and to the littles - always try to support/show thanks to your big bro.

[Post by Michelle Jaromay]