G

rowing up, I always 
envisioned 
myself 

living in a sorority 

house at whatever college I 
ended up attending. For some 
reason, whenever I pictured 
what I would look like years 
down 
the 
road, 
happily 

committed to a university, I 
was always wearing Greek 
letters. To me, not going Greek 
was never an option. It seemed 
like a path everyone in my life 
had gone down and one I was 
willing to take myself.

However, 
this 

complementary 
image 
of 

college and Greek social life 
came crashing down when my 
older sister fell through the 
cracks of the system. Nobody 
decided to stand up for her 
and say, “She would fit in so 
well here!” and I was baffled. 
Rumored 
romances 
swirled 

around her, and unfortunately 
the Greek community truly 
values gossip. She is the most 
upbeat, “Sorority Sally” type 
of girl I know, so if she couldn’t 
thrive in the system, could I? 
Did I even know people who 
would be willing to stand up 
for me?

As a result of my sister’s 

experiences, I went into the 
recruitment process with fresh 
eyes. I could try to discern 
between 
the 
performance 

girls put on during each round 
and who each girl truly was. 
After all, I had to be able to 
feel comfortable living with 
these people. At the end of 
the day, I turned out fine 
and ended up in a house I am 
extremely happy in. The social 
aspect is phenomenal, and the 
philanthropy is an added bonus 
toward loving sorority life.

However, once it was my turn 

to rush girls, I caught a glimpse 

of the side of recruitment I don’t 
like — the side of recruitment 
that took my sister down in a 
tidal wave of judgment. We are 
expected to know, learn and 
love or hate girls in the span of 
20 — yes, 20 — minutes. Young 
girls entering the newest, most 
terrifying period in their lives 
are supposed to know and 
understand “unspoken rules” 
of conversation or socializing in 
order for houses to want them. 

No talk about boys, but if you’re 
comfortable with whom you’re 
talking to, they’ll look past it. 
No discussing parties, but if 
they like you, they’ll let it slide. 
It’s all so confusing because 
how would you truly know if a 
girl likes you or is coercing you 
to break these barriers through 
manipulated 
self-sabotage? 

Rumors like these constantly 
make way between nervous 
potential new members. 

Eighty 
girls 
making 
a 

decision is a nightmare in and of 
itself, and, from the first round, 
cutting girls becomes more and 
more intense. Relationships are 
formed once you begin rushing 
a girl more and more rounds, so 
a protectiveness tends to occur 
when someone tries to cut 
her. Countering opinions flew 

around the room, and these 
thoughts were often greeted 
by subtle jabs. Girls who know 
this potential new member 
from home want to keep her, 
while girls who were rubbed 
the wrong way by her during a 
round try cutting her. While I 
was semi-irritated by the way 
my house preferred some girls 
over others, there were horror 
stories 
swirling 
around 
of 

other houses electing a single 
girl to finalize decisions for 
their entire house.

Though 
Greek 
life 
has 

made me abundantly happy 
at school, it taught me more 
than the regular rules of 
sisterhood. While the process 
is meant to be tough and sort 
girls into houses they would 
be “more comfortable in,” 
I learned that second — or 
even third — chances matter. 
Sometimes first impressions 
can be correct, but most of the 
time, they can be completely 
misleading.

Greek life taught me to be 

more open and gave me the 
opportunity to talk to people 
I never thought I would. To 
face the facts, there are tons 
of negative stereotypes about 
Greek life circulating through 
college 
communities, 
and 

honestly, many of them are 
true. But it takes special people 
to move past these stereotypes 
and make the system their own, 
create the culture they went 
through this process searching 
for. Those are the types of 
people who thrive in the Greek 
life community, and those are 
the people that make being in 
Greek life worth it.

F

or 
individuals 

struggling with mental 
health, everything life 

throws 
at 
them 

during 
college 

doesn’t exactly help.

Maybe 
friends 

pressure me to go 
out, 
but 
saying, 

“I’m sad, I really 
don’t want to,” does 
not feel like a good 
enough 
excuse. 

Thoughts of losing 
out on a memorable 
night 
influence 

me to go out, and when I do 
go, chances are I feel worse. 
Maybe I have a mandatory 
meeting for a club on campus, 
but being sad won’t suffice as 
a good excuse for my group 
leader. And on the off chance 
I say I’m sick, I fear someone 
seeing me on the Diag and 
spreading rumors that I was 
not actually sick. When I email 
my professor for an extension 
for a deadline I could not meet 
because I had too much on my 
mind, he will probably respond 
with my score: a zero. 

The 
implications 

surrounding mental health on 
campus limit our conversations 
surrounding this issue. As 
students, 
we 
think 
school 

comes before everything. We 
are not taught to take a “mental 
health day.” It is only when 
we are physically unwell that 
we believe it is acceptable to 
miss a class or a deadline. The 
stigma we put on mental health 
as bystanders, sufferers and 
friends prevents us from openly 
discussing the topic and taking 
advantage of the few resources 
(that are already over capacity) 
available on campus.

For many students, mental 

health is compromised during 
their time at the University of 
Michigan, and often mental 
unwellness 
is 
exacerbated 

during stressful periods of the 
school year. We are constantly 
taught throughout our lives 

by 
our 
professors, 
parents 

and friends that we need to 
be cognizant of the mental 

health conditions of 
others. But we aren’t 
taught how to talk a 
roommate 
through 

a breakdown or how 
to stand up for our 
classmates who are 
dealing with mental 
illness.

Mental 
health 

is something that 
is 
different 
for 

each 
individual. 

Recognizing these differences 
is essential when conversing 
with a friend in crisis and 
making 
them 
feel 
OK 
to 

pour it all out. Some people 
never experience the anxiety, 
depression or other ailments 
that others have to deal with 
every day. When a classmate or 
friend is clearly upset and going 
through a lot, the common 
response from bystanders is 
“that sucks; I’m so sorry.”

Though this is clearly not 

what 
the 
suffering 
person 

needs to hear, I often find 
myself at a loss for words when 
someone tells me about all the 
bad things that are happening 
to them. There is no way to 
know how these experiences 
directly affect them or what 
is going through their head 
or how they feel in that exact 

moment. Everyone experiences 
hardship so differently that we 
cannot assume anything about 
anyone else, and that’s what 
makes this issue so hard to 
deal with.

As someone who struggles 

with anxiety, it is hard to let 
people in on what is really going 
on in my mind. What might not 
seem like a huge deal for one 
individual can be immensely 
different for another. To make 
it worse, being thousands of 
miles away from your family 
and constantly surrounded by 
strangers does not exactly make 
for a welcoming environment.

I 
have 
found 
several 

resources that discuss how 
to go about talking to a peer 
about their symptoms, but 
the results were inconclusive. 
And what if these formulaic 
steps don’t work? We all 
take things differently, and 
a cookie-cutter plan to make 
someone feel comforted in a 
stressful situation does not 
always 
work. 
Spontaneity 

is important, and catering 
to an individual’s needs is 
essential in making them 
feel trusted and welcomed 
confiding in you.

Mental health is even more 

essential to our growth as 
individuals because, without it, 
we are constantly in a state of 
discontent that is unproductive. 
As university students, we need 
to recognize that we all have 
moments of stress, despair and 
anxiety. Though we might not 
experience these things in the 
same way, it is important to 
validate the feelings of others 
and to let them know they are 
not alone. It is OK to voice the 
issues with mental health in 
society. This will allow us to 
come together and beat the 
stigma surrounding this valid 
illness, so we can all get the 
resources we need.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Tuesday, November 7, 2017

REBECCA LERNER

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

EMMA KINERY

Editor in Chief

ANNA POLUMBO-LEVY 

and REBECCA TARNOPOL 

Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Talk about mental health

MICHELLE PHILLIPS | COLUMN

Inside Greek life: is it worth it?

TORI BOORSTEIN | COLUMN

Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns

Samantha Goldstein

Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Anurima Kumar

Max Lubell

Lucas Maiman

Alexis Megdanoff
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy 

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Ali Safawi

Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer

Rebecca Tarnopol

Stephanie Trierweiler

Ashley Zhang

Tori Boorstein is an 

LSA sophomore.

NATALIE BROWN | NATALIE CAN BE REACHED AT NGBROWN@UMICH.EDU

Ann Arbor: a vegan dystopia?

LEVI TEITEL | COLUMN

I 

am no fan of cold weather. 
In fact, I detest the very 
notion 
of 
winter. 
The 

inclement weather we have 
been graced with after a hot 
autumn has not fared well for 
me. In light of the rapid seasonal 
change, my body was not ready 
to handle snow Oct. 31. So, I 
have taken to my favorite coping 
mechanism to get over the 
winter blues: eating.

This week I walked from 

North 
Quad 
Residence 

Hall to Kerrytown, where I 
braved the wind and drizzle 
to meet an old friend at one 
of my favorite Ann Arbor 
establishments: 
The 
Lunch 

Room. Not only is The Lunch 
Room a fantastic restaurant, 
but it also happens to be a 
fantastic 
vegan 
restaurant, 

if you could ever fathom that 
(perceived) oxymoron.

Being a vegan in Ann Arbor, 

or anywhere for that matter, 
is 
extremely 
difficult. 
As 

a pescatarian of five years 
and a vegan for almost a full 
calendar year, I do my absolute 
best to meander through the 
complexities of the Ann Arbor 
restaurant scene with variable 
success. While greater Ann 
Arbor maintains a host of 
vegan fare, I feel unfulfilled. 
Why are there so many options 
that leave me unsatisfied? The 
combination of my unusual 
personal preferences and the 
inaccessibility of Ann Arbor 
vegan victuals makes for an 
unfortunate evening ritual for 
my own sake.

The geographic distribution 

of vegan restaurants in Ann 
Arbor is heavily concentrated. 
The bulk exist near Main 
Street and north of Central 
Campus, which is limiting 
to many students, including 
myself. 
Inconvenienced 
by 

the lack of options on Central 
Campus, where are students to 
go? As it turns out, we are not 
left with much.

While 
I 
have 
previously 

written on the waning status 
of student neighborhoods, the 
same argument extends to where 
students can grab a bite to eat. 
As I expressed in my previous 
column regarding the changing 
nature 
of 
city 
storefronts, 

the major intersection near 
my home (Packard and South 
State 
streets) 
has 
changed 

considerably over the past few 
years as restaurants come and 
go. Moreover, finding a wide 
variety of places to eat in just 
a few steps’ reach is incredibly 
difficult. This distance will 
only get more difficult when 
snow begins to cover the streets 
and sidewalks.

The options I have near my 

home consist of the following: 
cheese and bread, more cheese 
and 
bread, 
and 
barbecue 

chicken. This is not to say that 
you can’t even find one thing on 
the menu that would count as 
remotely vegan in some of these 
restaurants, such as a black 
bean burger. However, given 
the limited options, I am usually 
stuck with frequenting the same 
exact restaurants week after 
week, eventually running out 
of options and coming to abhor 
this repetitive routine.

Ann 
Arbor 
is 
also 

oversaturated with restaurants 
outside of the budget range of 
most college students, and this 
phenomenon is not just limited 
to vegan restaurants. However, 
because most vegan restaurants 
tend to be located near Main 

Street, they can charge whatever 
pedestrians there can afford.

Maybe I am just a picky 

eater with a skinny wallet. But 
besides limiting my diet to only 
plants, I am pretty much willing 
to try any type of cuisine or 
dish. And while there are many 
restaurants in Ann Arbor, I still 
need to spend as much time 
finding a restaurant on Yelp as it 
would take to actually have the 
meal I have not yet eaten.

I sometimes find it easier to 

schlep outside of town or even to 
Ypsilanti to find a more casual 
and as enjoyable restaurant 
experience. Plus, going outside 
of town can provide a more 
unique selection of places given 
the amount of foreign food that 
is not as prevalent within Ann 
Arbor. Of course, the extra gas 
it takes to leave town may not 
be as economical as just staying 
at one of the more upscale Ann 
Arbor 
restaurants. 
What 
a 

predicament.

Because of the difficulties 

I run into finding an ideal 
restaurant, I do much of my 
cooking at home. My at-home 
eating habits are not at all a 
detriment; if anything, it is 
a good thing to not have to 
spend money outside the home 
unnecessarily. 
However, 
it 

would be nice if I could stop 
on my way home after a long 
day of class to carry something 
out without having to worry 
so much about my distinct 
stipulations.

I just got a winter jacket 

today, so I am well prepared to 
brave the winter snow in order 
to grab some food. Whether or 
not I voluntarily confine myself 
to my apartment until spring 
arrives, I should still do my 
best to be as adventurous as I 
can even if Ann Arbor’s meager 
offerings make it difficult.

Levi Teitel can be reached at 

lateital@umich.edu.

Michelle Phillips can be reached at 

mphi@umich.edu. 

Being a vegan 
in Ann Arbor, 
or anywhere for 
that matter, is 

extremely difficult.

What might 

not seem like a 
huge deal for one 

individual can 
be immensely 
different for 

another.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and op-eds. 
Letters should be fewer than 300 words while op-eds should be 550 
to 850 words. Send the writer’s full name and University affiliation to 

tothedaily@michigandaily.com.

MICHELLE 
PHILLIPS

Young girls 

entering the most 
terrifying period 
in their lives are 
supposed to know 
“unspoken rules.”

DO YOU HAVE OPINIONS?

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Come to an Editorial Board meeting and discuss hot topics. 
Be heard. Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:15-8:45pm. 420 

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