Shireen's Favorite Things

I was majorly hazed in college, but not in the traditional sense. I wasn’t trying out for some sorority or organization linked to a fraternity; I was simply playing a game of catch-up. After a few years of pageant/modeling life (and at the constant urging of my parents,) I returned home to New Mexico to finish my college education.

It’s what my mom and dad called “Plan B”… you know, just in case my career in front of the camera didn’t work out. Honestly, I was glad, too. I was tired of the hustle and bustle of real life and longed to be a kid again or at least a young adult trying to navigate the normal decisions of life.

When I returned to college, though, it just wasn’t the same. All of my friends had graduated, the curriculum for my major had changed and I was a completely different person. When I was on my own pursing my dreams, I had become more mature, responsible, hard-working and even a little bit jaded (because, at the time, the world around me demanded it.) The college world was so far removed from any of that, it didn’t feel real; but unfortunately, that was about to change.

After settling into my dorm (I was able to score a private room because I had re-enrolled with a pretty decent GPA,) I got my on-campus bearings back, which pretty much consisted of life split between the library, student television station and theatre. I wasn’t a party girl, I didn’t hang with a clique and although I wasn’t particularly social, I did get on with mostly everyone. That’s why I was surprised the morning that I found my old, light blue Buick that my parents had let me borrow for the semestercompletely filled with trash. It was absolutely annihilated.

Despite finding my car in complete disarray, I was due in class for a test, so I just left it and made my way across campus on foot. Luckily, I arrived just in time. Afterward, I spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning the trash out of my car. I called the campus police, but with little evidence (besides the garbage) and no real enemies to speak of, it was an open and shut case. The car reeked for weeks.

As time went on, the hazing (which in today’s terms would actually be referred to as bullying,) got worse. The only difference was, eventually there were faces to go along with the overt discretions. A girl named “Sissy” and five of her closest running mates, who had known each other since high school, had committed the majority of their free time to making my life a living hell.

At first, I didn’t know why, but quickly found out that her former high school boyfriend, who was now a big player in a popular on-campus fraternity, had taking a liking to me and she wasn’t happy about it. In fact, she wanted to reconcile with him and well, that’s not what he wanted. I’d love to say this was like something straight out of a movie, all dramatic and romantic, but the truth is, the entire experience was devastating and left me beyond distraught, feeling scared and extremely withdrawn.

No matter where I went on campus, the aforementioned group of girls would hunt me down, push me around and speak disparagingly to me. And forget about going to a social function: I was threatened with bodily harm. The group didn’t just intimidate me, they intimidated my friends and even tried sabotaging my grades. At first, I didn’t ask for help. I just tried dealing it with it the best I could and when I had free time I wasn’t spending it at school. It got to the point that…

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