Part 1

Being 100% greek, many rituals that are strong to my culture have influenced my day to day life. Some of the most important rituals of transition to my culture are birth, growing up, marriage and death. When someone of a greek family is born, they are christened in a Greek-Orthodox church. They are carefully held in a tub of water and receive a gold cross. This marks the beginning of a safe, healthy and happy life for the infant. Geek baptisms are only done once in their lifetime and is usually when the infant is only a few days old. Another ritual that is common but important to the Green culture is a wedding. Greeks are known to have huge weddings and a ritual they perform there is breaking of glass plates which is supposed to be good luck to the newly weds. Greek dances and music is usually performed at the reception. As for all cultures, death is a ritual in life that can affect many others and how their life is going to be from now on. For the Greek culture, the wake of a funeral is supposed to be a warm hearted celebration of their life. The funeral or burying is supposed to be the time where everyone mourns the person whom has passed. Every culture has their own rituals to transition, but birth, marriage and death are there three biggest rituals of transition in my opinion.

Part 2

I have gone through many rituals of transition in my life time, although the most memorable one for me was my baptism. In the Greek culture, as I mentioned above, signifies the new life that was brought into this world. Many passages from the Holy Bible are read in Greek and a holy cross with the water blessed from the priest is performed on the infant. After the ceremony, your nuna and Nuno (Godparents) give you a gold chain with a cross on it. The infant will wear that cross until they grow out of the chain. Even though I obviously don’t remember my christening, it is very important to me because I feel as if my life is blessed and God is always watching out for me. I believe that this ritual that is performed protects you from any danger in the world and everyone around you prays that you have a healthy happy life. Everyone involved in the christening of the infants life will only be there to support you and knows the steps of this important ritual. This is a time to celebrate the life of the newborn and lets them know the rest of their life how important they are. The birth of a newborn child in the hospital is a very happy and exciting time for someone, but the christening marks the start of their protected life. Looking back at pictures and talked about times of my baptism makes me feel so blessed and loved. My Godparents are like my second set of parents, and I couldn’t be happier that they are in my life. The most recent ritual of transition that I personally experienced was the christening of my cousins daughter. Being at the baptism and seeing how much love was being sent towards the little girl made me tear up because it goes to show how beautiful their life is and how everyone wants only good to happen to you.

Part 3

The concept of belonging-liminality-belonging can be applied to almost everyones college experience. The first day of college your freshman year, you realize that you are on your own now and your parents are not there to protect you like they were for your whole life. Being an out of state student and being several hundred miles away from home, at first, made me so upset. The second I realized I was not going home or seeing my family for several months made me so scared. I know that I would have to branch out and really put myself out there to find my new group. I was taken from my one group from back home and now put into a while different group of people whom also have been removed from their initial group. Walking around campus with my roommate (now one of my best friends) the first day and seeing how different everyone talked, dressed and acted put me into shock and made me realize there are hundreds of different potential groups out there. For the liminal period of my college experience, I was starting to make a whole new group of forms from sorority recruitment. I realized these girls were so different yet so alike from me. At first I thought I would find no one who shared common interests with me, yet I was wrong. For the final step of belonging, that would mean that I am at the end which means I would be graduating and going into the real world. Being a junior, I look back and realize how fast two years have already gone by. Although I plan on going to P.A school, I know that these next few years are going to fly by and when I do enter the real world and get a real job, I wonder if I will have the same feeling in my stomach as I did going into my freshman year.

College gives many implicit and explicit messages about how people should act based on their gender. One implicit message that really sticks with me is seeing that the people who have the same major as me being dietetics are mostly female. I remember last year I walked into a huge lecture hall and only found no more than ten males sitting there. Being in greek life, many explicit messages have been sent out. When you see a girl going to a party by herself, or walking by herself, you think ” that is so dangerous you have to be more careful” when you’re a girl vs. boys doing whatever the heck they want and not being told any potential dangers that might happen to them. One time I was walking from the gym to the library when it was dark out and this lady on her bike stopped and told me to be careful walking alone so nothing happens to me. If a boy was doing the same exact thing that I was, nothing would have even been thought or said.