Thus Far


Click to go to desired section



intro - terrah
to south - christian
south - david meyer
to north
north - christian
to east
east - chris hanusa
to west - chris hanusa
west - robbie
to platt
platt - tracy
to and through academics - sarah
to president's house - sarah
president's house - tracy?
to atwood - tracy
atwood - tracy, brooke
to case - brooke
case - greg rae
to linde
linde - david herman
grand finale/wrap-up - terrah


INTRO
page one: ------

"So you're thinking of running off with the circus, are you, Kid? Well lemme tell you about when I ran off with the circus -- the circus that is Harvey Mudd College."

BIG PICTURE-ISH THING "RUNNING OFF WITH THE CIRCUS" HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE LOOKBOOK 1998

An inside view of Mudd from those on the inside, circus style. Written by and for students of Harvey Mudd College. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of HMC faculty, staff, administration, your mom, yeada, yeada (you get the point)...

------ (page two)

I was a good kid -- made good marks in school, was involved in fifty-four-odd activities: president of this, coordinator of that, grand-high-poobah of the other -- every parent's wet... uh... anyway, my fam was all sortsa proud of me. A time came, though, when I just had to strike out on my own (I get the idea you relate, eh?). I had to find a place that I could call mine, with challenge and adventure and people who'd understand where I was coming from. Not just any place would do; I wanted to go someplace unique -- one-of-a-kind just like I am. And so, one August afternoon, I found myself wandering onto Harvey Mudd Fairgrounds. I was in search of challenge and adventure, but, boy, did I ever get more than I'd bargained for.

The smog was thin that day -- I could actually make out the peak of Mount Baldy as I slowly walked toward the center of the fairgrounds. I have to admit I was awfully nervous; I had no idea what to expect of my new home. I had my bags full of what I thought were necessities, but had I forgotten anything? What if I wasn't ready to run off, after all? What if nobody noticed me? Hardly had my pothering begun, however, when a clown in a bright, easily-identifiable t-shirt waved at me and began jogging in my direction.

"Frosh!" she called. "Hey, Frosh, w'sup? I'm your sponsor, Terrah."

Just as I was wondering how on earth she knew who I was, her laugh cut in on my thoughts. "Just figure me the local psychic," she said, then muttered something under her breath about handbook photographs. "Let's go get your orientation packet. I'm sure you're excited to find your room, meet your roommate, look around..."

Her chipper chatter continued, but my thoughts were elsewhere. I took a deap breath, thinking "no turning back, now," and followed her toward the large U-shaped building in the center of campus.


TO SOUTH

SOUTH
With all of that commotion over, and with the rest of the new recruits wandering about outside of the Circus Main Office, I decided that it would probably be best if I started looking to find myself some living accomodations, being tired and all. So I started wandering off towards what I took to be the performers' trailers.

The first one I ran across, on account of its being the closest to Platt (the Main Office), was unmistakeably a part of the circus. There were three people in front of the trailer chatting. Two guys were riding on unicycles, one lady was dancing, another one was wearing sunglasses, and another guy was dressed all in black. Their trailer must have had a kitchen, given the wonderful smells that were coming out of the door which the five of them were standing next to.

I had no sooner stopped to watch when one of the guys on a unicycle, with a shirt on that said `Dave,' rode up to me.

"You must be one of the new people here," he said. He smiled. "I'm Dave, and these are Celeste, Greg, Newt, and Karl. We are Sponsors, and are really glad to meet you! If you have any questions about anything while you're getting adjusted to life around here, feel free to ask us." Somehow he managed to get that statement out without ever getting off of his wheel; he just kind of rocked there back and forth the entire time.

Since I was rather interested in where I was, I asked an obvious question. "I don't suppose you could tell me where I am, could you?"

Celeste, the dancing lady, replied. "You happen to be standing outside of South, our home, and home to the Bridge club, the Unicyclers, and a few dancers. You want to learn the cha-cha?" The other four smiled and rolled their eyes at Celeste's last statement.

"You'll have to excuse Celeste," Greg said. "She happens to have a rather severe case of dancing on the brain." Celeste proceeded to stick her tongue out at Greg; he smiled and said, "It's true, and you know it."

I smiled and nodded my head, since that seemed to be the only safe thing to do. The five Sponsors continued to chat with each other for a minute, and while they were occupied, I surveyed South. The place was covered with unicycles; they were hanging from window ledges and sitting in front of doors everywhere. None of them were locked up, though, and given that this was California, that made me wonder.

"Excuse me," I said, "but aren't you worried about the unicycles hanging all over the place? It seems to me that those things would be a perfect accident waiting to happen, either from theft or from student's pranks. I mean, some people would probably have fun walking around poking holes in the tires or stealing them or something."

The Sponsors stopped chatting, and Greg, Celeste, Newt, and Karl looked at Dave. "Well, officer," said Karl, "you want to answer him on this one?"

Dave smiled at me, got off of his unicycle, and started into an explanation.

"Well, you've raised two important issues here at HMC which you'll be briefed on at some point, those being CS and the Honor Code. There'll probably be a lot of explanation given at various times on both of those subjects, but I'll give you a quick rundown on what both of those are right now.

"CS, or at least the one I'm referring to, is Campus Security. The campuses have a security patrol which is hired to take care of us, since the Claremont Police Department would have far too much to do otherwise. It also helps since the CS officers know where all of the buildings and dorms are on all of the campuses, so if an emergency occurrs, they're the best people to respond, since they know where you are. They serve also as a first response on thefts and other items; they'll file a report with the CPD so you don't have to. If you ever need to contact CS for an emergency, you can use any campus phone and dial 72000. If that sounds funny, then no one has talked to you about phones yet; I'll leave that to someone else. As an incidental, CS also refers to Campus Services, now known as Facilities and Maintenance, and to Computer Science, one of the majors here at Mudd." Dave paused, and started to look rather confused.

"I'm afraid my train of thought has just derailed," he said. "I can't remember what else I was going to talk about. Do you happen to remember?" He looked at me hopefully.

I couldn't quite remember what he had said, but some part of it stuck in my head. "I think you were going to say something about honorableness, or something like that. We were talking about students doing stuff to unicycles, if that helps."

"Ah! Of course. The Honor Code. Right." Dave grinned. "The Honor Code is a very powerful aspect of Mudd. Basically, the Honor Code is a document which you agree to which states that you will be responsible for your actions, and as such, don't need constant supervision on every little detail of your life. I guess it's probably more of a way of life than anything else.

"The Honor Code makes it your responsibility to act respectably and truthfully to other people, both on and off campus. It is a statement of your trustworthiness, saying that you will be honest and try to be a good citizen. It allows for a whole slew of things which happen here at Mudd and not many other places.

"For instance, the Honor Code is the basis for many of the take-home exams which professors give to students. Since all students have signed the Honor Code, the professor can feel comfortable in that none of the students will discuss the exam with anyone else, or use any unallowed materials on the exam while they are taking it. Even more so, if a student should become lax or freak out while taking the exam and cheat, the professor is comfortable in the knowledge that the student will turn his or herself in for the actions taken.

"It sounds like somewhat of a heavy responsibility, but it's actually not too bad. For the most part, you just agree that if you do something stupid, you'll take responsibility for having done so. To a lesser extent, the Honor Code also says that you'll help your friends be honest individuals as well. If you notice that one of your friends does something that violates the Honor Code, you can approach them about it. If that doesn't work, then you can talk to either a professor or a proctor, and they'll help you and the other individual work things out successfully.

"I guess that pretty much covers the essential parts of the honor code. If you have any questions about something like this, feel free to ask Sponsors, Proctors, and just about anyone else about it, and they'll try to help you work things out." Dave smiled. He seemed to do that very frequently.

I thought about it, and couldn't come up with any other questions right off hand. Besides, I was really looking forward to finding out where I lived. Dave wished me a pleasant day, got back on his unicycle, and rode toward South. I figured I should probably start looking at the other trailers, since I still didn't know where I was supposed to live.

Just as I was about to leave, a guy that looked a touch too old to be a student came walking up. Celeste and Newt, who were standing outside of South's kitchen, saw him coming and walked out to greet him.

"Hi Ran!" Celeste and Newt said simultaneously.

"Why, hello Newt. Hi Celeste." Ran looked at me. "Hi to you too. What's your name?" I told him, to which he replied, "Nice to meet you!"

Celeste said, "Ran is a CS and Math prof. here at Mudd. Like several other faculty members, he comes to visit us students every once and a while. He stopped by one time and participated in my roommate's and my whiteboard drawing contest. He drew one of his aliens!" Celeste started doing a swing step. "A lot of the faculty are like that. They're more than happy to talk to students, even about stuff that isn't class related. It's nice for us students when we have problems or just want to talk to somebody older to be able to talk to the faculty."

Ran took up the conversation. "The faculty here at Mudd have an open door policy for the most part. When we're in our offices, you can stop by and we'll talk to you. You can still make appointments if you'd like, and some profs prefer that to just walking in, but for the most part you don't need any special arrangements to visit with us. We're here to teach you, and we love to see interest in the subject and answer questions. That's our job!" Ran smiled and looked to Celeste and Newt. "Well, I'd best be off; I just wanted to stop by and say hi to you guys."

Newt and Celeste said good bye to Ran and I, and I started wandering off toward ...


TO NORTH

NORTH

TO EAST

EAST
As they approached East trailer, many people outside, mostly people who could juggle. The person who caught their eye was a strange guy skipping around, wearing a white hat with a purple band. He seemed to be saying "Silly Chris, Trix are for kids," and mixed in a "mmm ... Analysis ..." every few minutes. He even seemed to be jibbering in French! He came bouncing towards them. "Hi there! My name is Chris! Welcome to East!" he said. The grandfather explained that this was East Trailer, where they always seem to have many toys, and play out in their courtyard much.

"But with all the toys, how expensive is life here at Mudd?"

"Well, toys are one matter. Normally, everyone brings their own toys from where they originated," said Chris. "On the other hand, there are things that you need here that ARE going to cost some money. The books that you need to become a clown normally cost about $300 a semester, barring any crazy new book orders by the various departments." Chris stopped bouncing around and picked up some juggling balls and started to juggle. "Not only that, but the most precious type of money around here are quarters. We DO have to wash our costumes, and the washers cost 50 cents to wash and the dryers 25 cents to dry. There are normally soda machines (or pop machines, if that's your thing) in the lounges, and they cost less than 50 cents." Just then, a guy in a jester's cap comes by and steals the three balls from Chris. "This is Peter. He's your man if you need someone to teach you how to juggle." Someone walks by, juggling too, and asks with evil intent "Hey Peter, can you juggle FIVE?"

Peter gets a really annoyed by that, but continues to put on an amazing show with only three balls. Chris, after watching in amazement for minutes continues, "The books are the most costly things here at the circus, but you'll have to watch out about when you decide to take a small excursion away from Mudd. Most people leave the circus (and I highly recommend it) to find something to do, from eating away from Platt to going to the Village that's down the trail a bit from this circus. It's up to you on how much you spend, but it's important to budget this amount, because there are people who go crazy and spend all their money in the first month and have nothing left to do fun things that they want to do later. There are parties around the five-C, that are normally on the order of $2 to $5 dollars to go, as well as productions by students of plays, as well as an amazing improv comedy group named 'Without a Box' that is well worth seeing at least once. So, I suggest making sure that you'll have enough money for your life style as well as extra money for items that you can't think of at this time. If you need anything, I'm in Time Suck, but I'll see you around and please excuse me," says Chris speedily as he hears the song "New York City" playing on dorm stereos, deciding that he want to go bounce around some more.

Many people are around dancing or watching the people dancing, and as the grandfather starts to remark "What a strange creature, huh?", a largish guy yells "FOOOOOD!" and Chris bounds after him, shouting something like "Ian is the funny one!" Ian cries once again "FOOOOOD!", and many others follow, but lagging behind are two people, walking leisurely towards the mess hall. Ian is getting annoyed now.

Chris says "I know. Let's play the 'Guess who's slow game'."

A smile comes over Ian's face, as they both know this game well, maybe too well. "OK," he says.

"You get three guesses, and the first two don't count. First guess?"

"Superman?"

"No, no, he's pretty fast."

"hmmm... the Flash?"

"No, he gets up there pretty fast, too."

"Ooo! Ooo! I know. It's John and Kim," Ian says, pointing out the two stragglers.

"You win a cookie!" shouts Chris joyously, as they head towards Platt with the rest of the people. John and Kim stop to talk with you. Ah yes, the 5:00 flood towards Platt. Come on, follow us. The kid and his elder decide to follow, and are walking by West as they are distracted. John and Kim keep walking, but the kid and his elder continue to look at West Trailer.


TO WEST

WEST

TO PLATT

PLATT

TO AND THROUGH ACADEMICS

TO PRESIDENT'S HOUSE

PRESIDENT'S HOUSE
contribution by tracy. will be finished by sarah?

I was looking around, wondering what I'd gotten myself into and getting my bearings--the trailers to the northwestish looked like East and West--when a dignified elder gentleman, a smiling woman, and what looked like their two sons, all wearing t-shirts, shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes, approached me.

Probable Strauss Contribution here. Maybe family of trapeze artists? Try to get out without being taken hashing plot?

including
"Dude! That's awesome!" I exclaimed, then flinched. However cool these people might be, they were still the circus president and his family, and addressing the President's wife as "Dude" had to count as a social blunder of the first order. Hopefully it wasn't too late to correct my faux pas. "Um, I mean, that's really cool, Jean."

She gave me a serious smile. "Frosh, I know you're new here, so I'm going to give you a break on that. But for future reference, I think I should be called 'dudette,' not 'dude.' " Her seriousness gone as suddenly as it had appeared, we grinned at each other, I still not quite believing what I had gotten away with.

TO ATWOOD
"Well, thank you very much, President Strauss and Jean," I said, wondering where I would go next. As I was heading up the hill towards East trailer, the random hippy chick I'd seen a few times already that day climbed out of the window on a nearby trailer. "Hi, Frosh!" she said. "What's up?"

"Not much," I said. "I just met the President and his family. They're..."

"Pretty cool, aren't they?" she filled in. "Last year President Strauss told us he sort of considered himself a member of our class, since we were all froshing together. He even signed the roster with us. It was pretty cool. But anyway, where are you off to now?"

"Um, I don't really know...."

"Well, have you seen the outer trailers yet?"

"I don't think so..."

"Cool! I can take you there. Follow me!" she said, turning me around in almost the exact direction I'd come from and leading me across the basketball court. I noticed the odd design on her green t-shirt and the slogan "I live where?" emblazoned underneath, as she started talking about the trailer called Atwood.

"I was assigned to Atwood trailer when I first got to the circus," she was explaining. "A lot of my suitemates were senior members of West who'd gotten together and pulled space in Atwood so that they could get singles, which had all filled up in West already, and so we called ourselves Westies in Exile." At this point, we had reached the dorm and she gave me a wicked grin. "Hmm, I think you're adventurous enough... let's take the elevator!" She led me to the south side of the courtyard and pressed the elevator call button.

As we were waiting, she continued her story. "Anyway, as a Westie in Exile, it made sense to me to visit my suite's home trailer often. I hung out in West an awful lot at the beginning of the year, went to some of their meetings, had a good time."

The elevator arrived, and she gestured politely for me to step inside, then followed me in as soon as she was certain that the elevator could take my weight. The elevator creaked unhappily, and she pressed the button for the third floor. "Where was I? Oh yes. Westies in Exile. Although my suitemates were all pretty cool, I did most of my socializing outside of Atwood. Towards the end of my first semester with the circus, I started spending so much time in East that it became sort of a running joke. The funny part was that some of my Eastie friends, including my current roommate, thought I was a Westie, and got all confused when it turned out I was from Atwood. Last semester, people who saw me in my room in Atwood, you know, when I was writing a paper or something, would point at me and say, 'I thought you lived in East!' My suitemates would write "Where are our frosh?" messages on the whiteboard at four in the morning when my roommate and I were both still out or whatever." She smiled. "So many of my friends were in East that I really did live there. I just kept my stuff in Atwood. I think I slept in my own bed in Atwood all of seven times last semester." The elevator groaned as we rode up, and as we reached the third floor, the doors refused to open. The elevator shuddered a bit, and my guide quickly pressed the button for the second floor and kept talking. "Anyway, the t-shirt I'm wearing right now is my East Dorm t-shirt, and as you can see on the back, it says, 'I live where?' which is basically the story of my freshman year." At the second floor, the door opened, and a girl with blond curly hair was standing outside.

"Hi Brooke!" said the random hippy chick. "Thanks for calling the elevator just then. It wouldn't let us out on the third floor, and for a minute I was afraid we'd be trapped in there." She winked at me. "Maybe you thought I changed my mind about the third floor, but the fact is the doors didn't open up there, and that shaking was the elevator being called by Brooke here. She saved us!" I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not, and just then she stepped back into the elevator and the door closed.


ATWOOD

TO CASE

CASE

TO LINDE

LINDE

END