On a well-constructed staircase, each step is precisely the same height. The idea is that your brain will remember how high you had to lift your foot to get up the first one. It takes a single split-second lesson to train your feet to climb an entire flight of stairs, without thought. That’s how the best craftsmen do it.

That is not how Georgetown does it.

The patch on the back of his vest is small, but those behind him have zeroed in on it since the moment he stepped off the GUTS bus.

“Oh my God, does he have to wear that today?” a woman whispers from under her cowboy hat and star-spangled scarf as she waits behind him on the Metro escalator. She sighs.

A few others murmur indignantly as he passes, others smile and nod. If he notices, he says nothing. But the black-and-white lettering on his back is doing the talking for him this morning: “STOP BUSH.”

The lights are smoky, illuminating a fantastical forest setting. The music is mystical, almost tribal, with ethereal lyrics in an indistinguishable language.

Cirque du Soleil performers, typically known for their mind-boggling flexibility and daring acrobatics are on stage looking ... thoroughly unremarkable. Boring, even.

Without the surreal costumes of an actual performance, the nine people on stage in track pants and tank tops look more like they belong in Yates than under the big top. They are going through the motions of the Body Skating routine, working on timing and, for the moment, leaving out the twisting, tumbling, artistic moves for which the avant-garde circus company is best known.

A taste of Mexico may soon require more travel than a trip to the Leavey Center for Georgetown students.

The university is currently renegotiating its contract with Taco Bell, the sole brand-name vendor in Hoya Court amid a handful of Marriott-run food services.

“We’re trying to work through issues with Taco Bell,” Margie Bryant, associate vice president for auxiliary services, said.

Bryant said the primary consideration in the discussions was money. Georgetown pays a franchise fee of an undisclosed amount to Taco Bell in order to have it in Hoya Court. The vendor in the Leavey Center is an Express service, meaning that it does not offer the full line of Taco Bell fare to customers.

Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya Patrick Metz (COL ‘04) reflects on his four years on the path next to Reiss. Metz has been active in supporting rights for gay Georgetown students.

It may be the most abhorred building on campus, but it has a certain appeal for Patrick Metz (COL ’04).

Aaron Terrazas/The Hoya U.N. Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Jan Egeland spoke on Wednesday in ICC Auditorium.

Providing humanitarian assistance to war-torn countries is becoming increasingly difficult as the line between impartial aid and partisan political organizations is obscured, United Nations Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Jan Egeland said Wednesday afternoon to a crowd of about 150 people in the ICC Auditorium.

A Norwegian diplomat, Egeland asserted that the ability of humanitarian aid workers to be perceived as outside of the political divisions of a crisis is becoming more challenging.

Students will soon have to pay full Georgetown tuition when studying abroad as a result of a new policy aimed at to boost revenue.

Currently, the costs of studying abroad are based on the country and program a student selects, plus an administrative fee. The costs of many of the approved study abroad programs are less than a semester at Georgetown.

The administrative fee had doubled this year as a stepping stone to the new policy. The fee will be dropped entirely once the university moves to the full-tuition policy.

The policy change, accepted by the university’s board of directors in February, will take effect in the fall of 2005.

The move was part of a set of recommendations submitted in the fall by the Main Campus

Charles Nailen/The Hoya YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE BABY: Brandon Wyman (COL '04) finally gets a mic to work during Thursday night's Cabaret show for his performance of a Guns 'N Roses classic.

Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya A thick layer of snow Sunday night persuaded even the most diehard cyclists to leave their bikes on the rack.

Georgetown continued to dig out from Sunday night’s snowstorm yesterday but the university remained open with liberal leave in effect.

On Monday students trudged through the four to six inches of snow and ice that fell on the Washington, D.C., metro area beginning around 9 p.m. Sunday night and continuing on into the morning. The university remained open, with the liberal leave policy in effect, despite the closure of other local universities and public schools. Liberal leave allows professors and students with a long commute to miss class.

A travel warning from the State Department and the subsequent withdrawal of several participants led to the last-minute cancellation of this year’s study-abroad program at the McGhee Center, a Georgetown owned-and-operated villa on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

The State Department issued an official travel warning after terrorist attacks on synagogues and a British bank in Istanbul in November. They recommended U.S citizens defer any non-essential travel.