After all, the University is supposed to be a bastion of objectivity and rationality...Right? FM found that amidst the seekers of pure Veritas are those who are anything but rational. Whether it's determining where to live or what to do, students show a propensity for numerology and a distaste for the wrong side of a ladder. Self-described skeptics abound, buRTLÄen they knock on wood come room lottery time.

"Why the hell would I want to believe that dropping a spoon means that a woman is coming to visit me?" asks first-year Abigail E. Baker. "Or that dropping a fork means a man is coming?"

These superstitions, passed down from Baker's Hungarian grandmother, are among the more unusual. But everyone knows the basic drill: Don't let a black cat cross your path. Don't open an umbrella indoors. Don't walk under a ladder. Breaking a mirror means seven years of bad luck.

Superstition is not required of Harvard students. Not even for Folk and Myth concentrators. (But my roommate can certify that I dropped a fork at lunch this week. When can I expect my man to arrive?) Still, many sympathize with first-year Nailah P. Robinson, whose rationalism has its limits . "I don't believe in superstitions," says Robinson, "but I don't want to take chances."

Stephen A. Mitchell, Professor of Scandinavian and Folklore, and current chair of the Committee on Folklore & Mythology, takes a similar approach. "When I spill salt, I throw it over my shoulder," he remarks, pantomiming the motion. Mitchell says he learned this superstition from watching his parents but is not bothered that none of his children observe it. seems a breach of table manners.

Hurlbut proctor Darren Walker '92, either braver or more foolish than most, boasts, "I open umbrellas inside," Yet Walker admits he is "aware of it every time that I do."

Sophomore Julia E. Starkey attributes to etiquette certain habits which may seem superstitious. As Starkey points out, not saying "God bless you" to someone who sneezes is rude, "even if you know in your rational little mind" that you are not" allowing demons to go into her nose."

Joe Levy, who is active in Harvard theater, implies that he is not susceptible to many of the superstitions of his colleagues. "I go on and off about not walking under ladders," says Levy, "but I stopped recently because it bothers the people I work with [in plays]". Yet Levy remains uneasy about his role in an injury that occurred in a recent play rehearsal. "I made the mistake of mentioning to someone that this show was my first without an injury," Levy reveals. "He was taken to the hospital the next day."

Terrell McSweeny '97 says she "comes from a good Irish family with all sorts of rules about spilled salts." Her family wards off plane crashes with a superstition inherited from one of her father's war buddies. Sitting on an airplane before take-off, McSweeney recites a line modified from the Song of Solomon, "Arise, my love, and fly again." As a child, her whole family would link hands and say this; now she mutters it under her breath when she flies alone. "I think it's embarrassing every now and again," she admits, but adds that she would not feel comfortable flying without reciting.

First-year Karen C. Kim says that all the beds in her home face in one direction--she's not sure which. Kim explains that this superstition is culturally infRTLd. But "it makes rearranging my room difficult," she complains.

According to Adon Hwang '98, it is a Korean custom that beds should not face North because that's the direction in which dead people are buried, "I guess you could call it a superstition," he says. "I wouldn't want to say that I'm superstitious, though. It's just one of those random things your parents ask you to do. I mean, you wouldn't call your mom superstitious, would you? "

Rooming

Rooming brings out the superstition in Harvard students like nothing else.

"It's just our way of pretending that we have some control over this random process," muses a junior. "Harvard students hate to think that they have no influence over something so important."

First-years, as well as those hoping to escape from (or to) the Quad, have already submitted their forms to the great equalizer: the God of Randomization. Although the hardcore statistics majors (all three) and other naysayers resign themselves to pure happenstance, others on campus try desperately to beat the odds. These go-getters attempt to battle the logic of randomization with pure superstition. Is this at odds with the student body's veneer of educated objectivity? Not al all. As one first-year put it, "The whole randomization process is about numbers, so it there's any way to beat it, numerology would be it."