On the way up, the instructors assured us how safe the operation was while simultaneously cracking jokes about how irresponsible and high on drugs they were. Maybe they didn't care if their fun and games scared me into not jumping; no refunds, after all. They did double-check our seat harnesses, however, and helped us don chest harnesses, to serve as an emergency back-up should the seat harness fail.

At the top, the other two jumpers volunteered to go first, since each had jumped once before. Each guy jumped, bounced around and was hauled back up to the platform to high fives and cheers. The first jumper accidentally let the bungy pull through his legs and hit his crotch when it was flipping him over, but apparently didn't suffer any serious damage.

Now it was my turn. I clipped in and the second instructor put my videotape into the camera. I looked down and suddenly I really, really didn't want to jump anymore. What if my harness failed? What if the bungy broke? What if I lost my nerve, refused to jump and then had to face the jeers of my friends and co-workers after wasting $80?

No, I had to jump, had to be able to impress my friends, had to carry out this ultimate exercise of will over instinct.

I asked to speak to the camera. What would I want my last words to be, playing over and over on CNN if I died this night and they got the videotape? I tried to say in Spanish, "If a man can leap into the air, he can do anything," only to realize Spanish was one instructor's native language. He made fun of my garbled Spanish by speaking rapid Spanglish nonsense to the camera.

I stepped to the edge, gripped the rail fiercely and looked down again. I still felt queasy. Was it too late to turn back?

"Let go of the railing," said a very serious voice in my ear. "I can't let you jump while gripping the railing; it's not safe." Perhaps the fear was that I would jump with my feet while neglecting to let go with my hands.

The instructor noticed I still was hesitating and told me to look at the horizon. Night had fallen and the panoply of lights on The Strip glittered below me. From the Las Vegas Hilton, green lasers arced into the sky. The instructor had me close my eyes and intone a meditative "Omm" to quiet my mind. He then gave me a final pep talk. "Don't look down any-more, or you won't jump," he said. "I'm going to count backwards from five to one, and say `Go,' and then you go, okay?"

"Sure," I said. "Give me just a moment." Still gripping the rail, feeling a warm breeze tickle my hair, I wondered, if the bungy broke, should I aim for the air conditioning unit directly below? Finally, I let go of the rail, fixed my eyes on the Hilton, and said I was ready.

The countdown focused my mind and prevented me from contemplating little distractions like great heights, the possibility of death and the fact that the tower was in perfectly good shape (not on fire or about to collapse, say). I had told the instructor I would jump when he said "Go," and he began the countdown. "Five, four, three-two-one go!"

I went. Leaping was the single scariest moment of my entire life.

I saw the logo on the air conditioning unit rushing up at me, and just as I realized I was terrified, the tension on the bungy flipped me over so that I was no longer looking straight down. Before I realized it, I was slowly yo-yoing up and down 75 feet above the roof, swinging back and forth under the platform. They yelled a few cheers, waited for me to stop bouncing and lowered the retrieval rope.

So, I survived an 80-foot fall in Vegas, and for my $80 and leap of faith received a T-shirt, an official certificate of jumping (or of my insanity, claim some of my friends) and a videotape.

The tape included 25 minutes of breathtaking jumps at Bungy company towers around the world, followed by five minutes of footage of my jump.

The video has proven a big hit among my friends, perhaps because most of them have not jumped, or possibly because it just confirms for them how crazy I must be. Of my five minutes on camera, four minutes and 30 seconds show the instructors hamming it up while I hesitated, a death grip on the railing. Only the final 30 seconds show me leaping, falling and then bouncing around on a big rubber band. At least my swan dive looked pretty good.

John F. "Case" Kim '92-'98, a Crimson editor, is an economics concentrator in Cabot House.