Sophomore Krishanu Ray hasn’t been in his dorm room since noon on Monday.

He doesn’t plan to return until 5 p.m. today.

Ray and two of his roommates decided to spend this week living as vagabonds, and their self-imposed rules include spending the entire time away from their McMahon cluster.

Ray got the idea because he spent a lot of time discussing vagabondism in his English class last year, talking about how vagabonds escape many of the constraints of normal society.

“Obviously, what we’re doing right now is the spoiled-kid version [of vagabondism],” Ray said. “We don’t have to face the elements.”

The vagabond life they’ve experienced, however, has been tough, he said.

They carry everything they need for classes with them and set up “rat camps” at various locations on campus, where they sprawl their stuff everywhere and try to make it look a little trashy, said freshman Steve Geluso, one of Ray’s fellow vagabonds.

One of the rules stipulates that the three spend one night of the week staying with people they’ve never met before. The point of the week isn’t to emulate actual homeless people, however.

“In the end, it’s just a game,” Geluso said. “We don’t want to stay in any real shelters because we think people would fight us.”

Geluso said he has run into some discrimination while living the life of a transient.

“I’ve never had anyone tell me to not ride my scooter anywhere on campus, but [Tuesday] I had two people tell me,” he said. “So obviously, there’s prejudice against vagabonds.”

Despite the prejudice, the group has already seen some positive results of their experiment.

“It’s easy to just sit in your room all day on the computer,” Ray said. “Hopefully, after this, we’ll get out of the dorm more.”

Geluso observed that they’ve met a lot more people than they normally would have in a week.

“When you’re living the vagabond life, you’re forced to interact with other people,” Geluso said.

Sophomore David Zimmermann, the third participant in their self-proclaimed Vagabond Week, said it’s been a good experience for him.

“I feel like I get more done because I don’t go back to my room and slack off,” he said.

The vagabonds all agreed that Tuesday night was the most memorable. They had planned to sign out a study room in Odegaard, but those can only be reserved for two hours at a time, which would have meant waking up every two hours and moving around.

As it turned out, the group ended up doing that anyway. From Odegaard, they headed to an undisclosed building on campus, where they didn’t stay very long before moving on.

“It was true vagabondage,” Zimmermann said. “We kept wandering around. It was fun.”

Showering, the group agreed, has presented an interesting problem.

“[Wednesday] morning I showered in a bathroom sink,” Geluso said. “I stood there, wetted myself down, used some hand soap, [and] put my head under the faucet; two guys walked in and I said, ‘Good morning.’”

Overall, the general reaction to Vagabond Week has been curiosity. When people ask the three why they’re doing it, they say they want to experience something new.

“Adventure is dead,” Ray said. “You just can’t find any good adventure anymore.”

Zimmermann said he’s in it for the fraternity, the good memories and maybe some knowledge of what it’s like to be a true vagabond, while Geluso hopes to gain a greater understanding of his own materialism and what he truly needs to survive during the day.

There are no definite plans for the future, but the trio already has some ideas for how they would like to see Vagabond Week evolve.

“If we maybe plan it out a little better, we could do stuff like putting it on a budget, moving every two hours and sleeping outside,” Ray said.

Geluso’s main hope is that the idea will catch on with more people.

“We’d like to see Vagabond Weeks spring up like fight clubs,” he said. “We’d be thrilled to see them.”

For maps and photos, check out http://pantsnopants.com.

[Reach reporter Molly Rosbach at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]