Seven strangers. One house. Cameras in every room but the john. MTV's 'The Real World' was one of the first shows that promised to reveal 'what happens when people stop being polite and start being real.' But what happens when the season is over and your instant fame is fading fast• Two words: Speaking tour. David Burns and Janet Choi, cast members from 'The Real World: Seattle' season in 1998, spoke at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Tuesday night. Chosen by the students from among other cast members, Burns and Choi, both 23, discussed everything from how fame changed them to how they were manipulated for the cameras. In the confessional, the part of the show when each cast member talks, usually alone, to the camera, Choi said the crew would 'bring stuff up you didn't even remember' and try to make the cast members angry. Both said the crew would try to make stories out of non-issues, like Choi's multicultural background and her smoking habit. Now that Choi is behind the camera herself, working on documentaries for Channel One, she watches 'The Real World' with a trained eye. 'You'll notice different haircuts from shot to shot when the elapsed time was only 5 seconds,' she said. As Choi discussed how hard it is to figure out who you are after such a life-changing experience, Burns spun in his chair and twisted his feet. 'We had bad times, but we had a blast,' he said, grinning. Burns talked about how he packed his bag for the gym, and when he got there, sneaked out the back door and hung out at a friend's house while the crew searched for him. On another occasion, both escaped the crew by visiting a cathedral that forbade cameras and climbing through a window in the basement. But Burns had one word of caution for cast member wanna-bes: 'If you ever have a boyfriend or girlfriend on national TV, you will snap.' Burns dropped out of graduate studies in government at Harvard and is now pursuing acting. He seemed to say that the change in careers was inevitable. 'A lot of these kids aren't meant for show business but they're really good people. It's insane the pressure they put on these kids. Now all of the sudden they have all these opportunities. Your friends say, 'Man, you gotta do movies now.'' Choi said that even cast members who aren't 'drama queens' end up moving to Los Angeles after the show. 'You hate that it does that to you. 'I folded when people started to recognize me,' she said. 'I locked myself in my apartment.'

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