Well, I had been abroad where vampires were only slightly cool, but once back I got down to plugging into the psyche of high school girls, something I am scarily good at (perhaps because I used to be one, or perhaps because I genuinely adore Taylor Swift). The first Twilight’s overwrought love arcs and sweeping side-glances were a welcome departure from the “serious” cinematic endeavors that made up my Netflix queue. Twilight is good in the same way that Gossip Girl is: because its enjoyment hinges wholly on your ability to suspend disbelief and just not think.

But you see, the thing about New Moon is that, despite the hype and the trend pieces and the okay-ness of the first movie, it pretty much… sucked. Spoilers after the jump.

Before that sentence elicits a chain of “duhs” in the comments, allow me to clarify: I don’t think anyone over the age of 16 goes into a Twilight screening expecting highbrow, Oscar-worthy elements. But at least the first installment of the series didn’t bank all of its success on an oddly-brawny 17-year-old, or the bizarre facial expressions of Kristen Stewart. That’s pretty much all New Moon was: full of grating plot holes and over-the-top corny dialogue that would make even Josh Schwartz shiver, New Moon was almost insulting in its awfulness. It’s like the writers (and the new director) didn’t even bother to make sure this movie was watchable. They knew it would instantly blow up the box office and make the studio a ton of money, so who cares if the special effects were awful, or the meant-to-be-earnest glances elicited laughter even from the teenage girls in the audience profoundly enamored with the saga. I seriously believe they just didn’t give a shit. And that’s saying something, really, because it’s not like I stepped into the theater expecting to see cinema gold. I had low expectations and a hungering for cliches and campiness, but even those desires weren’t fed by this movie.

And then there’s the Mormon element, the anti-feminist element– all of those serious sociological implications that I can’t help but consider, despite my best efforts to enjoy it for the cultural detritus it is. Throughout, all I could see were the egregious symbols of virginity, and the persistent theme of restraint. Edward can never let himself fully have Bella, because he’ll end up killing her; and Jacob can’t either, because if he “loses it” for one second he could turn into a wolf and maul her (no, I’m not joking.) The last line at the end of the film betrays its underlying virginity complex: Edward finally asks Bella to marry him (remember– they’re still in high school!). This happens, of course, because Bella wants to be turned into a vampire (which is a metaphor for sex, y’all), and he won’t take her purity like that unless he’s officially committed to her. Religion!

I was really looking forward to New Moon because the first Twilight movie was so mind-numbingly enjoyable. Unfortunately, the only enjoyable aspects of this viewing experience were 1) the incredible soundtrack and 2) the manic shrieks of the teenage fangirls that clogged the theater every time Jacob removed his shirt. I have to admit– that guy is built, but even teenage boys with washboard abs get boring after awhile.

In the spirit of teenage fandom, below is a clip from SNL mocking Twilight, starring Taylor Swift.

UPDATE: It seems this performance was from Ultraviolet Live. See their 2005 Facebook group (with a Gaga mention) here. Thanks to commenter Meb Byrne for the heads up.

A lot of NYU students (read: overachievers) came to NYU with a few credits already under their belts, either due to college courses taken in high school, or transferable AP credits. As graduation creeps closer, you probably have more credits than you realize (check your Degree Progress Report on Albert to see how many you have). If you have 117 credits or more, you’re eligible to enroll as a part-time student for the spring semester, which will make your tuition a lot less expensive. I’ll use the numbers my parents and I crunched to demonstrate just how much you can actually save.

Tuition

Each school has a different tuition price. I’m in Gallatin, so that’s the tuition price I’ll be going off of here. Gallatin tuition for 12-18 credits is $18, 293, and per-credit it’s $1,078. For easy math’s sake, let’s round those numbers up to $18,300 and $1,100. Anything less than 12 credits is considered part-time, and means you pay per credit. At the end of this semester, I will have 120 credits, which means I only need eight more to graduate. So:

8 credits x $1100 = $8800

Compare that to $18,300 and you see just how much you can save. Depending on how much you get in scholarships (and how much they’re willing to still give you once you’re part-time), even paying per-credit for 11 credits pays off at $12,100.

Loans and Scholarships

After doing this math, my next concern was that I’d lose some of my scholarship or loan money. A quick call to the financial aid office meant I had little to fear. Call them (212-998-4444) and they’ll be able to tell you exactly how much aid you’ll still be eligible for. I had a $8,000/year Gallatin scholarship, and they told me that as a part-time student I’d still get half of that. $4,000/semester divided by 2 is $2,000. So now I only owe $6,800 (plus fees, which are the same price per point for part-time and full-time students). All of my loans stay the same, which means I had the choice of letting them be disbursed and having extra cash on-hand for after graduation, or canceling them and having less debt after I graduate. I chose the latter, but either option is good: it’s kind of a win-win situation.

Health Insurance

Another thing to consider is insurance. If you have NYU insurance, then you’re good to go until August; it still covers part-time students maintaining matriculation. If you don’t have NYU insurance, here’s what I did: I’m currently on my father’s plan, which states that I can be covered until I’m 21 or no longer a full-time student. As such, I’m covered until April (when they check again to see if you’re full-time or not), and after that I’ll have to go on COBRA, which–depending on your parents’ plan–will have a set monthly premium. Mine will be $600/month starting in April, which is A TON, but still way less than paying full tuition next semester.

You can also get NYU health insurance for spring semester even if you don’t have it now. All you have to do is prove that you were dropped from your parents’ plan, and you can enroll in NYU’s plan, which is $1205/semester. The good thing about NYU’s plan is that you can extend your coverage past August if you have yet to find a job with benefits. The maximum extension is six months (until February 2011), and though the numbers aren’t available yet in the handbook, you can call Student Health Insurance Services (212-443-1020) for the estimate. You can discuss with your parents which option would be cheaper, since it depends on their COBRA premium.

So, to recap: if you need 11 credits or less to graduate, it’s seriously worth investigating going part-time your last semester. I’m personally saving a shit ton of money, and so are a few of my friends whom I’ve told about this plan. Go! Investigate! In the grand scheme of $180,000, $10k may not seem like a lot, but when you’re still paying off loans ten years from now, it’ll be a major help.

(Image via)

If you’ve given in to the Twitter craze, hopefully you’re already following our account. Yesterday our City Editor, Kenny Hsu, introduced a new list that seeks to organize every NYU student, organization and professor with a Twitter account into one easy-to-follow list: in short, we want to create an NYU campus on Twitter, a one stop shop for all tweets NYU. We hope it’ll successfully render a sense of community–at least digitally–that students can join and follow, so that our school can stop feeling so fragmented and start feeling like a real university. Find it, follow it, love it–and if you want to be added to the list, just @ or DM us.

UPDATE: Original post accidentally interchanged Jarvis and Shirky because I was reading Buzzmachine while I was writing it. Apologies! Luckily, all three are awesome new media gurus.

What were you doing at 11pm on Saturday night? Were you bar hopping around the East Village, or waiting an absurdly long time for the L train? Well apparently while you were out, the US House of Representatives was making history. History is rarely made on Saturday nights, unless you count getting laid or puking in a cab as doing so, but two nights ago something a little more serious happened: the House passed H R 3962, better known colloquially as the Health Care Reform Bill, with a vote of 220 to 215.

In terms of universal health care–something I definitely champion–this is no doubt a tremendous step forward. The Public Option returned from what seemed to be inevitable extinction and, should it be signed into law, will provide 96% of Americans with affordable health insurance. Unfortunately, this health insurance is not nearly as comprehensive as it should be, most notably for a major section of the American population: in terms of women’s rights, the bill passed on Saturday night was a depressingly giant step backwards.

I’m talking, of course, about the Stupak Amendment, the text of which is really nothing new. Proposed by Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, the Stupak Amendment protects the stipulations of the Hyde Amendment passed in 1976, which bars the use of federal funding for abortions. It’s good to know that, when it comes to women’s reproductive rights, nothing has changed in over 30 years.

The Stupak Amendment mandates that reproductive health care is not essential health care. Not only does this mean that lower-income women most likely to take the Public Option will not have the comprehensive reproductive rights they deserve, but it also has “the effect of denying women the right to use their own personal private funds to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system — a radical departure from the status quo. Presently, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services.” So even if you’re a middle class family who opts for a private plan, you can’t receive tax credits unless you choose a plan without abortion coverage.

As a young woman, this is the first time I consciously feel directly and swiftly impacted by a major piece of legislation. These days it seems as if journalism and health insurance mix like oil and water– in short, arranging a mosaic of freelance opportunities after graduation will probably mean that I’ll have to take the Public Option. Unfortunately, that also means that while men can continue to have their insurance companies pay for meds like Viagra, which manipulates body chemistry to help them stay sexually active, it’s up to women and women alone to fund the accidental outcome of their eight hour hard-ons.

Of course it’s not just the Stupak Amendment that is an assault on women’s reproductive rights. As Sharon Lerner put it in The Nation, “None of the bills emerging from either the House or the Senate require insurers to cover all of the elements of a basic gynecological “well-woman” visit leaving out essential care such as pelvic exams, STI counseling and – yes – birth control.” This means that insurance companies can opt to either not cover these routine women’s health issues, or can charge extra for them. Where’s the equality in that?

Health care is a complex issue that I’m incredibly conflicted about. I’m genuinely happy that we’ve made such impressive strides in the less than a year that Obama has been President, but I’m concerned that we may have done so at a serious cost. As a woman, the Republican party has never had my best interests at heart, but I thought the Democrats were supposed to have my back on this one. I can’t help but feel a little betrayed and a lot hurt: when it came down to compromising, comprehensive health care benefits for women were the first thing the Democrats were willing to give up. Perhaps Pelosi felt caught between a rock and a hard place: without the Stupak Amendment, the bill probably would not have passed, leaving millions of Americans with inadequate coverage. But with it tacked on, women have once again been relegated to second class citizens, made to feel as if their gender is a pre-existing condition that limits them from comprehensive care.

While it’s relieving in some way that we are finally making legitimate strikes at passing a Public Option, I still believe that the passage of the Stupak Amendment is a damning testament to the fact that, in terms of women’s rights, we may not have come as far as we thought.