I know what you’re thinking: prom is for high school kids, and black-tie affairs are too rich for my blood. But there exists a third perspective! Get your kicks, sip a few drinks, dance with friends, and recognize how crazy it is that there’s a party going on in a library this weekend.

The Violet Ball is this Saturday, and tickets are $15 through Ticket Central or NYUHome; they’ll be $20 at the door. They’ll have hors d’oeuvres, a live band, wine and beer for those with IDs, and at the end of the night, they’ll burn up to 20,000 books in a giant bonfire in the center of the atrium. This is going to be awesome.

No, Spain is not the place you think it is. It is not as concise and simple as the place we were told about (for a moment) back in middle school world history class. It is a fascinating and beautiful country where the people are near-royalty.

I went abroad to Madrid in order to study and immerse myself in the Spanish language. The entire campus is just two townhouses and a courtyard, but I came to feel that it was my true home. The staff is majority Spanish with a few Argentine and American transplants, and the fact that they limit the number of students to about 60 undergrads means that you are sure to get a very personal experience.

Besides a few problems with my señora (my homestay host), one of them concerning a certain bottle of mayonnaise, a condiment that I learned is every Madrileño’s favorite sauce, the city was amazing and the Spanish culture left me with a desire to revisit the Iberian Peninsula as soon as possible.

Classes/Professors

Types of Classes Offered:
* Spanish
* Art History
* Spanish Studies
* Islamic Studies
* Metropolitan Studies
* Politics (Fascism)
* Social and Cultural Analysis
* Economics

Student Activities

• “I didn’t know too much about Spain, so the chance to get away from Madrid with the class, especially to Segovia and to Cordoba/Granada was pretty amazing. The Valencia trip this past spring was a huge bust, so I would highly recommend that you avoid it. But otherwise, go with the class – the professors they bring along are super knowledgeable and the rest of Spain is a whole separate country from Madrid.”
• “The campus has to be one of the smallest of all of NYU’s sites. Some times it feels like there are 12 kids on campus. This means there’s some times not too much to do on campus. You really have to make your own fun.”
• “The biggest bust of being abroad is how much NYU screws you over on extracurricular money. I remember that we got 30 euro to spend throughout the semester on activities to museums, shows, bullfights, etc. That amount is waaayyyyy less than what you would get on Manhattan’s campus. What gives? Total ripoff.”

Housing

• “Beware – your stay in the home of a family or, more than likely, a señora, will be either great or terrible. Ask to have a roommate if you’re doing a homestay – it can be a lifesaver.”
• “Our apartment was pretty far from the center of the city, but the subways and cabs are so great in Madrid that it didn’t matter too much. Getting an apartment by El Retiro, the big park in the city, was such a great thing.”
• “If you have issues with your homestay, it’s often difficult to address them with your señora. You’re a stranger in her house and it will some times feel like that until you leave.”
• “Madrid is super modern, so homes will have heating, internet, television, and be super clean. But if you’re coming in the fall, it’s going to be hot, and be prepared because no one’s got air conditioning.”
• “The worst part of living in Madrid was not having a clothes dryer. You’ll feel like you’ve begun to lose a lot of weight, but really, it’s just your clothes getting looser because they’re dried on a line, and not in a machine. Super annoying.”

Nightlife

• “In Madrid, getting home at 7:00am isn’t an option. It’s a way of life. The bars are open until 3 or so, and the clubs close at 6. It is so much fun to be out with the young people of Spain and drag yourself home as the sun comes up, right after grabbing churros con chocolate somewhere downtown. Halloween was especially incredible.”
• “The best clubs in Europe are in Madrid. They’re huge, loud, multi-leveled, and full of beautiful people. They make New York clubs appear minimalist and boring as shit.”
• “Be forewarned that Spaniards don’t drink to get drunk and they get pretty judgmental if you get drunk. I don’t know how many times my Spanish friends tsk-tsked in disgust at trashy girls from America getting wasted and making themselves look like fools. Don’t be assholes. Just be conformist and you’ll love it.”

Food

• “Spanish cuisine is everywhere. This is probably the biggest change from America. There’s not much variety around. Plus, Spanish food is not the spicy, flavorful blend you’d think. They don’t use fruit, fresh vegetables, or much spice at all. Be ready to get Indian food as your flavor meal of the week.”
• “What to know about the Spanish? They refrigerate their vinegar, but leave their milk and eggs out. Yes: their milk is all non-refrigerated. I don’t know how they do it, and you get used to it, but still. Ew.”
• “It was so easy to find filling food around campus. Restaurants have expensive and cheap dishes, tapas are always delicious, and because Madrid is so massive, there is always some option to discover.”

Sex and Dating

• “NYU in Madrid is super small, with about 60 undergrad students – this means incest. Intense, intense incest. Don’t do it, because it’s totally not worth it. Cause when it goes bad, you will see that person every day.”
• “Spaniards are so hot, but Spanish guys aren’t looking to date American girls. They want to “experience” American girls. Read into that what you will.”
• “The gay scene is just as established as it is in New York, but because so few Spaniards speak English, it’s still pretty tough. If you speak Spanish, you’re set. If not, be ready to live the life of a monk.”

Travel

• “If you want to visit throughout Europe and throughout Africa, Madrid is really your best option. I had friends who went to Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco, and of course getting to anywhere in Western Europe is super easy.”
• “Flights are super cheap. Be sure you visit Vueling.es. They have better service and Spain coverage than EasyJet. And never use Ryanair. Never, ever use Ryanair…“

Culture Shock

• “Nothing can prepare you for Madrid. It’s not like Paris, London, Rome, or Berlin. It’s Western European, Eastern European, and African, all at once. It may be the most intense culture spot NYU offers, and I’m including Ghana and Abu Dhabi in that statement.”

Why You Should Go

• “The people of Spain can be tough to crack, but if you get to know them, they are just incredible. They all have this sense of royalty about them, and they really care for themselves and their friends.”
• “If you want to learn a language abroad, make it Spanish. The entire campus has a Spanish-language bent and when you leave, you’ll feel as comfortable in Barcelona as you would in South America.”

Why You Shouldn’t Go

• “Don’t go if you’re not comfortable in your own skin. Folks stare, they speak quickly, and they expect you to understand their country and their language immediately. Be ready for a crash course in Madrileño culture.”

Their letter begins with a feel-good portion concerning how NYU, more than any other higher education institution, has weathered the financial storm while sticking to its principles.

One of the more curious lines reads, “Unlike many peer institutions, we were able to manage the difficulties we confronted while continuing faculty searches, capital projects, and other academic investments.” This sentence rings true only if one is to ignore how the university has increased tuition fees every year in recent memory, increased the student population, and cut back on the simplest of services, like guards and free printer paper.

But let us, for a moment, give McLaughlin and Alfano the benefit of the doubt and examine what exactly is going to happen in the next year.

Because of re-engineering efforts the school has employed, the university has achieved $66 million per year in savings. McLaughlin and Alfano equate that to adding $1.3 billion to the school’s endowment.

For each student, there will be a 3.5% increase in tuition price, 1.9% increase in fees (what is this, a bank?), and a 2.1% increase in the price of room and board. This will result in an increase of about $2000 next year for students – not a huge chunk of change, but during these economic times, a chunk of change nonetheless.

Fortunately, the school is also raising financial aid by 5.8%, which hints at an article written last semester by Charlie Eisenhood analyzing how NYU may be pushing out middle-class students.

And for our fully-funded graduate student readers, don’t worry. Your deal just got a whole lot sweeter. You still get free healthcare, your tuition is still covered by us, the undergrads, and your stipend will be increased to nothing less than $23,046. Oh happy day!

In regards to employee salaries, though none have been increased because of the school’s salary freeze, a new fund will be established to give bonuses to administrators that achieve the most in their departments with less, and to teachers who perform exceedingly well over the year.

While I applaud NYU’s efforts and Laughlin and Alfano’s work, with the recent purchase of the Forbes Magazine building on Fifth Avenue and these new increases across the board, it’s been pretty hard to see how the school is really doing its job of making college affordable. While a $2000 increase is not too much of a burden for many families, it is still an increase that is going to push one student out of NYU and keep one student from accepting their admission at all. And it is in this vein that I have the most trouble with Mr. Laughlin and Mr. Alfano’s statement that “Unlike many peer institutions, we were able to manage the difficulties we confronted while continuing faculty searches, capital projects, and other academic investments.” Many peer institutions have not increased their tuition costs, and if they have, they will not increase it by the amount NYU has. It is ethically dice to say that a school has weathered the storm when it is really just passing its losses on to students. NYU has been hit hard by this recession and has done better than most, but making students pay the difference in what was expected and what was received seems like a far cry from really weathering any storm.

If you want to meet administrators in order to talk money and get an inside look at how the budget was put together, there will be two town halls, on Wednesday, February 3rd from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm and Monday, February 8th from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm, both in Kimmel Room 914.

Imave via.

Via the New York Post, Anderson Cooper of CNN and Eastern Bloc fame will be moving into the old Fire Patrol 2 firehouse, that cool building with Garfield and Mercury chilling on its façade.  You’ve definitely seen this place before, and it’s certainly one of the prettiest buildings in the Village. Plus, the building was just nominated for the National Register of Historic Places by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

The building was run by its old owners (a bunch of – you guessed it – firemen) from 1908 to September 2009.

So keep your eyes peeled! When the place is ready to house the good man who is currently carrying boys from street fights in Haiti, let’s not piss him off like we did to Jude Law.

(Image via)

The vigil was hosted by the Bronfman Center and the NYU Student Senators Council. Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, Father Vincent DeLucia, Imam Khalid Latif and Reverend Susan Field each provided religious and practical perspectives on the event, while two NYU students with connections to Haiti, Nehanda Laiseau and Richard St. Arromand, gave moving personal takes on the events as they unfolded.

What was disturbing about a small part of the event (and whether or not this should be attributed to NYU or college students in general is up to you) was the way in which certain people in the crowd saw the vigil as a socializing event, from chatting, to laughing, to peering from face to face to see if their friends had joined them. Often times, a handful of students would gather mere feet from our vigil on Gould Plaza and converse loudly and without concern as the beautiful ceremony took place next to them.

Am I crazy? Is this normal?  What should have been a moment for each NYU student in the Plaza to pause to remember the tragedy was, by some, seen as a chance to catch up or giggle about this text or that email.

This poses a central issue to the way in which the Haitian relief efforts will be contributed to by members of the NYU community over the coming period. Students will either be forceful with their concern and give the kind of time, effort and thought to the issue that it deserves. Others will not – this tragedy hasn’t touched their minds and they won’t begin acting like it has.

My recommendation? Be part of the former. The latter sucks.

Check out our original coverage here.

Caution: Video contains graphic footage that may not be suitable for some readers.

As reported by The National, the sheikh had been charged with rape, endangering a life and causing bodily harm, but was only found guilty of “diminished liability.” While Issa made it out without any punishment, five of his henchmen were found guilty of their crimes and each sentenced to about five years in prison.

And how did Issa get away without facing the consequences? “The court finds that he cannot be held accountable for his actions because he was drugged by [Bassam and Ghassan Nabulsi],” said the case’s judge, Mubarak al Awad Hassan.

Doctors were brought in to argue that the drugs he was taking and had prescriptions for, together, could have brought him to the mental point of instability and memory loss. The defense argued that the drugs had been administered to the Prince by the Nabulsi brothers, the two men who helped the video footage air last spring, and they led him to act in an abnormal way. That would make sense, however, if these weren’t prescription drugs that he had been taking for some time, administered over a period of months to deal with a variety of ailments.

The case also deals with counts of blackmail and counter lawsuits that involve people in the United Arab Emirates and the United States, issues that will probably be resolved in the coming months in a manner, I believe, that will end up favoring the Prince and the royal family.

Over at Third Avenue and Tenth Street, it appears that the TD Bank on the corner has taken it upon itself to offer a new facility for dorm parties this fall to us Violets.

That, or the School of Visual Arts, a school not connected to NYU, is playing a prank on its bigger (and better) NYC neighbor.

The building, seen in the picture below, and as observed on the School of Visual Arts’ website, is their newest dorm, which they describe on the site as “The 10th Street Residence.”  The banners along the building have no explanation, and the guards inside the bank had no answer for why our school’s colors adorned their building.

This will probably all be settled before any of us get back in the fall, but it’s nice to know that even without students around, the NYU-NYC relationship is still as exciting and controversial as ever.

Update: This may be part of the filming of Step-Up 3D that has been taking place in the village these past few weeks. Drop a comment if you have any conspiracy theories or you’re a Tischie working at Disney this summer.

Photos from the School of Visual Arts website and Mike Mullin.

The 10th Street Residence: 101 East 10th Street: New York, NY 10003

The 10th Street Residence is located at 101 East 10th Street, at the corner of 3rd Avenue. The historic East Village is at its doorstep, including shopping, restaurants, nightlife, and movie theaters. 10th Street residents live in one and two bedroom apartments where two residents share each bedroom. The spacious common areas in each apartment offer a couch, dining set, and media stand. Each apartment is furnished with a full kitchen including a microwave, dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator. 10th Street residents enjoy modern card access entry to the residence and rooms. Modern laundry facilities are located on the 3rd floor and provided at no additional cost. The 10th Street community room is a place where you can relax, meet with other residents, work on a project, or challenge a friend to a foosball or ping pong tournament! When the weather is nice, residents can relax on the 3rd floor outdoor terrace. Bring your laptop, because 10th Street is equipped with wireless internet throughout all apartments and common spaces! — As read on the School of Visual Arts website.

The Onion just ran this piece about a fire in an NYU dorm, and is able to exhibit how well they know our student body. Awesome coverage, guys!

Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire

What am I saying? It’s absurd nonsense. Hopefully they work this out before any American students make it over. I can hardly differentiate Spring and Prince Street—how in the world am I supposed to figure this out?!