Ever wonder what life would be like if you went to NYU? Take a trip to NYU's favorite coffee spot for a cup of joe and your daily dose of meta!

Grade inflation isn't the only reason to wish you went to NYU. Just a few blocks south of Washington Square Park, Think Coffee serves up some of the city's best coffee to NYU students and downtown denizens alike. Although Oren is a classic campus spot and Hungarian perfects the bohemian coffee house aesthetic, neither of these places are appropriate for studying.

Living up to its all too apropos name, Think Coffee on the other hand is an ideal place to study. The space is well lit and equipped with plenty of power outlets. Indeed, you'll find many Macbook users here, enjoying Think Coffee's free Wi-Fi service. With three separate seating areas and plenty of plush couches, it's easy for students to spread out their books and make themselves at home. Like any well-equipped home, Think Coffee has a collection of board games, including Scrabble. And there's even a book nook where patrons can borrow and swap books.

Despite the accommodating digs, Think Coffee is free of the common coffee shop blights. The couches remarkably are free of coffee stains and coffee stench and even the archetypal stained and stinky coffee shop bum.

Turns out we're not the only Manhattan university looking to expand. According to Washington Square News, NYU has proposed adding 6 million square feet to its campus, and is looking outside the Village for about half of that space. The current candidate neighborhoods are Midtown, Northwestern Brooklyn, and, most intriguingly, Governor's Island, the perpetually-redesigned, super-historical former military base on the banks of the charmingly-named Buttermilk Channel. No word yet on who NYU's plans will be displacing.

W. M. Akers is at it again, this time telling us why our downtown rivals are just as tired as we are - even if they work much less.

In my film class this week we watched a three-and-a-half hour black-and-white movie, in Russian, that took place around 1400 AD. It was lovely, sure, but not thrilling, and 70 percent of the class slept for part of it. (Your correspondent, model of scholarship that he is, restricted himself to a modest ten-minute cat nap.) A boy to my left, who had perhaps just finished a government sponsored sleep deprivation experiment, was out for 175 of those 205 minutes, splayed in various poses across his desk and the two next to him. He shrouded his head with a sweatshirt for most of his Van Winkling, prompting the questions, "Why sign up for a class you can sleep through? What were you doing on a Tuesday night that left you in this state?" and "Can I come with you next Tuesday?" But it also made me wonder how students at a "selective" university can stand to doze so.

As my Columbian friends often remind me, you up at 116th work hard. Very, very hard, with the fervor of someone whose parents pay $50,000 a year for you to have the privilege. It's charming really, your work ethic, and even if it makes you unhappy now, somewhere down the line--when you make partner, secure tenure, or overthrow the government of Guatemala--you'll be satisfied that at 20 you worked yourself to exhaustion. Graduates of NYU's College of Arts and Sciences will, in between bowls of soup at the Bowery Mission, look back on Tuesday nights spent drinking down the street.

Bwog NYU correspondent W.M. Akers is back, this time with a few observations on how our neighbors to the south go out and get down.

Does Columbia have a "Sex and the City" problem? Girls at NYU, it seems, are still infatuated with the show, and those who go out regularly tend to fancy themselves as Carrie Bradshaw. Miranda was always my favorite--so sensible!--but I never see anyone dressed up in a power suit and bad teeth. Perhaps it is unfair to connect the habits of the NYU sorority crowd with a single TV show--it's possible they came upon their style as a group, convening around the start of the millenium to agree, "Okay, so it's a little black dress, high, badly bleached hair, and heels we can't quite walk in. We're wearing that three nights a week for the next decade." But they do as Carrie did, riding cabs to the coolest clubs, sipping designer cocktails and sharing anecdotes in a haze of post-feminism, which took the place of cigarettes years ago. Carrie, of course, was deft enough to enjoy both at once.

As every first week freshman knows, to have fun in New York one must spend $30 to walk into a loud room where they sell $11 drinks and help you get a $20 cab home. After a few weekends most freshmen--or at least their parents--notice that such fun abuses body and wallet, and begin socializing more conservatively. The onset of cold weather poses a unique problem for those students who continue to spend their weekends on steamy dance floors. If there is a coat check it probably costs extra, and God knows you won't look cute if you don't shed the fake mink before you start to shake your thighs.

Bwog met NYU student W.M. Akers at a bar one night, and found that his fair institution could use some explaining. They don't have a Core, a campus, or 250 years of academic elitism--but there are some (dubiously) redeeming qualities.

Territory
Columbia's Claremont dorm, two blocks from the 116th stop, is classified as "Extreme West of Campus," hyperbole that seems quaint to an NYU student. Though a few of us—mainly freshmen—actually live around on "campus," we have housing from 23rd Street to the Financial District. While Columbia expands through financial might, NYU's student body does that work for it. On Friday nights you can see flocks of stumbling blondes outside the sorority housing in Chinatown, while actors just let out of Studio step through Madison Square with songs on their lips. Call it soft power.

Population
Ever play the name game with people from other cities? "You're from Atlanta? Do you know Tom?" NYU students play that game with each other, and with similar success rates. There are some 18,000 undergrads here, and none of us know anyone. Did you have a hygiene accident in a dorm hallway last year? Don't worry, because outside of your tiny circle of disgusted friends, no one else knows about it. Go meet other people, and let your natural charm shine through. You'll have a fresh start in no time.

If you stayed uptown today, you missed the 2^nd annual New York City Pillow Fight --organized by the public art group newmindspace, it attracted over three hundred pillow-wielding New Yorkers to Union Square at 2:00 to wail on complete strangers. Many in the crowd wore colorful and attention-drawing outfits, including a banana suit and several incarnations of William Wallace. Also of note: some guy who somehow lost his shirt in the fray, another who somehow found a woman's shirt and underwear in the mayhem, and the ironic smiley-faced pillow I got hit with repeatedly. Bwog wants a repeat!

- Steven Thomas

Good weather, apparently, begets genius. Earlier today, a commenter left the following on the Think Coffee review: "i propose we get a gaggle of cu students together to go down to think on scrabble nights (thursdays??) and kick some nyu ass." Kick some NYU ass? Something we do both far too much and yet not enough at all. Within hours, inboxes were filled, IMs were sent: Columbia University would have a Scrabble team, and Bwog would gingerly poke fun. However, a quick phone call to Think laid down the kibosh (15 points)--the Scrabblers had left for Brooklyn, or something. So Bwog's competitive spirit changed gears: TRIVIA NIGHT.

Here's the plan. Bwog wants to start a super-quiz team with the sole purpose of putting Tisch students in their place. We hear The Baggot Inn, one block off Washington Square Park, is the pinnacle of both the NYU and the five boroughs trivia set--but since Bwog knows only what's on the undersides of Snapple caps, we need some stellar quizzers to out-quiz NYU, and we'll split the comped bar tab when you win.

Try-outs will be informal — if you're interested, send your name, phone number, and a good time to chat to bwog@columbia.edu. We'll call sometime soon to ask, "Which New York 'university' is about to get their shit handed to them in a Morton-Williams bag?" Answer correctly and you're in. We'll most likely be training on Wednesday nights at our own La Negrita, then getting some road experience around the city before going for the title on a Tuesday night at Baggot's. Or hell, maybe we'll just rush'em next week and bank on first-timers' luck.

- BPM

Bwog coffee-reviewer Downing Bray takes you off campus for a caffeine jolt.

If the idea of setting foot into Butler sends you chills worse than the sub-zero wind chill temperatures of late, and your idea of getting off campus to study entails venturing beyond a 10-block radius from Columbia, you might just want to think about Think, a lively little coffee shop in the Village. True, it's in the heart of NYU territory and practically overrun by its students, but it is, in my experience of NYC coffee-shop exploration, one of the best. It prides itself on being environmentally-friendly, serving only Fair Trade, organic and shade grown coffee and tea and local milk, and encourages environmental awareness to its customers (hence the name 'think').

In addition to serving coffee that makes you and your taste buds feel good, Think has atmosphere. At the entrance are several bar stools and tables looking out onto the street while in the spacious interior there are ample tables, comfy couches and armchairs, outlets to plug in your computers, and lamps for your lighting needs. It's a popular place so you might encounter trouble getting a seat, and if you can't handle conversation this is certainly not the place for you; plus the music is on the louder side. But if you like a lively yet under-control atmosphere, this place is ideal, and it's open everyday until midnight.