The first weekend following the arrival of upperclassmen students to NYU Abu Dhabi was marked by an unprecedented number of busted social events. Students who were eager to be reunited with their peers found themselves stranded in the hallways of their residence halls and the dimly-lit paths of the highline, terrified of entering any of the rooms lest they be subjected to the horrors of a Resident Assistant knocking on their doors yet again.

There seem to have been some changes in policy since last year. RAs are now being accompanied by more senior staff members and there is even talk of Vice Chancellor Al Bloom joining them on their weekend night rounds. In addition to this, the number of reports of noise violations has been reduced to almost zero this semester, with more serious violations seeing a substantial rise in frequency.

Over the past week, we conducted an investigation into this record number of RA interventions. We assure you that the following list of events is, to the best of our knowledge, accurate, reliable and comprehensive.

At 10 p.m. on Sept. 7, a good three hours before the beginning of Residential Education’s quiet hours, a group of 20 candle-bearing upperclassmen met in the room of John Walker, Class of 2018. They had gathered to mourn over the loss of two campus cats they had managed a Facebook group for since their freshman year. Just as Walker was about to reach what was supposedly the most moving part of his speech, describing his afternoons socializing with the cats outside the dining hall, there was a knock on the door. Upon the discovery of the dozens of candles, two RAs and a Residential College Director busted into the room with enough fire extinguishers to put out a sizable blaze. At the time of press, Walker’s room is still recovering from the unexpected intervention.

On the same evening as the candlelight vigil, building guards reported an abnormal influx of students entering A6A. Students had crowded into the suite of Olivia Monk, Class of 2019. The students embarked on an evening of arduous hot plate-aided baking for the upcoming Student Interest Group fair, which came to a halt after an RA had informed them that "just because their building lounge was over-flooded with storage boxes, rendering the kitchen unusable, they had no excuse to use property that may be deemed a fire hazard."

At the time of press, Monk was heard lamenting the low Culinary SIG sign-up numbers she received with only Tamrah white chocolate-covered dates on display, whereas the RAs are rumored to be organizing a picnic with the confiscated goods.

One of the events that was stopped through RA intervention was organized not by NYUAD students, but by several Paris-Sorbonne University students who had somehow entered A6C and claimed one of the lounges as their own. Tired of the curfews imposed by their own university, they decided to move their Friday night activities to the comfort of the home of their most competitive sports rival, NYUAD. They were shortly escorted out of the building, sporting black plastic bags.

Another event that was terminated through the appearance of an RA, accompanied by a Residential Education staff member, was the beginning-of-semester gathering of Pet Owners Anonymous. The secret meeting was discovered after a pet falcon named Sapphire, belonging to Angela Malu, Class of 2020 escaped the convention and flew into an A5C elevator. The RA who entered the room was further greeted by two cats, one of them being one of the aforementioned missing campus cats, a parrot and two hamsters, all secret pets who could not be moved promptly enough into bathrooms for the RA not to write them up.

These are all of the events that our investigative team managed to unearth through their detective work throughout campus. There are rumors of a scented candle ceremony happening next weekend and our team will do its best to keep you posted.