Four days before it started, gym rats throughout campus received the news that there would be “modifications” to the Fitness Center and Womens’ Gym operations. For a brief period of time, students are no longer able to just show their ID and go do curls in the squat rack for half an hour and leave, while posting “grind time” on their Instagram stories. They must first consult a schedule that changes by the day and might compel them to get up at 6 a.m. if of the male persuasion. If not, they risk having walked a whole five minutes to their room in A6 to change, which could have been spent answering the day’s 479 emails demanding an urgent response and each filled with a greater sense of self-importance than the last.

Why has this happened, the disruption of the sacred institution of the Fitness Center for the first time since the days when maintaining fitness on the hot days required programming a bot response to the FABS site at 7:00:01 AM? Two NBA teams have come to campus to prepare for their pre-season games playing on Yas Island this week. It is amazing that, as students, we get to see the results of what these players have built through years of practice and hard work.

“I’ve started to feel like I’m not going to college anymore. When I accepted that full scholarship three years ago, I died and was transported into a simulation,” now thinks Gitmi Oot, Class of 2023. Every day at NYU Abu Dhabi is more bizarre than the last, and now he wants to break out of this simulation of a liberal arts college airlifted to the desert. But if NYUAD is a simulation, aren’t our worries about being in a simulation themselves simulated? Stay tuned for the next addition to the Core Curriculum, “The Great NYUAD Experiment.” (Also cross listed as a Philosophy elective).

Oot would simply like to spectate the players in the gym, but his presence is not monetarily beneficial. As a result of this arrangement, NYUAD will be receiving funds that it can use to pay the next on-campus vendor with the creativity and foresight to rip students off in an unprecedented way. Oot does not have funds to contribute because they have all gone towards paying for D2 meals with a sufficient amount of protein.

The metal detectors in front of the gym’s entrance are the icing on the cake. Brought to campus for Commencement and other events, they remind us that we live in a warzone. So unsafe would we be without them, that the players would never come. In America, the invasive security pat-downs, militarized police forces and in-school metal detectors create the safest country in the world! So safe that NYUAD has to learn from it and attract the big-name talent that it deserves. We have never thought about doing things outside of American and European ways, so why start now?

Plenty of threats exist on the deceptively barren Saadiyat Island. A horde of gazelles could amass upon the Welcome Center, at which point they will turn around upon being prompted to present a green Al Hosn app. Or a horde of (the) Gazelles could destroy everything in their path as they relentlessly ask every visitor to campus, and the cats, to write a piece for the week’s special issue. With the removal of the mask mandate, the lagging low percentage of students who wear deodorant on a daily basis also risks bringing a brand new threat to our sanity.

Oot was reminded of how seriously everything was taken as he came back from a jog entirely within the narrow green strip in front of the campus. Upon his arrival at the Welcome Center, he realized that his NYU ID had been stolen by a cat. Public Safety was not very pleased. At first, the questions were reasonable enough: “What room do you live in? Are you a first-year?” But as they became increasingly dissatisfied with his proof of identity, campus security became more paramount. Eventually, it seemed like the questions were key to another experiment. “What is your mother’s maiden name? In what city were you born? What is the name of your favorite pet?” Oot was too frustrated to tolerate any of this nonsense anymore.

As his responses became increasingly terse and frustrated, he was let go. But upon reaching the Campus Center to get in his daily workout, he was subjected to the same questionnaire. After completely missing his gym session, Oot finally logged into Albert, filled out the form saying “Request Term Withdrawal” and began working on his transfer apps to a real-life university.