A couple weeks ago, the Corporation raised tuition for the 2010-11 year to $51,360 per student, a 4.5 percent increase from this year’s rate.

While that amount of money can buy you a good education, a fancy diploma and a stay in hedonistic paradise, we can’t help but wonder what else it could be spent on…

13,696 Ivy Room falafels

2,853 BBQ Chicken pizzas from Nice Slice

604 bottles of Patrón Silver

496 copies of Organic Chemistry, 2nd edition by Thomas N. Sorrell

93 Schwinn fixed-gear bicycles

1/9 of a 2010 Lamborghini

Apparently Jim Kim ’82 — Brown alum, Dartmouth president, total public-health baller — made an appearance in an Michael Jackson tribute at Dartmouth’s annual talent show-type thing, to amazing results.  Check him out in all of his white-gloved glory around the 2-minute mark:

(h/t IvyGate)

Okay, is it just me, or has it been the LONGEST week? All this beautiful weather was lovely during the weekend, but when Monday rolled around, it made it incredibly difficult for me to drag my sorry self to class. All I’m saying is, thank everything that is good in this world that it is (almost. almost almost!) time for the weekend, which means another crop of exciting things to do TONIGHT. And I’m not just saying “exciting” so you’ll be excited. This weekend is packed with truly excellent things for you and me and everyone we know to do. To start us off, Thursday’s picks:

Three Sisters
Production Workshop (7 Young Orchard), 8:00
FREE FREE FREE
I don’t know if you went to see Lulu last weekend (or have plans to see it this week!), but that show left me reeling. And a little sick to my stomach (because of the content, not the production!). And longing for a show that was a little less… aesthetically minded is the phrase I’m sticking with, but absolutely out of its freaking mind is another valid option. “Three Sisters” is the most buzzed-about student production in a long time, but it also promises to be some darn good theater. And it’s a Chekhov play, which means you get that lovely classy & cultured feeling for the price of your (FREE) ticket.

The Last Station
Avon Cinema, 6:30 & 8:50
If tonight’s “What to Do” had a theme, it would be Russian writers form the late 19th century. Thank goodness it doesn’t! I don’t know if you remember me telling you to go see “Crazy Heart” because of my girl crush on Maggie Gyllenhaal, but that’s absolutely nothing compared to my deep, long-abiding love for James McAvoy. Yep, I’m mostly interested in this multiple-Oscar-nominated film because one of the actors is a hot hot hottie with soulful eyes. What of it?

Fusion Dance Show
Alumnae Hall Auditorium, 8:00, $5
Fusion Dance Company has a well-earned rep for putting on electric, high-energy dance shows and it looks like this one will be no exception. It also has the benefit of having nothing to do with Russian writers from the 19th century, so if you’re not into that (although really, how could you not be?), this one’s for you.

Patrick Kennedy let loose on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday, calling American policy in Afghanistan “shameful.”  He lambasted the press for paying more attention to the Eric Massa scandal than to the soldiers deployed overseas.  Check out the video to see the C-SPAN drama firsthand.

The NYPD has arrested a suspect in the hit-and-run accident that left Brown alum Erinn Phelan in a coma and injured Brown medical student Alma Guerrero.  The woman police believe to be at fault was charged yesterday.

Note to all who’ve been enjoying the recent bout of beautiful weather: things are about to change.  The karmic price of our five days of sun is what looks like five days of rain and clouds.  The spring showers won’t last forever though, and forecasters say the sun will be back by Tuesday.

This week’s Post- Top Ten, springtime edition:

1. Make fun of people on the slack line (one foot off the ground, five feet across; all danger).

2. Be naked on the Quiet Green—look it up, you can do it (we’re pretty sure).

3. Roll the grass. Or, roll in it. Or, um, whatever. Does everybody hate me? Do you guys want cookie dough?

4. Think of ways to deflate a bagpipe

5. Pretend to be comfortable in shorts, pasty-thighed member of DTau

6. Sit in a circle and talk about how sunshine almost makes you forget the unbearable lightness of being

7. Berge watchin’. She’s got her spring plumage.

8. Watch Marshall tell his friends it’s okay to drink Mike’s Hard Lemonade

9. Hey Harvard, watch where you step on your green.

10. It.

Check out Post-, on stands today, for more snark, weed references, and spring-themed fun!

Eat free or die trying.

_____

Short Attention Span Seminar
10-10:30 a.m.
John Carter Brown Library
Learn something new and get more than just knowledge — get a Blue State gift certificate

Thursday Night Interfaith Suppers: Chinese Religious Ethics
5-7 p.m.
Home of Head Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson, 58 Keene Street

Janus Conversation: The Constitutionality of Health Care
7-8 p.m.
Wilson 102
Get smart, ask questions, eat pizza

Sex and MTV
8-10 p.m.
MoChamp Lounge
The college hook up culture comes with “real food”

There’s some stuff that white people like, and then there’s some stuff they whine about. Think Larry David meets tumblr…

Location: Perishable Theatre, 95 Empire St

Following a critically-acclaimed run in Cambridge, “Harriet Jacobs,” the astonishing new play from Lydia R. Diamond, comes to Providence’s Perishable Theatre in a chamber production presented by Underground Railway Theater, in collaboration with Providence Black Repertory Company. Sponsored by the John Nicholas Brown Center, the Mass. Cultural Council, the NEA, RI Council for the Humanities, and RI State Council for the Arts.

Location: PW Main stage

By Anton Chekhov
Directed by Morgan Ritchie
Tickets available beginning Wednesday the 10th at 11:59pm online at http://pw.brown.edu/. Tickets will also be available 1 hour before showtime at the door.

Location: Smitty B 106

Cost: Public admission is $10 (at the door or at arttixri.com). All proceeds are donated to Open Doors, an agency working directly with women who are transitioning back into the community after being incarcerated. E-mail catherine.e.mccarthy (at) gmail (dot) com for a student discount price of $5, or show your Brown ID at the door for the same price.

More than 90% of women in prison have experienced violence in their own lives. Presented as part of the Until The Violence Stops: Rhode Island Festival, this event will bring forth raw voices of fierceness and honesty written by women from Rhode Island prisons who are moving forward toward healing, understanding, and change, ultimately impacting laws and treatment of incarcerated women. For the first time Rhode Island women who are presently incarcerated and have themselves experienced violence are being invited to tell their own stories through their words. These writings will be performed during the March 11, 2010 production, and the performance will conclude with a panel discussion about issues affecting women in prison. For more information, please visit www.vdayri.com.

Hosted by: Sexual Assault Task Force, AXO, Coalition Against Relationship Abuse