The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Week Five: Glory Be!

9-24-2001

Saturday morning I woke up, packed, and caught the BART back to Fremont, where Jonny picked me up from the station and drove me to worship practice at church. We had a good set and our team rapport was better than usual, and after we finished I was picked up by Dad, Mom, and Leslie, and we went home. Expecting to be able to relax, I was surprised that I had to do all manner of chores and work when I arrived home. Cell group was at Rona's house. It was OK but it was periodically and rudely interrupted at regular intervals by certain members of the group. Hmm.

I taught the final session of Baptism class Sunday morning! I also learned that I will actually be going down there with them when they get baptized! Wow, what an honor! That also means, I guess, that when they take out their baptism pictures in fifty years when their old and gray, they'll see me and remember that I did the baptism class. Haha! Worship was good for that service, everything went nicely. Ben left today for Davis. I gave Rona a ride home, then after some relaxing, we went to Fry's to get a new monitor and headphones for me to take to school (since I don't like bothering Peter all the time with my music, and besides, my speakers receive interference, probably from all the cordless phones that everyone has in the dorms). Dad was supposed to take me to the BART, but we figured that Fremont is halfway to Berkeley anyway, and I had a lot of stuff to carry (I took Tim's electric guitar), so we drove all the way to school.

Glory be! Sunday night, Peter was reading about St. Francis, and he asked me ALL THESE QUESTIONS about Christianity and things. WOW! I went to sleep at 2:30 am because I was studying/watching Pi (it was very interesting and stylish, but as a whole movie it was only OK, I think).

This morning I woke up with barely enough time to eat, but I somehow lost my right contact lens when I writhed in pain after putting it in and it fell out. So I spent way too long groping along the camouflage-like carpet, wasting my valuable eating time. Finally I found it under the bed where it couldn't possible have been, then I ate in ten minutes and didn't brush my teeth. I made it to class one minute late.

Damn it, I am so sick of hearing people shamelessly bullshitting (pardon the term) every single word in film class. We were analyzing shots from The Birth of a Nation today and people make up all kinds of baloney about this and that, pretending that they're so freaking smart when they're just a bunch of wannabe filmmaker losers that want to impress the teacher by saying something that sounds profound. If I was in charge, I'd show these morons a thing or two about REAL film analysis and not let this kind of garbage get through.

YEEHAH! The thunder and lightning just came, and WOW! We're getting a major light-show; this is the biggest thunder-fest I've ever seen since I was in Tennessee, and certainly the biggest I've ever seen in California. The windows in the DC shook. This is the type of thing that inspires me to write. The rain is coming down and floods are coming up.

9-25-2001

I woke up nice and early so I could go to the RSF! But, like the lazy dumb-butt that I am, I didn't. Instead, I rested for a few extra hours, wasting precious studying time by messing around on the computer and aimlessly skipping around through Titus Andronicus. Meanwhile, I was getting annoyed with the small outcropping of hair on the left side of my head that my mom must have missed when she cut my hair over the weekend, so I wet my hair at the sink, went back to my room, and took the edge of my Swiss Army knife to it until it looked even. It does, now. At lunch I ate two chocolate soft-serve sugar cones. Mmmm.

Shakespeare class. SNOOZE. Strangely, in every class I doze of dozens of times, but after a certain period I will snap awake and not fall asleep again, even if the professor is as boring as a dead carrot.

At small group today, we at fajitas and played Mahjongg. YEEHAH! Then we blew another hour on "speed" Scrabble. Now it is late, and I am back, and I am upset that I can't finish downloading Hollow Man. Argh.

9-26-2001

Today was a particularly uneventful and unnoticeable day, interspersed with brief, bright spots of unusually uncanny moments. First, I ate at 10:00. BORING. Then, on the way to Dwinelle, I ran into SHIRLEY, of all people! It was the absolute first time I have seen her ON CAMPUS outside of IV on Friday; other than that I haven't seen hide nor hair of her. I was walking quite briskly and I was staring at the ground, as usual, and I almost missed her until after a few seconds I thought "Hey, she looks a lot like Shirley." So I said "Hey, Shirley!" and she must not have noticed me because she turned around as if to say "What the heck?" until she saw me waving. I would have followed her and annoyed her and made her take the money that I owe her if I wasn't running late for English 173. Coincidentally, another strange occurrence awaited me on the steps of Dwinelle. I ran into Gloria (Liu)! Again, it took a few seconds to register while I thought "Hey, she looks a lot like Gloria," but she beat me out by saying "Hi, Jon!" By the way, English 173 was a bit boring, and so was the Film 25A class that followed.

At 4:00 I went to Tolman for the American Mobster Film class (Art Practice 199) where we finished the rest of The Godfather, and the first half of the first episode of The Sopranos. Then I went back to the DC, but not before running into ALLAN, from Zion Church of Praise! He was going to watch some movie that had something to do with assassins. What a random day. Why won't Hollow Man keep downloading? Can't the dude with the file just turn his computer on?

There is a football rally parade of some sort just down the street right now and they are making a big ruckus.

9-27-2001

Bedtime at 2:35 last night, due to the finishing of Titus Andronicus, made it hard for me to get up and go the RSF, but I finished all the readings, and I had no excuse, so I went, came back, and ate with Peter. When I came back from the DC, I found that Rounders had finished downloading, so I watched most of it until I had to leave for the Shakespeare class.

And those chairs. Those chairs that I have to sit in during the Shakespeare lecture. They look as though they were built before 1900 and I wouldn't be surprised if they were. They are creaky, wobbly, stiff, uncomfortable, small, wooden seats with these tiny, annoying platforms that you are supposed to be able to put your books, papers, and pens on at the same time (which, of course, you can't). Sitting in them for an hour and a half nearly drives me mad every time, and my constant fidgeting to fruitlessly gain a better position causes it to squeak noisily, so I have to wiggle the chair before class to ensure that it doesn't make too much sound.

And that brings me to the chairs in the Nestrick Room in Dwinelle. Where I had to watch this boring 1924 Russian film called Aelita. So small, so uncomfortable as well. For hours in class I shift and squirm about, trying to ease the discomfort and pain, but to no avail. What they should do is make the seats so they are soft cushy theatre seating, like they have in Mercado 20. As for those wooden contraptions of Carpal-Tunnel syndrome, they should be replaced with padded, ergonomic, one-piece, spacious polyurethane chairs, with broad arm-tables that don't wiggle and give you plenty of field for your books and papers and pens. Incidentally, the film seemed sort of propaganda-ish because at the end the guy burns in his fireplace all his plans and ambitions of flying to Mars (which is portrayed as a happy ending). The Russians seemed to have been telling citizens to not pursue their dreams, to be happy where they were in life. Sigh.

Thursday, party time! All this noise. I still can't download Hollow Man, even though I've meanwhile downloaded Pi, Face/Off, Rounders (which I watched today since I like Edward Norton so much; plus it also had a nice cast consisting of Matt Damon, John Turturro, Martin Landau, and John Malkovich), The Big Lebowski, and Dogma (which I will probably watch tomorrow or something).