The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Fall 2002

Week 9: Get Started

10-13-2002

Notice how I don’t use too much “profanity” anymore these days. That means I have more self-control now. Or maybe I just don’t write it.

We took BART back on Saturday, got back to Fremont a little before noon. Dad took us (Tim, Leslie, and me) to Burger King and then in the afternoon we went to go see Spirited Away, which is this strange, amazing, weird movie that doesn’t really make logical sense but is still fascinating in an awkward sort of way. It’s definitely a cool film but I still don’t understand how it could make so much money in Japan and everything. I would have thought that Princess Mononoke would have made more.

Cell group was good that night, there was a pretty good number of people there, and not much disruptiveness. I went to bed at around 1:00 am and then had to get up at 6:00 for D-5. Sooo tired. Angela asked me to help do that tables for promoting the retreat outside at the Mandarin service, so I did, but I missed worship. Argh. Jonny was back! After church we went to eat at Denny’s with him and a bunch of people. Then I went home and then went out to buy some stuff from Rite-Aid (like liquid soap refills; we’ve been out for a few weeks already). I called Wayne and they had already left, but they turned around (ARGH!!! Felt so bad) and picked me up. I had to pack fast.

Came back to Berkeley and messed around. Basically eating Cheerios, playing keyboard, etc. Emily (from Fremont) sent me this link to a Flash graphic adventure game, and Leon and I spent some time working on, and beating, it. Playing it made me want to break out all the Lucasarts games and play them.

Oh yeah, John gave me the CD today with my most recent worship set on it. Boy listening to it really shows how bad my voice really is. I guess I can’t really tell when I’m singing because there’s all this other noise drowning it out, but when I hear it recorded and played back to me I realize the absurdly poor quality of my singing. Sigh. But sometimes the songs sounded pretty decent. I need to work on pitch stability and keeping time.

10-14-2002

Woke up this morning, ate stuff. I went to class, where I spent the whole time working on the crossword. I was KIND of listening though. At least I didn’t fall asleep. Then I went to the bank. I saw the receipt after I got some cash from the ATM and my balance is LOW! Yikes.

Ate more food when I got back. I am so hungry again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe because I’m not eating any meat, only dry cereal, rice, and other starchy stuff. We need to go to Safeway.

At 2:00 I went to practice with my quartet for chorus for about an hour. Man I am the worst singer there. Arghhh.

Came back to the apartment, ate stuff, and started reading, but fell asleep almost immediately (!) on the couch and stayed that way for many hours! I didn’t wake up until just before Leon came home.

I made rice and cooked some Romanian lettuce, then went to the PFA for the film screening of Pushing Hands. That was a great movie; it was all about Chinese people in America and Chinese culture and everything, but all mixed up in America. It wasn’t sell out at all, like The Joy Luck Club or something. It was funny and well-written.

Resisting the urge to spend any more money at some sort of restaurant like Sweetheart Café or anything, I came straight back to the apartment and ate the rest of the rice (that’s a LOT of rice to eat in one day), an apple, peanut butter, etc. I finished the reading for tomorrow; one article was extremely boring and retardedly BS-ey, and the other one was actually quite interesting.

Ahh, I just took a hot bath. I soaked in the tub for a while, which was difficult because it’s too small for me to fit inside and I have to crunch myself up in it.

10-15-2002

This morning I woke up in fairly good time, and debated in bed on whether or not I should get up. I fell asleep trying to decide (I guess) and woke up late again after 9:00. At least I finished my reading for today last night.

At 12:00 I went to go see Marika so she could check up on my progress. It was really weird because I sang really well (compared to how I usually sing)! Then I went to class, where I worked on the puzzle but also, amazingly, paid attention to what was going on. Now that I hear the assignments more clearly, I begin to doubt whether or not I will be able to do well in this course. I got a 55 back on the quiz from last week... ugh... I don’t get it; I’m doing the freakin’ reading, but still scoring low on the quizzes. This guy in class asked a question and raised a good point: the quizzes were (so he said) intended to make sure we did our reading, but they seem a lot deeper than that would suggest. If I’m doing the reading, I should be able to do at least PRETTY well on the quizzes. I think he’s making them too hard. Damn it all!

In between class I went to the ASUC bookstore and bought some candy and a schedule. Then I went to English 115B, where I worked further on the crossword (very nearly finishing it, it was easy today) while he gave out another assignment that we automatically get an A on, even if we don’t do it, and taught a boring lecture on John Milton’s “Lysidias.” I need to remember to get a copy of “Paradise Lost” for my final paper. I also need to check about changing Film 151 to pass/not pass because my grade could very well possibly be really crappy.

I went directly to Morrison to practice again with my quartet, then had chorus. Rgh, I was hungry. When it was over I went to Mandarin House and got some Mongolian Beef stuff and took it home. I cleaned the place up for small group while Leon practiced worship with David.

Small group was good, as usual; there wasn’t that many people today. Leon and the rest of them all went to study at Heller Lounge. I was going to study and maybe work on my shot analysis here at home but I haven’t really done anything yet, like a dope. I worked on my music though.

I’m really thirsty. Not just thirsty, but I feel all this sodium in my throat and stomach because of all the MSG in the food I ate, and also because I ate a huge chunk of ribs that Shirley brought back from Claim Jumpers. Ahhh insane.

It’s weird how certain smells, tastes, etc., can trigger memories of other experiences with similar stuff. Like on Saturday I drank this pearl milk tea that reminded me of Hong Kong because it tasted like the milk they have there. And today I smelled this steam from a grate on the sidewalk and it reminded me of something, but I can’t remember what. See? Because if I smelled it again, I would remember.

10-16-200

Ugh, I woke up after 9:00 AGAIN today... such a bad habit. Quite cold today, even when it got sunny. I went to class, English 135AC and worked on the crossword. I figured out almost half of it, and when I got back and Leon came home, he had figured out the other half! So together we wrapped that sucker up pretty quickly.

For lunch I gobbled another one of those awesome ribs from yesterday. Leon left for class. I practiced the passages that I had to sing today for the quartet. At 2:00 I went over to Morrison. The quartet went OK... we were performing for Marika with another quartet group. I actually sang better than usual, but nevertheless we (the basses, this guy name Cameron, and I) were indicated by her as the weakest section of the group, which I suppose was true. Now I have to do all this extra stuff. Grr...

I went back to the apartment after the quartet, but only for a little bit; then I had to go back to Morrison for vocal technique, which went well.

The English schedule finally came out today on the English website. I’ve found one class so far that I want to enroll in: Literature and Popular Culture. I think I might be able to use it toward my area of concentration since it has a lot of film screenings.

The doorbell rang today. It was Emily (from Griffiths in Unit 2 last year)! She finally gave me Sam ‘N’ Max back after all these months! It is interesting because I saw her this morning while walking to class, but I didn’t notice until I almost passed her. Boy I really want to play all those games again. They’re so good. I also need to start recording music. I also need to visit a major advisor again and discuss everything. Argh so much stuff to do!

I started working on the shot analysis for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It took a long time just to get 10 shots done. I stopped and did some other stuff after a while. Leon made some rice and ate some fish that he had, and I ate the rice with some fried tomatoes and Romanian lettuce. Mmm, I made it taste pretty good, in fact. I watched Friends to calm my nerves. Up until now I haven’t really watched any TV all week, can you believe that.

I continued to work on the shot analysis for an extremely long time, until I finished it. I only took one or two short breaks. Doing shot analyses really makes you see how intricate and crazy the editing of a film is. The particular bamboo scene that I was doing consisted of 67 shots. Argh, insanity. But I finished! At almost midnight I ate the last of the ribs. Mmm.

I have to look at the schedule and find all the classes I want to take. Phase I is next week, by gum! So I’ll have the Lit and Pop Culture class, and the senior seminar that I have to take... besides that, I’m thinking of not doing any more film classes unless they’re REALLY cool... I’ve had enough BS for my two years here at Berkeley. I want to freakin’ LEARN something. I should take some psych or something like that.

10-17-2002

We still have not gone to Safeway yet. It’s been nigh upon three weeks, I think. Wow. Anyway, I woke up this morning, nothing special. Class was like usual; I worked on the crossword, and it was pretty tricky. The teacher handed out a quiz on the reading for this week, the most confusing, infernal piece of “writing” ever. You can’t understand any of that crap. And all the questions were all obscure and ambiguous, and the answer choices were all similar. However, when we got the answers back, it turns out I did the best on this one out of all the quizzes in the class so far! Weird huh.

Next class was BORING, like usual, but I almost finished that crossword! I fell asleep a few times; I’ve given up trying to hide behind people’s heads and stuff because so many other people are dozing off too. I was watching them today. It’s funny.

Chorus was OK. After that I came back and chilled for a while. Shirley went to SF to watch Beauty and the Beast, and then Leon went to Soda Hall to work on his CS project with his partner. I made another package of that pork (this time it tasted a lot better because I added more stuff... brown sugar, cinnamon, worcestire (however you spell it, yarg) sauce, seasoned salts, etc... mmm. It was a lot of meat. I also made a butt-load of pasta and ate all that too, while watching “Friends.” Then I started work on the paper...

I didn’t really work on the actual paper, though. I DID, however, spend a few hours putting that shot analysis into my computer, adding more details and clarifying some stuff that I hastily wrote down while doing it yesterday. To loosen me up when I finished, I jumped around and listened to music. Man!

I have barely done any goofing off for this whole week... I’m so tired. I plan to watch Grave of the Fireflies tomorrow, if time permits. But I really do have to get started on that paper; the 29^th is coming upon me soon.

10-19-2002

Didn’t write last night... it was too late. It was a long day. First, I got up earlier than usual to go to kickboxing. Scott went with us. When we got back, Leon was gone. Then we went to class. It was boring. I went back and finished the crossword myself.

I had sent an email to Berry (Film 151 professor) last night asking if we had to shot analyze the parts that weren’t covered in the text, and his reply this morning said yes. So in the afternoon I worked on the scene from A Touch of Zen, working from the crappy Real Media clip online. Partway through I got another email from him, saying that he’d been thinking about my email all day and decided I was right. It was too much. So now we DON’T have to do it. I happily dropped everything and started watching Frailty, which was really good. Leon was snoozing away in the bedroom for the whole time.

After that, I went to Fat Slice and Leon went to meet Clark Kerr people for Ransom the Donkey, which was happening tonight. It was a two-person rendition of the gospel of Mark. It was pretty good. Some parts were really good and some parts were a little bit to into the whole new wave thing of speaking so fast that you interrupt each other.

Wayne came back with me and we watched Grave of the Fireflies together; it was a really good and sad movie. He left after that. It was only 12:00, and Leon and I wanted to do something. So we pulled out that sofa bed thing and sat on it and watched some Jet Li movie (I can’t remember the name). Then we talked for a long time about skits and stuff, for Friends Day.

This morning I woke up. The whole sofa bed to myself. Ahh I should do that more often. Leon went to play volleyball. I am going to take BART; I’m going to leave within half an hour, probably. Shirley’s parents are coming up to take her to the DMV. I have a lot of things to think about. Argh. I will meet with Howard today. That will be cool.