The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Fall 2002

Week 16: Astoundingly Sociable

12-1-2002

On Wednesday I think I skipped English 135AC. No, I didn’t actually. Anyway, I took BART home and Jonny picked me up. I stayed at his house. Howard and Thomas came over and we all went to his brother’s house to watch AOTC on this really nice widescreen TV. Ahh... I’m glad I waited. Then we went back to Jonny’s house and watched Panic Room... ahaha. Went to sleep late.

The next day I went home and just chilled. Did a little bit of chores and stuff. And of course, ate tons of Thanksgiving food at dinner. Then we watched AOTC again. Heheh.

Friday was the day of insanity. The day-after-Thanksgiving sales were soo cheap. Dad went to Best Buy and Compusa, and Tim and I went to Fry’s. The line was HUGE, and there was tons of people. I asked Tim to go get a cart and then he was gone for a couple hours. Turns out they closed the doors and didn’t let anyone in. I had to push this Aiwa sound system around the store for a long time, looking for the end of the line. It was LONG. It wove around the store, back and forth through aisles, sometimes twice in one aisle. That took another couple hours. We ended up spending over 5 hours there, and I got that Dolby/DTS system and some other assorted stuff. Dad got a lot of stuff too.

That night I went to Ralph’s to play some Risk. John Kua won every game. He tricked me into letting him accomplish his mission. It was fun.

Saturday, I went to Richard’s house, where there was a LOT of food. I ate so much it was crazy. Then they all went to his worship practice, except for Jonny and I, who went to Howard’s house and met up with Eric and Felix. We went to Fry’s and I got some speaker wire so I can put my satellite speakers farther back.

We then held auditions for the new Unveiled CD. There was a great number of songs. I auditioned 2. A lot of these look promising.

Combined cell was good. I had my workshop done (finally!!!), and I was hoping to make it good, but it came out all weird. I had just written out the points to cover, but when I delivered them I automatically intermixed them with constant puns, lame jokes, and inane Star Wars references. It just came as completely natural to me. As a result, I’m sure some people didn’t take me seriously. I was hoping that people would tell me that they learned something, or ask me questions, rather than just tell me “Jon, that was so funny,” which is what I usually get. Oh yeah, for that washing machine, Charlie’s Angels game, they made a up a new action called “Jon Yip” where (of course) I’m taking a crap in my pants. I have a feeling this will go on far longer than my earthly body ever will.

Church was good this morning. I like church a lot. I am starting to get to know other people better. This is a good thing. After church I auditioned the last song I had, the one I wrote last week.

I rearranged the family room when I came home, and did laundry. Then Wayne picked me up and took us back to Berkeley (we picked up Leon and Elliot too, who also drove). We arrived too late to meet with Tiffany, who was in Berkeley for this concert, but I went to the church and tried to buy some tickets for the concert they were at, but it was 37 bucks! And I definitely didn’t have that kind of money to shell out. So I just came back and worked on my paper. I IMed Richard today to see how he was doing. It’s really exciting, to talk to people about what’s going on, what they need.

12-2-2002

Woke up kind of late today... again. Now I’m feeling REALLY like crap. My throat has been jacked the whole day... nose stuffed and runny... DAMN IT. Class was no good at all. I came back and worked on my paper a little bit, until sectionals. I didn’t sing, since I was sick, so I just listened. I fell asleep. Ugh.

I came back, worked on my paper some more (this is the paper for Film 151 that’s due on Thursday), made some dinner, and Jesse came over and tested some program with me. Oh yeah, I IMed Lauren Baird from Creek Valley! I was running searches on Yahoo for people from Minnesota, and she turned up with a profile on Boston Colleges website, with her SN, so I talked to her. She started asking how I was doing and everything before I even got a chance to tell her who I was. Hahaha. Wow, so cool to talk with someone I haven’t seen or contacted in like 8 years or so.

The film screening today was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Good movie, I’ve seen it lots of times. Then I came back and had an hour and a half to work on my paper before I watched “Taken” on Sci-fi. It was a pretty good miniseries; I’ll have to keep watching it. I actually finished a lot of my paper today; now I’m almost finished with my third page. I haven’t been this productive in a long time. I had to turn down a game of CS with Ben to do it, though.

I hate being sick. I curse this sickness.

12-3-2002

Ugh, still sick today. I worked on my paper, went to class at 12:30, then went and bought a poster for the gift exchange thing at small group tonight. I worked on my paper some more when I got back (I find no reason to go to English 115B any longer, so I just skip it). Meanwhilst I danced around to poppy Christmas tunes that Leon was playing on his computer. Ah, Christmas time. I love it!

Shirley and I were talking about how the men these days should be like they were back in THE day when the man would ask permission of the father to write the lady. AWW YEAH that will be awesome when I do that!

At 4:00 or so I went to chorus but didn’t sing due to my illness. I slept through a lot of it.

I came back again, worked on my paper, and then met up with Leon at Unit 2 to take people to Liz’s apartment for our LAST small group meeting of this semester. She has a really nice apartment. We ate sushi that we got from Tako Sushi, which was good, and we got to see Wayne ingest an insane amount of wasabi all at once. I think the people in small group haven’t known Wayne long enough to know that he WILL do this sort of thing if prodded enough.

We played Mafia, in which I died the very first round because I knew who it was. When we FIRST started I said “Koheun is mafia” because she kept saying “let’s start! Let’s start!” while we were waiting for people to settle down with their cards. Then the next round I die. Nobody caught on because she killed everybody and won the game. ARGH!!! That was fun.

The gift exchange was cool. Lots of neat stuff were given. Liz got my The Two Towers poster. I got this nifty notebook thing that Julia made with metallic paper stuff. It’s really neat. We at cupcakes and lots of pie. MMMM

I came back, Wayne came with me. Leon went to go study at Moffitt with some small group people. Wayne played Aqua Aqua while I worked on my paper until 11, when I watched the next episode of “Taken.” Then I went back to the paper.

Up until this point I had written pretty much two or three sentences all day even though I’d been sitting at the computer for hours. At about 1:30, about when Leon got back, I totally got rolling and cranked out almost two pages. It’s almost 3 right now, and I’m afraid to stop because I’m doing so well. But I really need to rest because there’s the concert tomorrow and I need to be in good health for it, not to mention my performance at my vocal technique class. I hope I’m better by then. So should I hit the sack, or keep writing?

12-4-2002

I hit the sack last night. Pretty late too, like around 3:00. While lying in bed I thought up, in a few minutes time, most of the important things that will happen for the Christmas play. One minute I had nothing, the next, it all was there. Seems like everything comes to me on Tuesday nights. Hmm.

This morning I woke up early, for some reason. But I stayed in bed til later. I got up and got dressed all “festive” like for the noon concert (the two requirements for the top are solid colors and festive. A static gray sweater. That’s festive, isn’t it? Haha yesterday Leon was like “skin is solid AND festive!”). I was still all sick and stuffy, but a little better than yesterday. I went to Hertz Hall and we did all the warm up stuff. I didn’t really sing too much in the concert because my health just couldn’t handle it. Oh well, good lip-synching never hurt anybody. Except mine wasn’t even good.

I came back, worked on my paper or something until 3, when I had my vocal technique final! Boy what a day to be sick! I had told the teacher earlier after the concert that I was sick and couldn’t sing but she said just to do it anyway since it was the final. I guess that meant I couldn’t reschedule. So anyway, my final went fine, even though my tone was a bit doofy due to the “wooliness” in my throat. It wasn’t bad at all. She gave our grades on the final back right away. I got an A-. That’s good enough for me.

Came back, worked on the paper, though I was intermittently distracted by this Worms-esque shockwave game that Leon kept coercing me to play. I made chicken again today, and it was good! YES! Master Chef in the house dude! Leon went to some birthday party and came back, presumably gaseous because of whatever he ate there. I continued to write, more than occasionally diverted by Rush Hour, which Shirley was half watching on TV while Leon attempted to quote lines ahead of the characters.

I hit my elbow on the corner of Leon’s desk and now I’m feeling this weirdness in my elbow. It’s a bruise or something but it makes me feel like it’s out of alignment or something.

At 11:00, of course, I watched “Taken” on TV. During commercials I typed a sentence or two on my paper while incessently downing snacks, water, or any other type of edible stuff I could get my hands on. After the episode I went hardcore back to the paper, which is now clocking at 2,500 words! And I was worried I wouldn’t have enough to write! HOO YEAH!!! I’m am SO almost done!

12-5-2002

Wow, didn’t even wake up early and get up late. I just woke up late. So tired. I got out of bed and fine-tuned my paper, then went to go hand it in at 12:30. Whoo! It’s over with! Then I came back, grabbing a Fat Slice on the way to reward myself for my efforts, and debated on whether or not to go to the last class of English 115B. I was about to but then I figured that every time I thought I should go and went, it ended up being a total waste of my time and energy. So I didn’t go. Instead, I played that bombing game thing with Leon for a little bit. Actually, for a lot bit. Ralph called. That was cool. It’s good that he’s checking up on us. We got the directory for the leaders today, so now I can call people! Heh heh...

At 4:15 I went to chorus, the last one this semester. Mostly just heard info about next year (sounds like a good season next year, and we don’t have to re-audition... whew), and encouraging feel-good words from Marika. I came back and played CS with Ben and Andrew. I joined in the middle of a de_dust round, in which I did badly, and the next map, de_prodigy, I did OK, but the next map, assault_upc, whoa nelly I OWNED those n00bs! Then we played cs_office and I got owned so badly (and not just me, but our entire team).

I didn’t really do any work today, since I was unwinding from my paper. I made spaghetti for dinner, listened to music, and idled about online. Jesse came over to work on the CS project with Leon. I watched “Taken” again at 11:00 and helped Richard with his essay on that abomination of a book, The Awakening, which I have recently read. Now I’m working on the Christmas play that came to me last night as I laid in bed. I’m still kind of sick. Mrgh...

12-6-2002

I didn’t go to kickboxing this morning... it’s the first one I’ve missed (sniff). Shirley said it was really easy today.

At 11:00 I went to class with Shirley. We decided to go to Gypsy’s later. WOOHOO!

When I got to class I was surprised to see no one there. I guess there was no class today, but I wouldn’t have known that because I missed class on Wednesday. This means that not only do I not get my paper back, but I don’t have the questions for the final. Ruh oh. I went to his office and there was a note saying that he didn’t do office hours today (he won’t be back until Tuesday, the day before the final). I emailed him but he hasn’t responded. Crap.

Leon had his Chinese final today, where he, among other things, sang a Backstreet Boys song in Mandarin.

I came back and stalled for time until 1:00, when I went to First Congregational (the place I went on Sunday for that concert thing, which I later found that Tiffany did NOT sing in) to listen to Shirley’s performance in her vocal technique class thing. She did really well. Scott is also crazy amazing; he can play all this complicated stuff on the piano while singing really well at the same time. AUGH.

After that we went to Gypsy’s. YAHOO! I got this combo calzone, which took forever to cook because they burned the first one. Whoops. Then we went to Sweetheart Café and got some pearl stuff.

I pretty much wasted the rest of the afternoon, playing CS and stuff like that. I’m just on my post-semester high. Heh.

I was supposed to get something sweet for “super secret large group,” so right before we met I went to Kingpin and bought a dozen doughnuts. At first I asked for a box of doughnut holes, but they only had 3 (what the heck), then I asked for a dozen glazed and there were only 5, so I just said “can I have a dozen assorted doughnuts then?” And I got that, for $7.50. Just after I ordered it I spotted the “day old doughnuts” bag that they have every day, for $1! Dude, I should have gotten that.

We met at Underhill lot, and turns out we all drove to Ocean Beach in SF! Heheh. I was in David’s car; we drove around there and looked for the group but couldn’t find them. We saw this big fire and assumed it was them but then when we got close we realized that they weren’t, and that we 5 guys walking toward them looked kind of freaky (especially me with the trench coat and the box of doughnuts in my hands... talk about intimidation). After a while and some phone calls, we found them. It was a cool meeting, we just had some worship, this skit organized by Elliot (audience participation), and then just eating all the food we brought. We had a big fire and some of us went down to the water to run around on the sand and poke at the dead jellyfish.

I came back in Eric’s car and met a couple new people: Wendy and Garrett (I think I may have met that guy somewhere before), couple of freshmen from Castro Valley. I was astoundingly sociable with them, which is unusual for me around new people.

When I got back, I worked a little on my play (I’m a bit stuck here on the girls’ part because I have no idea how they think or act).

At 1:00 I watched “Taken” (I missed the 11 show so I had to stay up til 3). I have to get ready to go home tomorrow.

I worked on the play until past 4:00. It’s coming along well now.