The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Fall 2002

Week 17: What a Lovely Day

12-8-2002

On Saturday morning woke up WAY too early (I fell asleep past 5:00, even though I went to bed at about 4) at about 9 something; Shirley woke me up when Dad called. I trudged out and figured out he couldn’t pick me up, so I called Mom and arranged for her to get me from BART. So I took BART home (slept almost the whole way). I didn’t have much of a chance to do anything; by the time I got back it was like 2 or 3, and I just hung around watching TV or something (oh and playing drums) until cell group at Victor’s house. That was good. Ended early too, so when I got back I had time to do some stuff, like set up the surround speakers in the family room.

This morning Tim and I had to wake up herra early again to go to the worship leaders’ meeting at Denny’s. I ordered this incredibly unhealthy Meat-Lover’s Skillet, which sent my stomach into shock for the entire day. Church was good; before service we had this cool prayer meeting, and the “sermon” was totally improv! He didn’t follow his sermon at all; he just started talking about prayer, and how important it is, and he kept going. It was so unlike his other sermons, not prepared, but completely in line with the Spirit. His voice was different, not loud and commanding like his usual sermons are, but just like his regular conversation voice. Wow...

There was a Mexico meeting after church so I went to Burger King with John Kua, Leedah, and James (from Fly Young). I was still stuffed from that Denny’s food so I just got a milkshake.

I hung around at church after that for a while, til the meeting ended. Howard and Eric wanted to go watch Equilibrium, and Jon Liao wanted to go too, and we wanted Dad to go. I called him and he didn’t want to because he had “work.”

Anyway, we drove to Jon’s house first so he could drop some stuff off and we could see his dog Ranger. Then we went home and I tried talking to Dad but he still refused. So I got Mom to get him to go. I mean it was his birthday yesterday and everything, and he didn’t even do anything. We ate a little huo-guo and went to Mercado.

The movie was SO AWESOME! It is low-budget and limited release, not highly publicized, but I was excited about it for months because it had Christian Bale in it. IT WAS AMAZING. Not much special effects or flashy stuff, but the sets, costumes, cinematography, everything was just so slick and professional. The fights, choreography, stunts, all great. Guns, swords, incredible stuff. Some parts were so moving I almost cried, and other parts (the fights) were so radical I almost wet my pants. Seriously, that’s not even a joke.

After the movie (which Dad and Tim didn’t regard as highly as I did... they thought it was “cheesy” at the end. I thought the ending was GREAT, if unrealistic) I went home, ate some more food, packed, and the family drove me back to Berkeley. I didn’t do any work, except on the play. Oh yeah, I’m going to have some difficulty casting this play. It is a VERY hard script; I hope people can be up to the challenge...

12-9-2002

Wow, I got up so late today. Like 11. I just moped around and did a little reading. I fretted over the professor and reader people NOT RESPONDING TO MY EMAILS, DAMN IT. I’m so screwed. The final is in less than two days and there’s no way I can get the study questions until tomorrow. GHETTO! At least it rained.

At about noon time it started raining again and I really wanted to take a walk. So I put on my trench coat (w00t!) and stepped outside. I went to Safeway, bought tons of food (lighter food though, then last time). I still got really tired but at least this time I could make it all the way home.

With all this great food, I chowed down. I ate cereal, sandwiches, snacks, the whole bit. Ohhh yeah. I did more reading and messing around. There’s not much I can do without knowing what to frickin’ study for! I also looked at the assignment for the English 115B final paper and thought about that a little. And I listened to and watched Shirley stomp around the room pining over her paper that’s due tomorrow. Leon slept though the afternoon because he ate all this chili and stuff for lunch and it put him out like a candle.

I made dinner a little late. Chicken again. It was good, but I burned outside a little and the inside was undercooked so I had to microwave it. Then Leon and I went to First Pres to study with small group people. I read a lot, then left early so I could watch “Taken.” On the way back I called the first person of my phone-calling project: Hsiu-Fan. I talked randomly with him for almost 15 minutes.

I watched “Taken,” which was a pretty good episode. Leon came back in the middle, and has been extremely gaseous, letting them fly on a consistent per-minute basis. I’m working on the play some more. There’s nothing else today until I can get those frickin’ questions.

12-10-2002

UGHAGH... woke up so early this morning... Julia called to wake us up at like 8:45 to go eat with small group people at Ann’s Kitchen. We ate there, then went to go study again at First Pres. I like studying there. It’s cool how students can just go to the church and study. I finished the book I was reading.

After that I went back early (Emily left but everyone else was still there til 6) at about 1, got a grip on myself (whatever that means... it’s really late right now and I’m herra tired) and went to Hutson’s office hours to get the final questions and my midterm paper back. I got a B+. Again, my weakness is my generalized thesis and lack of specifics in the support. But he said my writing was excellent throughout. At least I know for sure that I have good writing structure and style.

I came back and did nothing. Watched the LOTR special on MTV and stuff. The day before a final, I am always so unmotivated. I can’t stand it. Shirley was having the same problem because she has a final tomorrow too.

Well, sometime in the late afternoon I started working, kind of, but not really. Shirley was watching TV/studying and I was just moping around. I made dinner, watched more TV (YAAAAGH) until about 9 or 10, when I really started getting my notes together. Of course, at 11:00 I had to watch Taken. Leon came back and gave me that neat bag of stuff (for finals, with candy and snacks and stuff like that). After the show I went back to work. That was at 1:00. Now it’s 3:40 and I’ve barely done a thing but jot down an OUTLINE for my NOTES. Well, earlier I copied and pasted character summaries from sparknotes.com (the site that will probably, to an extent, save my arse tomorrow) onto a document and printed them out, since we can have notes tomorrow.

AAAGGHHH I want to go to bed!!!

12-11-2002

Ugh... I woke up at 9:00 this morning to study even more. I hardly did anything though. Shirley and I both spent a good deal of time just pouting and whimpering about how screwed we were on our finals. Leon went out to give out more of the care packages to small group I think. Anyway, the hour finally dawned, and Shirley and I went off to our finals. Mine was at Hearst Gym, and I had trouble finding the stupid room because I was misinformed. I took the final questions when I got to the room. At first I thought I was totally dead because I didn’t know many of the characters on the ID list. Thankfully, though, after looking through my notes, I found most of the stuff. Actually I either found or remembered enough information to ID exactly 10 questions, which was how many I needed (out of 15).

I had drunk a lot of tea earlier so I really had to go to the bathroom. This was a gym, so the only bathroom was a locker room (which was ghetto because I saw a ladies’ restroom right next to it. But there’s no men’s room) and in order to get to the toilets I had to walk through the frickin’ showers. And of course, there were a few old fat ugly naked guys walking around in there. I walked in and immediately turned around in disgust, hoping that I would find the toilets somewhere else, but no, they were past the showers. So I walked back through and tried to avoid seeing anything if possible, but it was kind of hard when they were standing all around you. Ugh. Shirley said that all the locker rooms are like that; you have to go through the showers to get to the toilets. But the men are worse because naked guys are NASTY.

I went back to the room and finished the in-class essay portion of the final. Herra people had their books even though the professor said that you couldn’t. Bunch of cheaters. Oh yeah, when I left the apartment earlier, I could have sworn that I forgot something important.... but I checked everything, and I had my blue book, my pen, my character summaries... but I knew I forgot something.

Well, this was when I realized I forgot the notes that I spent all night typing for preparation for the essay question. So I had to remember all the stuff of the top of my head. It was OK I guess. I finished in a little bit less than 2 hours. I went back to the apartment and played CS with Ben, Andrew, and Stephen (from Sacramento).

I kind of laid back for the rest of the evening, but worked on my paper still for tomorrow. Jonny called me because he got this weird deal on a huge set of speakers from these mysterious dudes, and I looked up the products on the internet and everyone is going through the same thing, getting scammed. The guys say the exact same thing, and the exact same thing happens. It was so weird. Jonny was telling me what happened and it matched EXACTLY with any given con report on the message board. Scary...

Today I called another person. I called Vicki. That was fun, we actually talked for a pretty long time. These phone calls are taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. At first I was expecting calls to last maybe 3 or 4 minutes and I could make 2 every day, but Hsiu-Fan’s lasted almost 13 on Monday and Vicki’s lasted almost 18 today, which means I can only make about 1 call every two days. Oh well. It’s quality not quantity. This whole calling people business is really exciting!

I watched “Taken” but I was sooo sleepy because I got like 4 hours of sleep last night. I fell asleep a lot. Well now I have to finish this paper.

12-12-2002

I woke up this morning fairly early, briefly tuned my paper, and went to turn it in at around noon. Shirley went out to go eat somewhere. On the way back I went to the bank and thought “hey I bet I’ll run into Shirley” because I was walking back along Durant, where all the restaurants are at. Well I was walking and I completely forgot about that thought, when out of nowhere she jumped out and swung a roll of wrapping paper or something at me. I totally spazzed out because I was so freaked. When people jump out at you in Berkeley, it’s usually not a good thing.

When I came back Leon was still sleeping. I just hung around and had a good time by myself. I think I played CS or something. I watched TV and did all other kinds of great, fun stuff that one can only do when FREE from the crushing hold of finals. Oh yeah, I IMed Kevin Smith today! Not the director Kevin Smith, but my friend from Edina. That was cool. He has taken a year off from school to work at some place with autistic children. His oldest sister also got married. Wow, I’m missing all this stuff.

At 4 or so I went down college to Elmwood Theatres to watch 8 Femmes, a cool French musical mystery (who would have ever thought of that). The theatre was really neat too; they show old movies and the decor and everything is so old-fashioned and nice. There was almost no one in the show but the ones who were were all old couples. Haha.

So I came back, did a little writing for the play, played more CS, watched more TV, played FFVIII, watched “Taken,” and stuff like that. Ahh, freedom. Leon is supposed to be working on his two papers (both due tomorrow) but he has been shopping online and playing Shockwave games all night. Shirley finished her paper and I checked it over a little. Leon got me hooked on this online game that’s just like the game that Jonny had on his PDA. It is so frustrating. He and I worked together and we got to level 8!!!! WHOA!!! IT’S SOO HARD!! Then we got Shirley hooked on it too. Heh. What a lovely day.

12-14-2002

OK, so I’m not at Berkeley right now. Doesn’t matter, I’ll put it in the archives anyway. On Friday I missed kickboxing again (Shirley didn’t wake me up) so I just got up and I can’t remember what I did. It was raining still. I think Shirley came back first and her clothes were all wet because it was so rainy. Then Leon came back and his clothes were all wet too. Oh yeah, that’s right. I watched The Patriot while Shirley played that Zookeeper shockwave game for hours. Leon came back and worked on his other paper that was due at 5. Heh. After the movie ended, Shirley went out to walk around some more and I packed my stuff and everything, got most of it together, and then Shirley came back, and then I proofread Leon’s paper, and then he went to turn it in. Ralph called me and that occupied me for about half an hour. Then I started watching Titan A.E. (meanwhile Shirley continued to play that game). Leon came back and watched the rest of the movie, then suggested that we watch another one because he felt like vegging out. So I popped in Home Alone. But Leon fell asleep. He must have been really tired; I don’t think he got much sleep at all the night before. Shirley dressed up nicely and went to eat dessert with the IV worship team at some fancy place whose name I forget.

After THAT movie, it was time for the finale of “Taken!” I took my computer apart and IMed all my Berkeley friends goodbye. Leon still slept through about half of it (he was really gaseous today, even in his sleep) until the family came up to Berkeley an hour earlier than I thought. So they had to watch the second half with me. Then we went home.

Today I had to pack up that AV receiver and stuff it into the van, then drive to Vallco to pick Mom and Tim up from his concert thing, then bring him to another concert thing (there was a really good flute player... she was really good... by the way, the rain was falling hard and it was REALLY windy), then we went home and I worked putting my computer back together in the new case (REALLY hard and troublesome since the motherboard instructions are all wrong and I forgot the right way to put some of the plugs in. Dad and Leslie came back and we went to Fresh Choice (again) and I went straight to Fry’s to exchange the receiver (I had to lug it up those ramps and everything) and the girl at the counter was actually very nice and helpful, and she told me there were 3 left in stock so I could just go back to the AV department and ask them to get one for me. Well, when I got back there the dude started like questioning me as if I were some crook. I showed him the receipt and said “I’m exchanging this, can you get one for me?” and the first thing he said was “Well, how come they didn’t come with you???” Sheesh what got his briefs all bunched up. I said “She just told me to ask you to get one, OK?” So he went back and came back again with nothing. He said they couldn’t find them. I said that the girl told me there were 3 in stock but he just said they couldn’t find them since this morning. GHETTO! I went back to the girl at the desk; at least she was helpful by checking the other stores to see if they had any in stock, and she also offered to tape up the box because the foam peanuts were flying everywhere (I didn’t even ask her!). She was a very nice Fry’s employee for a change. I also noticed that she wasn’t like Indian or Middle Eastern or Vietnamese or something... not that I’m being racist, but a lot of people there seem to be there by connections. She must have been an exception to that. She did, however, have this weird accent, from some European country I presume.

I went home, then went to cell, which was fun. I climbed my way to King position in the Jamba Juice game, and no one could move me! Booya!

So basically I’m even busier at home than I am at Berkeley. I haven’t had a moments rest. After I got back from cell, I completed the computer (ARGH so frustrating) and added a whole ton of stuff to the play. Now I have to print it out but Tim says the printer doesn’t work. It’s almost 2 already. YAGGHH. Next semester isn’t looking so bad now.