The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Spring 2002

Week 7: Totally Normal... Except

3-3-2002

I woke up on Friday but drifted back to sleep, and therefore did not call Leon, nor go did I go to play basketball with the IV fellows. Actually, I spent a decent part of the morning playing Monkey Island 4 and doing some other assorted readings and stuff. At around noon, I still went to eat brunch with Leon and Aileen.

In class we saw Singin’ in the Rain, which is a GREAT movie; all singing, all dancing. Immediately after class, I packed and took the BART back. Amazingly, I finished Jane Eyre on the train. I could totally make an awesome movie out of that book, and you know who would be perfect for the role? Frances O’Connor! In case you’re wondering, she acted as Monica in A.I. AND guess what? She was the main character in the film adaption of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park! A perfect fit!

Saturday was the big game (airsoft, that is). I drove to Fry’s to meet with Dave, Troy, and Grant. Leedah was with them because (long story ahead) Zeke had just bought a new gun, which was in perfect, new, working order, and he decided to switch the gearboxes or something with his other gun, and spent all night until 5 am doing it, and ended up messing them both up. Leedah and Al were both at his house, sleeping over. Anyway, Zeke, who gets all fussy when there’s minor issues with his gun, decided not to go to the game, and Al, who didn’t get a whit of sleep, decided not to go either, and Leedah, who also didn’t get a whit of sleep, decided to still go after all and drove to Grant’s house in the morning hoping he would still be home. Crazy.

So in the car (I was in Dave’s car with Troy) the discussed (or rather, bashed) liberals (Troy: “I’ve gong from bed-wetting liberal to hardcore conservative in the last six months”) and Dave being a married man (“LOL”). The first couple of games were completed without even having to fire any shots, and they were completed so quickly that we had some goofy game at the end that was HILARIOUS. There were the Columbian drug thugs who were supposed to be stupid and not expecting an infiltration by the Americans. That basically meant they couldn’t hide, aim, or be quiet. Dave, Troy, Leedah, and I were the diversion, and the terrorists made lots of noise and shot randomly while Grant and Corey took them out. Then we played the exact same game again, but switched places. So WE got to make tons of noise and shoot at anything that moved. That day, our team won EVERY game. Incredible! And that Leedah spontaneously bought a P90 from this dude, completely loaded with lots of extras, for $350.

Dave drove me back to Fry’s after the game, and I bought Metal Gear Solid 2 and went home to clean up the house a little bit, and play some FFX. Cell group was sparsely populated that night, but Ralph came (!), and promptly fell asleep. Ha ha! When cell was over I played some FFX and beat the third incarnation of Seymour! Yes!!

All the lazy people. Church starts every week with like 20 people out of 120. What a bunch of bums. After church, the worship leaders were treated to a lunch at Uno’s with Pastor Ralph and his family. I ate a 14 oz. steak (mmm) and “shared” a Brownie Bowl with Jena. Then I went home, played some more FFX and tried out Metal Gear Solid 2, ate, and came back to Berkeley with Jean and Leon. I gave Jean some See’s candies for always giving me rides.

It’s already 1:00 in the morning. I haven’t done an ounce of work since I got back. Forget this, I’m going to bed.

3-4-2002

This morning at the RSF, Leon and I hit some bags in the boxing room for a while, then bench pressed. Brunch was pretty good, we ate with Lydia.

I went to Zellerbach Hall for class at 12:00; my mind must have been blank because class starts at 1:00. I arrived with an extra hour on my hands, so I walked down to the Tang Center, where I was promptly sent to and fro between rooms before I could actually make an appointment for the bruise on my arm. Finally I managed to set an appointment... for next Wednesday! Just to look at my freakin’ arm! What kind of service is this?!?

Stagecraft was just a review session for the midterm on Wednesday. Man, a midterm on Wednesday, then a rewrite due on Thursday, and another paper due Friday! SHOOT!

We watched The Bandwagon in Film 108, which was OK. Again, some eloquent bullshitters would just randomly rattle off some obscure fact about someone in the musical business, something totally irrelevant, and try to look smart. What a bunch of ninnies.

I ate dinner with Leon. There was mashed potatoes. Mmm. I went back to my room, and accomplished nothing. Oh, I tried to rewrite the paper. But I couldn’t. In reality I spent most of the time looking at keyboards at Ebay and goofing around in other assorted ways. Crap, I have to read Wide Sargasso Sea by tomorrow. There’s a lot of the book left to read. All of it, to be specific.

At least the stocks are doing quite well. If only I had bought some Nvidia (again), I would be a rich man! Oh, and A.I. is coming out tomorrow on DVD! I’m so excited! AND those auctions end for the Yamaha P80, a sweet piece of hardware. Grah, need money.

3-5-2002

I ate this morning with Leon, then came back to futilely read the first seventy or so pages of Wide Sargasso Sea, a wholly non-intriguing and dull spin-off of the much more famous (and better) novel, Jane Eyre. At lunch time I went to eat with Meti and some of her friends, by whom I was persecuted and duly mocked for my Christian, conservative beliefs. Ha ha.

In English 100, I nearly fell asleep numerous times. She let us end sort of early and noted that we all looked kind of numbed out, and I think she was referring to me because everyone else in the class looked alert enough to me.

I went to the Stagecraft, and Brian signed me out for 3 hours of work for doing nothing! A whole free day for me! It was because there was, in a nutshell, absolutely nothing to do there. So I got to go back to my room for an extra 3 hours to shamelessly ignore my papers and look around online at digital pianos instead. The Yamaha P80 looks NICE. Too bad we’re too poor (read: cheap) to buy anything like that, at least for the time being.

I ate dinner and went to small group, which was pretty cool. Afterwards we ate a cake since Hung-Tzu’s birthday is on the 5^th or something. All the while I had this splitting headache. Actually, it wasn’t actually splitting per se; it felt like a bruise on the side of my head that hurt even when it wasn’t being irritated or touched. For the rest of the night, that headache drove me nuts. It HURT. I spent literally hours sitting in front of the computer, accomplishing nothing. Possibly more than any other college experience (save the Avant Garde Film class last semester), I hate having to write a paper, and having your mind completely and utterly BLANK. I also spent a good chunk of time talking with Danny again about politics and the CIA and all that other stuff, which is interesting because I get to hear all this liberal yabber, therefore knowing a little more about what they’re actually talking about, but at the same time it is annoying because it just goes to show how little informed I am about anything concerning matters of this sort.

MY HEAD HURTS! And my eyelid is twitching periodically, but not nearly as severely as before, thank God. Now for some good news: I actually semi-outlined my paper for Film 108 and even wrote a nice-sized paragraph or two. The bad news: it’s past 3:00 am. Crap.

3-6-2002

Unbelievable! Leon and I missed our first Wednesday working out! I called him but he said he didn’t want to go today. That’s OK because I didn’t really want to either; I went to sleep VERY late last night. So instead, I slept until 10:00 this morning, studied for the midterm today, and went to eat. I was soon joined by Suzy, Kami, and Farnaz. Farnaz talks a lot.

The Stagecraft midterm was pretty simple, though slightly more difficult than I had expected. But it was still on the easy side. I finished it quickly and went back to my room to work on my paper and sleep. I took a very nice nap.

At 5:00 I went to Kip’s for the decal, where we watched Miller’s Crossing. It was good but not as good as I expected, since every is always talking about how good it is. I barely even understood half of what was going on. As usual, it featured the trademark Coen weirdness and nifty camera work. I came back, ate with Danny and this dude from the 8^th floor named Scott, and then sat around in the room for hours, again accomplishing nothing. Writer’s block can drive you insane. Eventually I got to it and got some good writing done, with some bullshit of decent quality. However, I’m having difficulty structuring this paper. The re-write of my English paper is due tomorrow too. Shoot. And I have to remember to visit the Media Center tomorrow in Moffitt so I can watch the musical number that I am analyzing in Hallelujah.

It was raining pretty nice today, especially in the evening when it came down pretty hard. At last, I don’t feel sticky and nasty all the time. It sure is nice to have cool air blowing against you.

Man, I am staying up later and later. I don’t understand why college must be such a painful ordeal. Why can’t it be a pleasant, relaxing experience? What is the purpose in making our lives miserable by giving us unholy amounts of reading and grading our essays and exams ruthlessly and without mercy? Do they delight in subjecting us to wicked yet consensual torture? Perhaps it’s to prepare us for “real life.” Yeah right! I finally understand (at least partly) why so many people choose to drown (or smoke out) their sorrows in ludicrous amounts of alcohol and pot. Speaking of pot, Danny and I got into another long discussion about the legalization of that plant of destruction. I don’t understand what’s with these people. Murder is murder, stealing is stealing, and getting high is getting high. No need to get all philosophical about it, for crying out loud, you just KNOW it’s wrong, damn it! They’re arguing for the sake of arguing, making any kind of fuss they can so people will listen to them.

I don’t understand why Meti is always making fun of me. And Pablo just telling her today that I’m 18 doesn’t help at all, since she’s 23 (wow that’s OLD).

Urghg I’m so tired. My eye twitching is slowly disappearing (I can still see it in the mirror but I can no longer feel it – most of the time), getting less and less pounding. The blood-shot-ness is still a problem, though not nearly as bad as it was last week.

3-8-2002

Yesterday was totally normal... except that I missed breakfast with Leon (I woke up too late) and the Stagecraft lab gave us a free day again... up until 5:00, when the power CAMPUS-WIDE went out. I was sitting at the computer, working on my paper, when POP! Everything shuts off. The hallways and elevator were still on from a backup generator, but they supposedly wouldn’t last that long. The DC’s opened for a short period of time before darkness fell, after that, they shut down. Nobody could work on their papers since the computers wouldn’t work; Suzy, Meti, and I all had papers due today, but couldn’t write them. The only thing left to do was study in the halls, which was totally boring. Luckily, I had my skates, so I could roam around with my hockey stick (and dental floss for a puck) and bother people.

Apparently there was some surge at the plant or something and a generator in one of the campus libraries exploded and set the place on fire, taking out the entire campus electricity. Wow.

It was great because every got to know each other so well, the way we communed in the hallways. Danny and I played a two hour game of chess, which he eventually won (even though I let him take back like THREE moves). Most of us were just romping around and chatting around the elevator since there was nothing to do. Many photographs were taken. By and by, people (I being one of the first) dropped out and went to sleep. Danny came in at around 5:00 this morning. Crazy.

Oh, did you know what Leon did? An odd sequence of coincidences: my the lab is cancelled right? So I go to the café, which I NEVER do on Thursdays because I ALWAYS eat with Leon in the morning, which I happened to NOT do today. And I see Leon at the café! And he asks, “have you gotten the DVD yet?” And I say, “No.” Then EXACTLY when I get back and step into my room, the phone rings. It’s Leon. He tells me to meet him downstairs, so I go down. He asks, “Are you going home this weekend?” And I say, “Yeah.” And then he says, “Can you give this to Jon for his birthday?” And he gives me the A.I. DVD! HOW DOES HE DO IT??? THAT GUY IS AMAZING!

The power was still out in the morning and everyone woke up late (no alarm clocks). The DC had a barbeque; isn’t that nice?? That was good. But now it’s 1:45, and the power has already been up for half an hour or so, which means I’ll have to go to class. But I have an incredibly legitimate excuse for not writing my paper.