The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Spring 2002

Week 8: Bunch of Felons

3-10-2002

I had to go home on Friday because Dad would be leaving for China that night and Mom didn’t want to pick me up on Saturday. I got home, and then we all took Dad to Marina Foods, where some shuttle was taking people to SFO.

Yesterday morning, I took Tim to his Certificate of Merit thing (written test only), then played some FFX. We also watched most of the extras on the A.I. DVD (I didn’t know that there was actually more on the disc... you have to click the “more” button). Leslie’s friend came over (Hannah was her name?) and they watched Little Women, which is really a good movie, now that I think about it. The rest of her family came over later and we ate Papa Murphy’s pizza. YUM.

Cell group was kind of scattered and disorganized, thanks to everybody sleeping not paying attention.

I called Rona this morning to see if she wanted to go to church. Homework! Whatever, man! I’ve been thinking about this lately, and Ralph’s sermons lately have really been striking it home. All these people in our cell group are not going to church for such petty reasons as homework or “time.” Church is NOT something that you do or don’t have time for. Church is SURVIVAL. That is, NOT AN OPTION. YOU DO IT, OR YOU SPIRITUALLY DIE. People just don’t seem to understand this; to them it’s just a thing like “oh if I can make it, I’ll go” or “if I don’t have too much work to do, I’ll go.” BULLSHIT. That’s like saying “oh, if I have enough time, I’ll eat” or “oh, if I’m not busy, I’ll drink something.” Prayer, devotion, fellowship, worship, church... all this is BASIC and NECESSARY for spiritual survival. You don’t do them, you die. Period. You have homework?? Screw that, so do I, and probably a hell of a lot more than you do! Too tired?? I sleep 5-6 hours a day too so quit your whining! Too far away? Wayne and I offer to drive you to church EVERY WEEK and you still complain? I don’t even LIVE in San Jose anymore, for crying out loud, and I still manage to somehow get back there and go to church EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. It’s all about whether or not you have commitment and discipline to do what you know you should. Copping out is for lazy bums, something our church is unfortunately well stocked with. GET WITH THE PROGRAM AND OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES!

Anyway (recovering from rant) after church we had a fun conversation with Ben and Troy about liberals and conservatives. At home I played a good bit of FFX and Metal Gear Solid, both in which I am stuck on bosses. Eventually I drove to the BART with Mom, took it to Berkeley, and worked on my paper (much of which was erased after that power fuss on Thursday). I saw the new Episode II trailer, which ROCKED. I also saw the rest of the A.I. special features that I missed yesterday.

3-11-2002

I woke up this morning, amazingly, even though I went to sleep late last night. I called Leon, but the phone was busy. I called every few minutes, but it never picked up! By now we’ve missed a whole WEEK of working out! This is so bad; we’re probably all weak and limp now. He came online later and we went to eat some brunch. It turns out his phone had run out of batteries or something.

Stagecraft was kind of boring; I nearly dozed off in a few spots. I came back to my room, did some final tailoring to my paper, and printed it. Then I went the the Film 108 screening (I handed in the paper) and we watched A Star Is Born, with Judy Garland. It wasn’t actually that great of a movie, and I sunk into patches of slumber more than a few times. And it was a LONG movie too. Almost 3 freakin’ hours! Thankfully, the teacher didn’t torture us any further with lecturing (since we went ten minutes past schedule) and let us go. I ate with Danny, Meti, and Eric (the tall dude). I discovered that Meti has done hard time too! Four months for trying to get into the States with someone else’s passport when she was 16! I live among a bunch of felons!

Danny and I talked a lot about Episode II today, and how it should be, and how Hayden Christiansen is a lucky bastard. All this talk of movies really makes me want to watch all my DVDs: Titan A.E., Antz, Memento, etc... I think I’m going to bring them all up here next week. We also spent a great deal of time discussing how we can propose an X-Men arcade for our lounge tomorrow at Hall Ass! We found a 4 player machine for sale at Ebay for 700 bucks, and now all we have to do is get people to vote for our proposal, which shouldn’t be too difficult seeing that such ridiculous other motions have been passed, including $490 diverted for the sole cause of squirrel-fishing, and another crapload allotted to lame camping and ski trips. Plus, EVERYONE could use the arcade, not just a select few, and it would be SO AWESOME!

InVision broke even today! YES!!! And I finished the reading for tomorrow! Incredible!

3-12-2002

I ate with Leon in the morning, slept away the rest of my time before class (I had finished the reading last night... booya!), ate lunch with Meti, and went to class. I received an A on my rewrite! YES! And Sirina (Serena?) got a B+ on her rewrite. Excellent!

In the Stagecraft lab, we actually had to do work again, which was a bummer. We lugged an unholy number of heavy, clunky lights down narrow flights of stairs from the muggy, un-ventilated lighting balcony rig things, or whatever they are. When we finished, we saw the humongous pile of lights at the bottom, some 50 lights or so. Those things are HEAVY.

I ate dinner and went to small group, which was a good meeting. I came back to Hall Ass, where Danny and I were to propose a 4-player X-Men arcade for the lounge for a mere $900 (estimated) total off Ebay. All the proposals from last week were met with a “no” vote by me (they were all exclusive benefits, and lame, and I did not support them. On the other hand, an X-Men arcade benefits everybody). The proposal went nicely, except I think the $900 part didn’t go over quite the way we would have hoped. The ice cream we had at the end was good.

Back in our room, Danny and I did some closer, shot-by-shot analyzing of the Episode II trailer, noting which scenes were cool and realistic-looking, and which weren’t. We also did more searching and found a dealer in Canada that sells the SIX-PLAYER X-men arcade for an unheard-of steal price of $300! Can you believe it?? I still can’t! If we run this by the Hall Ass next week, there’s no way we can lose this motion! SIX-PLAYER X-men arcade! Just thinking about it makes me excited! For generations to come, Davidson residents will thank and offer laud to Danny and Jon for saving them from mundane dormitory life. A monument will be erected in our honor, and the hall name will be changed from the lame, generic “Davidson” to something such as “Jon and Danny Hall.” X-Men! It is only a matter of time now...

3-13-2002

Finally! Leon and I worked out this morning after a long absence from the RSF. We didn’t do any benching; we did a little bit of the free weights, and then did a 20 minute row on the rowing machines.

Stagecraft was normal. The midterm was received back, and the grade was... 96! YEEHAH!

I went to the Tang Center for my appointment and filled out all this paperwork junk before I could actually have my appointment. Then someone took me into a room and took my blood pressure, and the score turned out to be pretty good, well below the “medium high” range! The lady then left me there for a very long time before another lady came in and checked out my arm. She said it is most likely just a tissue injury and it is not uncommon for some things like that to take a long time to heal. So it almost definitely isn’t a fracture or anything serious like that. I also mentioned that little ball that floats around in my cheek, and she said it was just some little pocket of fat that moves around under your skin, and is nothing to worry about. It is only worrisome if it is doesn’t move, like a lump under you skin, which it isn’t. So thankfully, I’m OK and have a peace of mind on that issue.

The Coen Brothers class was in LeVal’s today instead of Kip’s; LeVal’s is a much bigger, more bar-ey kind of place and I was surprised that no one stopped me from going in, or at least tried to card me. We watched Barton Fink, which was a really good, and really weird, movie. Well, it started out fairly normal but then near the end it abruptly became a freakish nightmare.

The movie ended pretty late so I left without joining any of the meaningless discussion and went to the DC, where I ate with Leon, Calvin, and this other dude whose name I forgot. Back in my room, I avoided reading Great Expectations and finished up my azn ghetto website, which I placed at my empty Crosswinds place. Jen was amused greatly by this, as was Ben.

There is still much reading to be done. Unfortunately, I’m not going to do it.

3-14-2002

Leon didn’t pick up the phone this morning, so I ate by myself. I didn’t finish the reading for English 100. I walked to class with Serena (however you spell it) and it was OK... she announced that she’s going to have a quiz later next week! Shoot! That’s bad news for me since my comprehension is so poor!

The Stagecraft lab was unusually un-boring: I spent the entire time doing stuff with Megan, and we were working with Brian (the big Brian). We rounded the edges off of a set of steps for the ballet dancers, sanded them, and put spackle into the holes and sanded those. That’s what we did for the entire time. I was feeling down one of the edges to see if it was smooth and a splinter jabbed straight into my finger. Straight in! I could see the damn thing deep under my flesh, starting from the tip of my finger and straight down towards my palm; it was about a quarter of an inch long, not some wimpy little stub. I kept squeezing at it and squeezing at it, and the tip constantly just came out a little bit, but not enough for me to grab it with my fingers, or even with tweezers, without risking pushing it down even further. After several minutes of working at it, I manage to nudge it out enough so that I could grab it and drag that whole frickin’ thing out. It was a thin, long, badass piece of wood and I was VERY glad that it was gone instead of embedded in my flesh for a long time. Brian said he got metal pieces in his eye before and they had to take it out with magnetic needle. YUCK!!

After I ate, I went back to my room and waited for Leon to get back from whatever he was doing so we could watch A.I. Danny and I talk a whole lot, for some reason, much more than I did with Peter before. This, of course, leads to a total absence of actual school work completed. We always are talking about movies, or music, or politics, or how we can get people to vote for our proposition at Hall Ass. Anyway, Leon finally came back, so he came over and we watched the movie, at last. Pablo and Eric, who both showed much interest in the screening, both did not show up even though I told them that I was starting the movie. Oh well. Leon looked pretty restless as the movie went on. Ha ha ha! All during the movie he would ask questions, and I would tell him to watch and see. Heh. He said it was OK at the end. Hmph. Nobody appreciates the artistry and brilliance. Oh, yeah, but Helen IMed me today and told me that she loved it! YAY!

I’m going to skip class tomorrow so I can get back to San Jose in time for the outreach. And I have to remember to bring back all those movies that Danny hasn’t seen yet.