The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Spring 2002

Week 12: Sanitarium 

4-7-2002

On Friday I went to IV but I missed The Royal Tenenbaums since my family came to pick me up at around 10:00 or so. I went home, and everyone stayed up really late because they were still kind of jet lagged. I, on the other hand, was all right since my sleeping habits are already irregular and unhealthy, and I am used to it. We watched Letterman and stuff.

On Saturday I played lots of MGS2, and ran a few random errands. Cell group was chaotic, as usual, and we had a lot of people.

This morning I went to Sunday school where Tim was teaching about C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, which is a great book. During the service this week there was an extreme lack of people (inexcusably due to the “time change,” a lame-ass excuse if I ever heard one). Coming back from church, I went to Fry’s to get the mp3 player that was in the Friday paper, but the whole experience was a lot more than I had anticipated, even for the incompetence of the Campbell store in particular.

First, I didn’t see the item on the shelf. So I asked one of the staff, and he told me to go ask the “audio-video” associate. This guy didn’t even know what was in the paper. Even I knew that stuff. So I went to this “associate” and asked him whether or not the item was in the boxes on the shelves, of which there were many. Of course, this “audio-video” guy didn’t know a thing about his own department. He at least could have known the info about the SALE items in his department. But he didn’t. He said he needed the paper to see what item number it was. What a moron. So I went to find the paper at the exit, but it was missing a page, so I asked the lady over there if I could get a whole ad, and she said there wasn’t any. I told her that I SAW it in Friday’s paper, and that it was missing from the display. She knew nothing, as all of them did, so I asked this Indian dude who passed by me and happened to have the Friday ad sitting in his cart if I could have it, and he let me. So I looked at the ad, but what do you know – no model number. All there was was this tiny SKU number at the bottom. Knowing that those retarded staff people wouldn’t help me out one bit, I searched for the matching SKU number myself, and found it. It turns out there was a TON of the items there on the shelf, but it was listed as $50 and instead of $40 in the paper, and they failed to mention the rebate that was listed in the ad. This was why it was fully stocked, while other more expensive sales were all sold out. Fools. I took it to the counter to purchase, and the lady didn’t know anything about the rebate; I had to tell her to go find it. In all, I did the work for 4 staff members, and I did it better than all of them did, and they still got paid while I didn’t. I could seriously replace 15 or 20 of their staff easily and do a better job while I was at it.

I played some more MGS2 and Tim watched the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon special features on my DVD (I’m going to sell it since our cousins bought a high quality pirated version for us in China), I ate, and the whole family drove me back to school, where I’ve been partly working on my paper, and partly doing other stuff ever since. It’s almost 3:30 now.

OH! I found a way to help get rid of my darkened eyes! SLEEP FACE UP! IT WORKS!

4-8-2002

It’s too late to write now... I’m still working on this paper here... crap. Victor is going to Berkeley! Oh and I woke up at 11:30 this morning and began studying for the Drama 60 midterm... it went all right.

4-9-2002

What else happened yesterday? I forgot, but it was interesting.

Anyway, this morning, I ate breakfast with Leon, tailored my essay, and napped for an hour. Then I ate lunch and went to English 100.

There was a big mess of people on Sproul Plaza because of the elections, but that was nothing compared to the “Free Palestine” demonstration that took place at Wheeler. Elliot was teaching, as usual, when we heard the sound of a huge mob of insane, liberal, ignorants chanting “FREE PALESTINE” storm into the building. They then proceeded to march about the building, shaking the walls, and shouting into classrooms with loudspeakers. What a bunch of ass-munches. First of all, they don’t know a thing they’re talking about and fail to realize that any Palestinian would gladly put a hole in any one of their heads without thinking twice. Second, if they still want to whine, what good is it complaining to ME about it? Why don’t they make some good use of their empty heads and do something PRODUCTIVE rather than make themselves look like total retards?

Whatever. Class ended early, I went to the Stagecraft lab, which also ended early, went back to my room, napped again, and then ate with James at that Thai restaurant on Channing. The food was good, and he even had them give me a little birthday dessert with these tasty fried banana-like things.

For small group, we joined with Unit 3 and had a “gender caucus” in which the women discussed first while the men sat silent, then the men did the same thing after. It was interesting and informing, but it ran pretty late. I came back and found Danny playing Sanitarium, which I had ordered him to install and play. He seemed to be enjoying it a lot, and once he finished the 2^nd world, he stopped and said he wouldn’t play anymore because it took up too much time. We watched Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and once again I had trouble believing my eyes, and how incredible a movie it is. I was also surprised to find that Danny “supposed” it was a good movie, since I had expected that he wouldn’t like it much. He did say that most of it was over his head because he couldn’t understand the language like I could.

He made me watch an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” which was pretty entertaining.

I was planning to get 7 hours of sleep today, but it looks like I won’t.

4-10-2002

I am beginning to forget to write more often now; I had to turn the computer back on again after I got into bed so I could write an entry for today. Leon and I worked out this morning. I did a fairly good bit of working so my muscles are a little sore now. Brunch followed, then I took a nap before going to Stagecraft. At the end of that, I stayed there to get some more hours in the workshop but there was no work to do, so Tim signed us out with 3 hours logged. I may have been behind, but I’m slowly finishing up my hours...

Getting back to my room at 2:30 instead of 5:00 meant I could sleep some more. I know I’ve been taking one or two naps a day recently, but I really need it. Six hours a day definitely isn’t a healthy amount. Anyway, at 5:00 I went to La Val’s (that is the correct way to spell it) to watch The Big Lebowski. This week, the sound was nice and loud because THEY TURNED IT UP. All this time, we’ve been straining our ears because they DIDN’T EVEN TURN THE FREAKING VOLUME UP. Dude... (ha he ho)

I went to eat, then came back to the room and thought about writing a paper for the decal, since I need to write 2 by the end of the semester and I haven’t written any so far. Instead, Danny wanted to play Sanitarium so we blew 2 ½ hours on that; I can’t believe it. Then I just sat around, thinking, with nothing coming to fruition, and read a nice chunk of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This was a good move since now I won’t feel guilty about not accomplishing anything. Well, I did accomplish something, actually. I drew another comic, and this one much more effort than my other ones, leaving my hand quite sore upon the drawing’s completion. I put it up on the door.

Looks like another six hours of sleep tonight. Damn...

4-11-2002

I ate with Leon this morning, then did some reading of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, took a little nap, ate brunch, and went to the Berkeley Art Museum for our English 100 field trip. There, we looked at a few lithographs and paintings from the Victorian period; it was particularly interesting to see how they used to do photography, with copper and silver plates, and a disappearing and reappearing image.

When that ended, I went to vote at the RSF but I forgot my ID card, so I had to go all the way back to my room to get it, then had to go all the way back to Zellerbach Hall for the Stagecraft lab. This time around, we actually had to do work; mostly moving junk and pallets around, and sweeping out the area behind the dumpster (where Tim found about a buck-fifty in change on the ground; “You know, that belongs to some homeless guy,” said Stan). Also for a change, everybody came to this lab: recently it has been just Maggie, Kevin, and me, but today there was also Alexis and Megan (not spelled that way). That ended about half an hour early. I went and voted for Jen Lee (for President), and for most of the other positions I just ranked the people I DIDN’T want to win last (such as those DAACP whatever fools [affirmative action crap] and people with stupid/nasty nicknames).

I ate, with Leon and his floormates (I saw Aileen, and coincidentally, I was just thinking her today because I hadn’t seen her for a while, which seemed unusual to me because we used to see her a lot at breakfast), and then watched most of Back to the Future on TBS. It is such a great movie because a) the script is brilliant and funny and b) the plot is SO good with some wonderful twists and insane connections and references back and forth in time (spanning all three movies). That ended, so I took a shower and took care of all that hygiene stuff, and Danny and I watched Empire of the Sun, from which I ALSO drew numerous things that I never had before, though I have seen it at least 3 or 4 times. There are a TON of things about Jim’s new life, not just the suitcase thing, but the biking around the house, the image of him trying to revive his old self, the “I surrender” to the American, and other stuff.

Anyway, I should hit the sack soon. Oh, Danny was sick today.