The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Spring 2003

Week 3: Herra Fruity and Gay

1-26-2003

Wendy drove Wayne, Shirley, and I home on Saturday morning. I came home, ate some stuff, went to hang out with Howard (we went to the Ranch 99 plaza thing near church so he could get this air freshener thing for his car. Going to those fobby stores suddenly stirred a desire in me to buy all this girly, cutesy, fobby stuff, like Sanrio car accessories and other fruity stuff like that. What is wrong with me), then I went home, and Dad was supposed to take Tim to worship practice but he didn’t come home so I had to. Then I stuck around for combined cell, which was good; we played that insane slapping game again and I got totally owned by Jon Liao, who hits way too hard. Then Tony gave this talk and really scared us by doing all these super extreme illustrations. So altogether I was home for about an hour or two today. Arrghghh.

Today I packed my stuff (Wendy was leaving for Berkeley right after church) and went to church. Worship was good; I back-up sang for Shirley again and it was awesome. I was so proud of myself because I hit this really high note on “Will You Be There,” though I shouldn’t be because it isn’t really that high, and I barely hit it too. Ralph was talking, and he mentioned, just briefly, that he wanted to be “unrecognizable” a year from now, and that triggered something in me, making me finish the rest of the song I’d been writing for a while, called “Unrecognizable.” Wow. After church we left for Berkeley.

We got back and there was some time for Wayne and I to go to Safeway (we took the bus both ways) to grab some pop, and also some toilet paper, because we are totally out. We got back. Some people were playing Madden to prep. Shirley went to Starbucks to study. I feel sorry because we always are making noise and storming the apartment and she always has to leave to get some quiet. I was getting pretty tired myself after the whole day. The game was sad: all the Raiders did was kick a field goal, and then let themselves get owned for 3 quarters with the Bucks nailing interceptions a-plenty and touchdown after touchdown. Pathetic. Finally in the 4^th quarter they scored two touchdowns and actually made the game exciting and gave us a hope that they could win (I wasn’t particularly rooting for them, but when they were getting whooped to badly, how could I not?), until the final 2 minutes or so when the Bucks grabbed two MORE interceptions and touchdowns and utterly humiliated the Raiders. How sad and lame. Minutes later the riots in Oakland were on TV, and the cops were breaking out the tear-gas. We ordered pizza, and people did random things: played Madden, played instruments, played the “Big Twos” card game (I don’t like that name but that’s what people call it. I prefer “13"). Speaking of which, we were playing that game all through the Super Bowl, and I got rocked so badly, and so many times in row, that it became sort of a running joke for me to lose consecutively. Arrghghh. However, there WERE times when I showed them who was boss and gave them a good owning on occasion.

Eventually everyone left. I was tired. I got to see the Super Bowl trailers of The Matrix Reloaded and The Hulk, which got me incredibly excited, more so than the actual Super Bowl itself. Once they were gone, I started writing the song, and finished it, all today. Wow...

Tomorrow I’m not going to Anthro. It’s a waste of time, and I’m not even in it, and I probably won’t take it. A couple of other options have recently opened up...

LEON: You’re going to get braids, and learn to dance. You’re going to become like Legolas; a fruit.

1-27-2003

I woke up this morning and ate. I didn’t go to Anthro. I worked on the song a little bit (mostly formatting the layout of text) and did some other random stuff, and before I knew it, it was time for class. English 176 was ghetto; I tried to take notes because I have to write a summary of a lecture every Friday, but I got so lost, partly because I hadn’t done the reading, and partly because it was all this weird stuff that I didn’t understand. A few minutes in I gave up, though every once in a while I would jot something down that he said, if I was paying attention, as if to reach for one last chance at comprehension. Afterward I saw Grace and Liz Lee at Sproul fountain. Grace was waiting there to meet people for small group prep. I chatted with them for a while and then went to Ned’s to get ripped off on the English 176 books.

My only class of the day! I ate food and did some reading and stuff, for English 150. Mariann and this dude named Peter came over to visit Shirley, or something like that. I baked some chicken, and it was so good. Better than before. Seriously, every time I make it, it gets better. WHOO man, it was good.

Groundhog Day was on TV and Shirley made me watch it even though I had no interest in it (I had heard it was very good, however, and many people have recommended it to me). I also flipped out for a good few minutes because my brain failed to be able to rationalize why Shirley not only hasn’t seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, but doesn’t even WANT to. I just could not understand it; it didn’t make any sense to me. I glibbed and stammered for minutes until I gave up on trying to make it work in my head. Groundhog Day turned out to be pretty funny. When the movie ended I went to reading the English 176 text, which was SOO boring and BS-ey. It’s only the beginning of the semester and I’m already swamped in this nonsensical garbage, all talking about modern-this and post-modern that. I hate reading all this CRAP that these smart-ass authors come up with to make themselves look intellectual. It was a true pain to get myself through the 30 pages of horrific BS. I spent more than a few minutes whimpering, crying softly, and curling myself into fetal position on the couch (OK, the crying part was more of a mocking cry than a real one, but still). Leon came back. He had gotten a haircut at Great Clips, the thing on TV that says haircuts are only 5 bucks until February 7^th or something like that. He went to go study with Julia and Jason, but I didn’t feel like going out. Eventually, somehow, I finished the article. One more to go but I’ll do the frickin’ thing tomorrow.

I took a bunch of pictures around the apartment, hoping to catch something that would be contest worthy. I wish I knew what the judges were looking for...

1-28-2003

Ah, class started at 2 today. This morning I took my time eating and reading. I really dislike the fact that my reading is all this crap about socialism and modernism and Marxism and all that other retarded stuff. At least I finished it. Let’s hope that the lecture tomorrow will somehow make sense of it all. It better, because I need to write a summary on it.

Oh and I sent my story off to the New Yorker! They say that they take up to eight weeks to respond. We will see...

Class was OK, not great but not awful. I had a Power Gel thing before class, and that seemed to help with the caffeine and all, but I still almost fell asleep maybe once or twice.

Chorus was good, didn’t drag on like it sometimes does. I am surrounded by stinky people. Ever since Marika moved Min away from me (Min says it’s because we talk too much) and switched some other people next to me, it’s HERRA STINKY. Auughhh!!! I seriously felt like vomiting. These people don’t take showers or something. The both are rather large men with long unkempty hair and beards. Well, one guy doesn’t have a beard. UGH but I can barely stand it! I heaved a long sigh of relief when Marika sent the men into the green room to practice sections. I stood next to Min and we went back to our usual lame-joking and pun-cracking.

After that I came home and made spaghetti. Everyone came to small group early today for some reason. At the end Julia started braiding Emily’s hair (she was supposed to do mine but she let me watch Emily’s first) but then the all left to study at Koh Eun’s building at Clark Kerr. David and this new person Lindsey were still playing Madden, but when they finished I went with them to Clark Kerr.

When I got there, Wayne came out and we went to his dorm to grab a whole ton of food, then brought it back to CK. Julia had finished Emily’s hair. So she braided mine. It was a long in interesting process. I spent most of that time enduring cracks about being fruity because I like VW Beetles and stuff like that. The end result is... curious. I wonder if I should leave it, or take it out. The rubber bands are pastel colored. PASTEL COLORED.

1-29-2003

My hair got a little messed up from sleeping, but not all that badly. I ate and did some reading, and ate more, until class at 1:00. I dared to go out with the braids still in my hair, but I wore a hat over it. Unfortunately, the pastel colored rubber bands were un-hidable. I watched closely at the people’s eyes on the street; I didn’t gather any unwanted attention. This IS Berkeley, I guess.

In English 176, I resolved to take serious notes, because I didn’t get very substantial ones in the last lecture and I need to recap one of them for discussion. However, a few minutes in I completely lost myself and ended up with an even worse set of notes than Monday’s. CRAP. Now what? I guess I’ll just have to explain my ineptitude to the GSI.

Immediately after I left class, Grace called me and said, “Hey Jon! This is Grace! I’m with Emily, and Julia, and Wayne, and, well, we just wanna know: where are you??” HAHAHA?? That was so funny. Anyway she told me to go to the table on Sproul, so I went and they took my hat and got their giggles. I chilled with them for a while (too long) and went to sectional late. When I walked in, Marika stuck her arms at me (as if to say “and now, presenting...!”) because I guess we were all introducing ourselves for the first sectional and I had come in just in time. It was a little embarrassing because everyone was looking at me, and I assume at my fruity hair also.

I went home after that, and Victor was over, and we all hung out though we should have been studying. I made some chicken ready, and cooked rice, but ended up not cooking the chicken because I went with small group to eat at the new DC!! Woooww it was sooo awesome! The place is huge, and there is SO much food! It’s impossible to get it all! I was like having a ball and everyone thought I was crazy because I was acting so ecstatic. I ate a burrito, a baked potato, ice cream, all this good stuff... oooh yeah. Then we went to study at Clark Kerr again. I went outside to call someone. This time I called Angela Li. It was so fun. Again, it’s kind of weird at first, just asking random questions, but pretty soon it gets really involving and great; I didn’t have to ask stuff any more, she just carried on conversation with stuff to say and really got into it. That was probably the longest call I’ve had so far. Then I went back in to study. After a while the few people that were in there left, probably because our presence (with a whole bunch of weird Asian Christian people) scared them off. Without delay, we stopped studying and started talking, making noise, laughing, and basically NOT STUDYING. Hahahahaha!!! Up until really late we didn’t really do any work, but eventually we got around to it, near the end. Oh well. It was fun. I came back with Jason and Clarrissa; everyone else stayed longer to study.

I am getting more consistent with prayer. I find every opportunity to pray for other people, like in class, or while I’m reading, or whatever. We are supposed to pray without ceasing. Excellent.

1-30-2003

I got up this morning. Most of the braids and stuff were completely out of my hair, except in the back. I took them all out. It wasn’t very wavy, but the back is a little; I can feel it with my hand, but I can’t see what it looks like. I ate fried rice, played around with my camera, and worshiped until class.

Class was OK, it wasn’t that bad this time, and I kept up pretty well, actually! Rather long at 1½ hours, but I stuck through it. Ralph called me again and left a message about the conference thing, so I made my mind up to email him straight away when I got home. So that’s what I did.

Then I went to chorus, which was cool, but UGH the dude next to me, stinks SOOO bad I thought I was going to faint. UGH how is it possible to smell so bad?? I was praying that Marika would either move me somewhere, or move him. She moved some sopranos and tenors, but not any basses. AAUGH!! Thankfully she scrambled us in the last half hour or so, which gave me temporary relief.

I made that chicken today that I had prepared yesterday but didn’t cook. It was kind of weird, and not very good, and I ate it with the sticky rice that I made yesterday but didn’t eat either. Everything was really salty and strange tasting; I didn’t like it.

Then I finally got around to watching Cradle Will Rock, which was really good; I liked it a lot, especially the ending. The cast was great. Leon left for somewhere. Shirley came back just when the movie ended. She had a tape of the first three episodes of the new American Idol season! So we ended up watching those (Leon came back) until about 12:00. Hahaha they were so funny because there were all these crappy people that got totally insulted by Simon and the rest of the judges. And a lot of people were herra fruity and gay.

I have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow. I have to return books, buy my reader, find another photograph to submit, etc. Blarghrafarg.

1-31-2003

Whoa, I got up early this morning! I went with Shirley to kickboxing, for the last time (sniff!); she will have discussions now on Fridays! Auughhh!!! It’s just not the same without her. What am I going to do? Keep praying, maybe, hm!

It was super crowded in there again, must have been more than a hundred and fifty people, I think. I counted exactly 2 other guys besides me. Shrug. It wasn’t as tough as last week. I think I’ll be getting pretty much back into the groove by next week. Oh and I weighed myself at the locker room and I weighed 148.7 pounds!!! HOLY COW!! How in the world did I gain so much weight?!? Must have been the DC food the other day.

After that I went to Metro Publishing and bought this dinky little reader for English 176. At the apartment I ate food, watched the Food Network with Shirley (ahh, just like last semester) and played that Zookeeper game on her laptop (I got to level 8!! BOOYA) until 1:00, when I had discussion.

Even though I’d been to the room before, I got lost again looking for it, just like last week. Crystal wasn’t there. Speaking of Crystal, I saw her (Liu, not the one in my discussion) on the way. Anyway, the gay GSI talked about all this stuff like metonymy and superstructuralism and reification, and none of it made on bit of sense to me. It is all SO stupid; I can’t believe I have to subject myself to this kind of progressive, communistic bullshit. Hegel and Marx and all those people can go to hell (actually, they probably did)!

Then I went back, and took my books to return to Ned’s. Oh and the UPS stopped by the apartment while I was gone, so they couldn’t deliver my books. CRAP! Now I have to wait around on Monday until they come; they didn’t even write down a time frame in their little note thing. ARGH!!

The line was really long at Ned’s. Bah. Then I went back to the apartment and played some music. Jason came over to practice his guitar with Leon. I recorded a song (finally!) to submit to the contest next week. It is pretty good. Just a simple piano thing, but it sounds pretty darn cool, in my opinion.

We went to large group, which was cool. The drama was great; the acting was a lot better, pacing too, and everything was more lighthearted in general, except for Shirley’s sob scene, which was great (I gave her the Oscar for it). Lots of funny stuff. There was no message. A couple of testimonies (including one from Ryan) and lots of worship.

After this we went to this ice cream place on Shattuck, herra far away, called Mondo Gelato. It was Italian ice cream place, with some really good ice cream. Julia, Liz, and I got this 6-scoop “mondo” thing and there were some really nifty flavors, like pistachio (which tasted like REAL PISTACHIOS) and maple (which tasted like REAL MAPLE) and green tea (which tasted like REAL GREEN TEA... that one wasn’t that exciting though). Emily had these fobby sunglasses and a rastafarian-like hat, and for some reason everyone wanted me to wear them. I don’t get it. Of course I refused to be used in such a way. Then (get this. I am not making this up) they POOLED MONEY together on the table in front of me, JUST IF I WOULD WEAR THE SHADES AND THE HAT. Well, since they wanted it so bad, I just gave it to them. MAN I am such a sell out. What is it with me these days? Why am I so... weird? I’m not acting any different from usual; people are just looking only at the fruity stuff. I like all this fobby, Sanrio stuff, and I like light blue Beetles, and flowers, and wear girly stuff... AUGH what is wrong with me. I am NOT GAY, I just want the record to show that.

We went to Liz’s really nice apartment so we could all use her computer to drop our classes in time, before midnight, so we wouldn’t have to pay for late dropping. Then we spent herra time looking at decals and deciding what to take. In the end we came to no conclusion whatsoever.

It was 1:00. We went to the super DC and got some sandwiches at the Bear Market-ish place. Then we went home. Ugh must get up early tomorrow to catch BART.