The Berkeley Archives: Jon Yip Talks to Himself

A Systematic Commentary On My Life At Berkeley

Spring 2003

Week 5: Conversation

2-9-2003

Tina drove me and her brother back to San Jose on Friday... I got home at a little after 1:00. Tired.

On Saturday morning I woke up past eleven. Ahh what a good rest... I guess. Howard called me up because he thought I called him earlier, but I didn’t. But it was cool because we arranged for him to come over to my house and we could hang out for a while. So he came over and we didn’t really know what to do but then I discovered he has ONLY seen The Matrix on a goofy, defective, pirated VCD thing on his computer, which is an absolute travesty. So I made him watch all the cool parts on DVD with my nifty 5.1 system. Boy that movie is so excellent. I hope the sequels aren’t too bad.

Then we went to Rite Aid because I needed some new sunglasses, and also some gel and lotion; of course, this all looked incredibly girly in Howard’s eyes, not that I blame him for it. I was just caught in a weird moment, is all. From there we went to church for worship practice. Everyone was there! Yahoooo! And the songs all sounded GREAT. I never felt so good about a set for a long time, or maybe even ever. We practiced my song, “Unrecognizable,” and it was a total blast! Exactly as I had envisioned it.

There was a huge accident on 280 which held us up for at least half an hour (this van went up against the brick wall and was upside down... crazy). We had a few minutes to eat some stuff and find out how to get to Ben’s house (that’s where cell was at today). Tim couldn’t get the lesson, and it turned out that Kimmy couldn’t get it either, and Christina wasn’t coming, so we had no lesson. We just kind of shared stuff about prayer and stuff. Oh, Ben has a HUGE widescreen TV. It is seriously the biggest TV I’ve ever seen.

Went to church at 9:00 for worship practice. Ran through all the songs, they sounded great. A brief, false start on “We Are Hungry” notwithstanding, the set was sooo incredible; God really moved today and I was so surprised and blessed. I had chosen the Rich Mullins “Awesome God,” which at first glance seems herra old-fashioned and corny, but I said a few words before it started, and I tried to keep it as reverent as possible, and also I was praying that God would somehow move in the congregation to help them realize the words as truth and not just some goofy campfire song. And that was the song that turned out be one of the most anointed of the set. I was just amazed. Prayer is so powerful. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realize. Not that I didn’t know that, but it’s just that I’ve been learning it a little at a time, and it’s just incredible. But the entire set was just... unbelievable.

Then... during offering... “Unrecognizable.” Oh my goodness I was so stressed and nervous about rapping it was crazy. Well, not really. But I FELT like I felt nervous. Well, at least live-wise it sounded AWESOME. Could not have been better in my opinion; the musicianship from everyone was astounding. Troy really impressed me with some seriously phenomenal bass playing. It was a bit weird. Everyone was expecting this rap so I got all this hype-fueled applause when they knew it was coming. I could have turned out really awkward, but thanks be to God that it was awesome. I got lots of good feedback. Ralph asked me to do it again on Friends’ Day. Heh.

The sermon was good... about idols and Jonah. Ralph is continuing on with the Jonah thing. It’s cool. Pretty funny too.

After church they had a Mexico mission meeting/practice so I went out to eat with some people at Wienerschnitzel. I spent $3.11 and was pretty happy about that. I went back to church to arrange rides for Tim and Leslie, went to Fry’s and got a multimedia card for my camera, then went home. I packed, rested, watched some of Unforgiven on TV, picked up all the dog poop in the back yard. I went to the Hu’s and waited for Uncle James to come home. I was talking to Kimmy and her mom.

Uncle James took Kimmy and me to Milpitas to eat with Wendy, Grace, and Mitch. We spent a long time there, eating food and chatting about all kinds of random stuff. I tried all kinds of new food, like stinky tofu and that pig fallopian tubes stuff (weird! But kind of good I guess, in a weird way). This is probably how we got to talking about menstrual cycles, hormonal changes, female anatomy, etc. Hmm.

So then Wendy took us back to Berkeley. I have lots of reading but I’ve only read two pages. Instead, I’ve been doing emails, downloading and receiving feedback on Unrecognizable, checking on people, etc. ARGH.

One (of many) funny line of the day:

JON H: I can’t believe we just got away with playing “Karma Police” at church.

2-10-2003

I was sleeping pretty well (albeit cold) when Shirley came in slamming on our door frame because Felix was coming in two minutes. So I had to get up a lot earlier than usual. We went to eat at Ann’s Kitchen; I got the two eggs meal, as usual. I felt pretty productive because we did all this before the time that I normally would have gotten up anyway.

Leon went to class. I read boring boring Henry IV while Felix played FF9 until a little after 12, because I had class soon. I met Emily (from Unit 2 last year) at VLSB to lend her The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Class was SOOO boring; we were off of The Matrix and back to the ghetto crap they usually talk about. Besides that, I didn’t get enough sleep so I seriously conked out for the entire lecture. So maybe getting up early isn’t productive after all.

I went home after that... ate some food and stuff. Victor came over with Leon. Leon went to small group prep but Victor stayed. Then Shirley left for somewhere. Victor went to his class at 4:00. I read quite a bit of Mark Twain’s Roughing It. Oh yeah Shirley went to Safeway and when she came back she went back out to Sweetheart and got me a pearl tea drink. I’ll have to pay her back for that one.

At 6:00 I went to the decal for Asian American studies, something about Asian depiction in the media. It was a short meeting; just covering enrollment and stuff like that.

So I came back again to the apartment, ate some soup, watched some TV, did some reading, played some piano and guitar... that went on basically for the whole night (the reading part I mean... and some of the guitar and piano) and it was pretty boring. I am really tired, all the time. I haven’t read nearly enough of the Mark Twain book, just as I didn’t read nearly enough of the Shakespeare for today. Crap. Oh and I’ve been looking for a song to sing for the vocal technique class... I want to sing either “For Always” from A.I. or “Gollum’s Song” from The Two Towers, but they both sound so high... I don’t know if I can do it.

Oh and today at night our apartment totally reeked of pot... someone must have been smoking it downstairs. It was sooo strong and gross.

2-11-2003

Ugh... woke at 11:00 today. Scratch the idea of going to the RSF. Instead I read the Bible and analyzed the Academy’s decisions on the nominations. I’m sure other stuff happened but I can’t remember what. At 2:00 I went to class, which was kind of boring. Then I came back and ate some stuff, then went to chorus, which wasn’t too bad. I came back again, made some stew (it was good but different from last time; I added less starch) and then we had small group. A few of us went to go study afterwards at the library. The first hour or so was unproductive because we kept talking and joking around but eventually we got ourselves to studying... I read Henry IV, up to the part I was supposed to read by Monday. Stayed there until like 1:00.

I need to get add forms, and renew my passport, and all this stuff. ARGH. It’s so late too. Greh.

Oh yeah I spent the morning also looking at and listening to the music that I was thinking of doing for the vocal class... I ordered the “For Always” music and also “Gollum’s Song” because Shirley might want to do it. If she doesn’t then maybe I will. Heh heh.

Oh and Leon bought the guitar! AAHH I failed! It wasn’t fair though because he did it while I was gone. Suddenly he was like “oh, I bought the guitar.”

Fun quote:

MARIKA: Sopranos, you look like a bunch of girls.

Also:

JASON: And to further incriminate Jon, he was singing Avril Lavigne on the street.

Which I was (briefly) but I don’t see how that’s particularly fruity. Oh and Joyce thought the light blue Beetle convertible was cool (the exact color is actually “aquarius blue”) but everyone else thought it was fruity again:

WAYNE: You’re not helping yourself, Jon.

Eugenia called me and left a message:

EUGENIA: The last nine minutes of Battle Royale DON’T WORK. WHY, Jon, WHY. CALL ME BACK.

So I did. For some reason the last nine minutes of the divx don’t work. But she said it as awesome! Aww yeah! Did I mention that Simon thinks A.I. is awesome too? Eugenia also things it is awesome. Awesome.

2-12-2003

Cool, I got up kind of early today. Early enough, at least, to go to the RSF and do some weights for about half an hour. I also went to the boxing room and punched the bags around; I am getting pretty good at hitting that bouncy bag thing.

I came back, ate food, and read Henry IV until class time. Class was horrible. Oh, it was raining so when I came in I was all wet, but anyway, I was supposed to take good notes because I fell asleep on Monday. I need to write a recap/analysis of a lecture every week for discussion on Friday. But I flubbed today again. I was just too lost. So now I don’t know what I’m going to do. GRR.

I needed add forms for the Asian American Studies decal, so I went to Sproul to get one, but I didn’t find it. I ran out of time so I went to sectionals, which was OK, and I asked Min where to get the forms, and he was like “Sproul.” So I went back and looked harder, and found them. They weren’t called add forms, they were called “Petition to Change Class Schedule.” What the heck.

I met Eric (from Davidson last year) on campus. He seemed to be doing well. Boy he is so tall; when I was walking next to him I was like a dwarf. I didn’t mention that I also met Danny yesterday, and he wanted me to email him. I totally forgot to do that last year, even though I remembered his email address. I updated on the Holes screenplay status, and how it has already been done.

There wasn’t much to do at the apartment except eat because I had to go back to campus for the MMO decal. Jason was there, and Wayne came, but Julia didn’t show; she was SLEEPING. Hmph. The teacher came half an hour late, and she mostly recapped last week’s introduction since almost everybody was new this week.

Came back, ate spaghetti and stuff like that (way too much). Shirley was at drama practice, and Leon went to the Rock. I finished watching Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever that I started last week. It was pretty ridiculous in terms of plot, logic, and coherence, but the weapons were so awesome and the sheer amount of ownage was so immense that it was funny, and pretty entertaining, in an ownage sort of way.

Shirley came back and we watched the results of American Idol on TV. They drag the whole darn thing out for half an hour just to announce the two winners of the week. The big black dude got in and also that annoying, rude woman who beat out the skinny, cool looking guy. That girl won only because she mouthed off at Simon. I would have liked to see the skinny dude win. His name was Clay.

I called Hsiu-fan, but the phone was busy. I called Jon Liao, but he was busy doing stuff. I called Leedah, but no one was home. I called Jing and she answered. YAY! It was funny because she kind of seemed busy; she said she was doing homework but had time to talk a little. So I felt kind of bad about bothering her (that’s the thing about calling people. You have to interrupt their homework) and so I didn’t really engage in too many questions, I just let her talk and if she didn’t have anything else to say then I would stop. But she started talking a lot and asking ME questions, and I was thinking, wow, that’s pretty cool. It’s so great when they get into talking. It makes me feel less weird about calling people. And she was also asking some pretty good questions; probably questions that I should have been asking HER (me being the elder, geezer old-timer in the church) like “do you have any prayer requests?” and “how is your spiritual life?” But that is a really great thing, that they are concerned with these things. The new generation will make greater leaders than ours. I prophesy it. Haha and she also asked me “Are you doing your devotions every day?” and that was really something because I am supposed to be some semblance of an example, but I couldn’t honestly say yes, though I am getting better. Being kept accountable by a 10^th grade girl... ‘tis a beautiful thing.

Victor came over to study with Leon for Chinese... I tried reading more Mark Twain but I fell asleep (Leon took a picture to prove that I really was sleeping even though I could swear that I was completely conscious the entire time... I could hear them talking all along). Throughout the night much joking was allotted to the topic of Victor and Leon and the ladies. What fun!

Fun conversation of today:

(phone rings)

JON: Hello?

VOICE: Hi, is Shirley in?

JON (pauses cautiously): Yeah, just a second.

(Gives phone to Shirley)

SHIRLEY: Hello?

(Pause)

(Jon feels heavy kick on back of his chair)

(Shirley gets stuck on phone for a long time with telemarketer)

(After long time, she hangs up)

SHIRLEY: Argh!

(Jon feels another heavy kick)

JON: Sounded like a regular dude to me!

And:

VICTOR: Leon, someone IMed you.

LEON: Who?

VICTOR: (says some screen name)

(Leon bounds over)

(much joking about the ladies ensue)

LEON: She pinched me in the butt in eighth grade.

2-13-2003

Oh man... I woke up late again today, with a sore throat. I’m catching this sickness that everyone is getting. Blarrr. I ate food and watched the usual stuff with Shirley that we always end up watching Thursday morning/afternoons: Fresh Prince, that makeover show, etc. I went to class and almost fell asleep, and I was sitting right across from the teacher too. DUDE. Soo tired. Maybe it’s also because of this sore throat.

I went back and ate more and more food. Lots of chips. I watched the Holes trailer that FINALLY came out, and consequently I was late for chorus by a couple of minutes, but I don’t think Bill marked me as late. The rehearsal went faster than usual, even though she kept us late.

I came back briefly, then went to Sufficient Grounds to get the add form signed by the teacher for the Monday decal. Then I went back, ate more food (man I have been eating so much) and watched some TV. There were two episodes of “Friends” on today, and one was extra long. They were really funny.

I don’t have any reading for tomorrow, just that stupid writing assignment that I have no notes for. So I basically spent the night fretting about that, writing a little, and watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s on TV. Oh and eating. I ate a LOT of food. I also gave the bathroom a good cleaning. It’s been a while.

And I also downloaded the set from Sunday that John uploaded. OH MY it sounds soooo good. Our team has really in terms of musicianship. In the last recording that I have, the counting and synchronization is not too great, but this week’s is almost flawless; and that’s coming from ME. Normally I am very critical of my songs and sets, but this one is just beautiful. I am so amazed with how much our team has been blessed. WOW. I didn’t think so much at first, but I was chatting with John over IM (!) and once he brought it up, and I realized that it was probably the best set I’ve ever done. The anointing that weekend was also so strong; I hope that every day will be like that, only more. It is true, I believe it.

2-14-2003

Ugh... had to wake up extra early this morning so we could get our special passes into the kickboxing class... there is a 60 person limit now. But now at least the room has a lot more room. While we waited we watched the basketball IV guys. I caught a few snide (but all in good fun) remarks on my taking the kickboxing classes, from Eric and Ryan.

There was more ventilation in the room with less people, and it was less stuffy, but I still sweated like a mofo in there by the end of the workout (she made it extra long today). On the way back we saw a bunch of people with weaksauce flowers (or so says Shirley but I think they’re perfectly fine) running around.

At about 12 I was about to go to voice lessons but I checked my phone and there was a message from Shirley... she needed her check and some other stuff because she forgot them. Good thing I checked. I must have missed the call when I was taking a shower.

Mrs. Benedict (Jackson) didn’t show; maybe she thought it was at 1:00, not 12:00. So we went back to the apartment but I had to leave soon anyway for discussion, which was OK, but I was confused as usual. I get bothered by these couple of dudes in the class who hog the discussion because they actually know what the freakin’ texts are talking about.

Upon return I ate tons of food. I got to writing down the hymn I thought up. Leon and Patrice came over. He left, then Jason came over, then Wayne. We just hung out until Jonny and Tiffany came up and after a little bit we went to eat at the ghetto. I got this monster calzone at Gypsy’s and another taro pearl milk at Sweetheart. Then we went to large group, where we got to see the last act of “Jimmy Lee” which was really good. At the end I was suddenly inspired on how to write my script of “Shift” which I started last semester but never ended. I intended it as a short film but I think it may also work as a play. Edward was at large group! So was Crystal, and basically everyone else at Berkeley that goes to RoL, it was like we had a huge RoL posse since even Jonny and Tiffany were there.

After large group, a ton of people massed over to Mondo Gelato again and invaded. My mondo group this time was Emily and this other dude whose name I forgot. The flavors I got were “Indian Mango” (which turned out to be soy-based or whatever... blarg) and Irish Creme or something like that. They were also planning to put another one of Emily’s hats on me but she forgot her fobby sunglasses so that didn’t go through. Not to worry, though; there was still plenty of make-fun-of-Jon entertainment to go around. This could have been affected by the fact that I was carrying around this rose with me that Shirley gave me (that Alan gave to her). It is kind of limp and wilted. But I like roses anyway. Speaking of which I tried the rose ice cream at the store and it was really like roses, but it was kind of weak and I preferred a stronger taste. Oh and I got in this funny thing about Tiffany and I kept on saying that she said that she didn’t like Cold Stone ice cream because it melted. Hahaha... I guess you had to be there.

Tons of people still came back to our apartment and we ended up watching The Bourne Identity which is still a really good movie in my opinion.

I have to find words for this song. MARG. I have the chords all written out.

Conversation:

LEON: Are these shoes Tiffany’s

JON: I don’t know... I guess.

(Leon puts shoes on and starts clomping around)

(Tiffany is listening to mp3s on my computer, then suddenly turns around with headphones still on)

TIFFANY:NEW!

JON: Hahahahahaha!

(Leon starts dancing around)

TIFFANY: Those are new shoes!

JON: Hahahahahahahaha!!!

So anyway I’ve been eating TONS of food these days. I weighed myself this morning at the RSF and I’m 149.5. OH MY GOODNESS. I’m THIS close to breaking 150.