Willard Park

On a sunny afternoon in Willard Park sunshine radiates off the grass. Leaves dance and shimmer in the cool autumn breeze. The rustling of the wind and the laughter of small school children play in my ears as I relax against an ancient redwood. The rough bark is surprisingly inviting and the shade it provides allows a perfect spot to do nothing but enjoy the scenery.
A squirrel scampers to the foot of another redwood tree a few feet to my left. It is gray and weather-beaten. Its coat is dull with tufts of hair missing, but the only thing it seems to notice is a seed in the dirt. The squirrel pauses briefly, stands on hind legs, peers at a golden retriever chasing after a ball, and sniffs grass-scented air before ambling up the redwood. It corkscrews around to the other side of the tree, and I am no longer able to see it.
Behind me I hear the clanking of cans and notice a man digging through the trash. We catch eyes and I notice his are hazel. He says hello and I respond the same. “Nice day,” he says.
“Yeah,” I respond.
“You know you can tell a lot about someone by the way they talk about the weather.”
“What do you mean?”
“Their feelings. You can tell a lot about how a man’s feelings by the way they talk about the weather.”
I pause to think about what he said for a second, and he resumes collecting cans from the trashcan and dropping them in his shopping cart. His gray sweatshirt has holes and dirt stains, and his scraggly long hair and beard are worn and camouflaged in his attire. “Well how are you feeling,” I ask.
He smiles and looks at me again. “Well, I suppose I have a sunny disposition.”
I catch myself squinting and pursing my lips thinking. “What’s the matter?” he asks. “You never heard an articulate bum before?” He chuckles a hearty laugh, and I giggle awkwardly. “You don’t have to feel bad. Most people assume the houseless people around Telegraph in Berkeley are wingnuts.” I smile at this. “I may be an angel, but look.” He points to his back. “No wings.” We both laugh and he resumes collecting cans.
Then something comes to me. “What do you mean by houseless?”
“What?”
“When you say houseless, does that mean the same thing as homeless? I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just a question.”
“I don’t mind at all, it’s a good question. The answer is no. I actually find the term homeless offensive. It’s kinda like the old corny saying ‘home is where your heart is.’ I may live outdoors, but I’m content. I like nature. I love the freedom my lifestyle affords me. If I’m hungry others give me food. I meet new people all the time, generous people, good-hearted people, genuine people. The friendships I have now are true friendships. We all go through the same hard times, the same bad weather, and the same sunny days out here. Wherever I go during the day, I know I can head back to Peoples Park and be with family; we all look out for each other. Berkeley is my home, the world is my home, and I’m content with that.”
“Isn’t it hard to get by without money? Is it hard not having a job?”
“Like I said, I get by. I have my friends, people give me food. What else do I need? The little money I make from these cans is enough to get whatever else I need. I had a job before. It’s just not for me. I can’t be cooped up in some office or grocery store hating my life with only enough free time to figure out what I’m gonna buy to give me a sense of accomplishment or something.”
I interrupted with, “What do you mean by sense of accomplishment?”
“It’s like this: you see those people over there? He pointed to some students sitting in a group on their computers. There was a middle-aged woman on her cell phone. What looked like her daughter was playing in the playground. “How about those cars?” He pointed to some sport utility vehicles. “All of these people have been fooled all their lives to think the only thing that matters is getting more and more possessions. They look at me like I’m the one with the problem. They pass laws to get people like me away from them. I make them uncomfortable. I’m not trying to judge them and say they are the ones with the problem, I’m just saying we have different views of the world. They think they are proving themselves by climbing the social ladder and getting more possessions. I think I have all the possessions I need.”
“What do you own?”
He paused for a second. “Look behind you.” I looked behind me.
“What am I supposed to see?”
“That tree behind you.”
“What about it?”
“I own it. The grass under your feet, I own that too. The forests, the streams, the lakes, the oceans—all mine. But you know what?”
I laughed. “What?”
“The difference between me and a lot of other people is one thing: I’m more than happy to share all of it with you and everyone else.”
“Well that’s very nice of you,” I responded.
He chuckled. “It’s my pleasure.”
“Well you know what?”
“What’s that young lady?”
I reached out my hand. “My name’s Kristina, and I’m very happy to share our possessions, as well.”
He shook my hand and said, “Karl with a K and it’s been a pleasure. But if you’ll excuse me I have some more foraging ahead of me.”
We both laughed at his comment and he headed down the street.
I looked around and noticed the students, the families, the cars speeding down Telegraph, and the businesses packed together. Then I looked below at a root of the redwood where I was resting. Next to the root rested a red seed. I picked it up, examined it, and planted it in my pocket thinking about what the old man in Willard Park told me that day my whole walk home.

Lothlorien Co-op Kitchen

Lothlorien Hall is one of the twenty Berkeley Student Co-ops. Lothlorien (Loth) houses 56 students who live cooperatively. 10-20 boarders pay a fee to eat food at Loth and use the kitchen and the facilities (including sauna, garden, hot tub, sun deck, and band room). Student groups such as the Society for Agriculture and Food Ecology, take advantage of our commercial grade kitchen. We have enormous Hobart mixers, graters, and kneaders, a broad range and oven with 5.5 square feet of grill space. We also have a separate room for dish washing, large pot washing are with three huge stainless steel sinks. Food is prepared in massive quantities.

We cooperatively buy, cook, eat, and clean. The facilities are commercial grade and commercially graded. Health inspectors influence the content and tone of discussion and the open or closed status of the kitchen. Except when we are shut down, the kitchen is open 24 hours a day. All food is shared, except for personal items such as cheese, juice, alcohol, and special ingredients.

Every night dinner for 50 is cooked and served. On Saturday there is brunch at noon instead of dinner. Cooking teams of two or three work for 8 or 9 hours total to prepare a meal. Food waste is a big issue in the Kitchen, and it gets discussed often. Read another submission to find out about "Alfred the Puppet Master", "Rat Wars", and "Food Craft".

Alfred smiles so warmly his eyes seem to shut. His traditional garb is a lacy house dress and slippers, and he wears his key on a ribbon around his neck. At first glance, he seems far from scheming, cunning, and manipulation. However, he is the puppet master.

Alfred is the environmental health and sustainability coordinator. He manipulates our supply of dishware, utensils, and waste receptacles. He is a propaganda master and designs incredibly incisive fliers for our education and viewing pleasure .

With the compost bins, he takes half of them out of rotation and secludes them in the recycling area adjacent to the kitchen’s back door. He appropriates them for non-use by surrounding them with a barricade of e-waste and cardboard boxes. Now there are two tall boys and one half bucket in rotation, and that makes them easier to clean because there are only the three. Also, they fill up faster, and kitchen cleaners must empty them instead of just grabbing another one from the line up.

“Cleanliness is sustainability” is the motto on a self-portrait of Alfred on top of his soap box. It takes energy to clean up messes, and once food settles it gets crusty and takes more soap, water, and time to clean. Whatever you’re doing in the kitchen, whether it is cooking for yourself or dinner for the whole co-op, doing a food-prep shift, or even the dishes, all these tasks can be done in a way that minimizes mess, or in a way that makes more mess. "A clean hippie is an eco-friendly hippie".

Alfred selectively introduces and sequesters our dishware and utensils. He is not often caught in the act, but occasionally we will discover a stockpile of bigger plates and utensils hidden away in an unused closet. As time progresses, our dishware becomes smaller and smaller, allowing less food per plate. Only child-sized forks are purchased, but we have an endless supply of chopsticks. The rationale behind this is that smaller plates and chopsticks forces us to eat slower, instead of gobbling vast quantities of food. When we have big plates, the food looks so delectable that it is difficult not to pile high. However, the human stomach is a fixed size. Going back for seconds is better than taking huge firsts and forcing your stomach to stretch.

Also, Alfred despises soup. He inflicts wrath upon dinner cooks who serve soup, because then bowls and spoons must also be used, creating more dirty dishes.

Alfred is the hidden Hand that controls. Once you find out is your puppet master, you still can't blame him for it. The way that he clasps his hand together and smiles, you know that he is behind our dearth of man-sized dishware, but we all know that his intentions are for sustainability.

Other important forces shaping the environment of the kitchen include rat wars and health inspections. Anson, a boarder, has rat patrol workshift late at night. His workshift is to kill rats when he sees them and hunt them down in the wee hours when they are out feasting. There are cartoons of rats bearing shields and spears and wearing armor. Our humorous but grave rat predicament is depicted through fliers and signs.

Anson’s favorite rat story: “I mean I’ve killed two by chopping their heads off with knives we still use” One night a mouse was walking across the kitchen with a trap snapped on its tail, and crawled onto one of the racks underneath a pile of lids, and Anson took the lids one by one, and after the last lid, just went chop. “It didn’t bleed out, it was pretty clean,” he reported. Then he cooked the rat on the vegan side of the grill. Anson has watched them chew through sheet metal and concrete. Lengthy discussions of the various mechanisms of rat extermination ensue.

The kitchen is a space where young adults learn and practice food craft. Some food crafts going on include cooking, canning, fermentation, brewing, and baking.

When tomatoes are in season at the Gill Tract, which is an agricultural research plot managed by the agreoecology department of UC Berkeley, cases and cases piled high with ripe tomatoes must be used and preserved. House member’s connections to urban agriculture plots and urban gleaning (dumpstering) provide the house with a cornucopia of very ripe foods that must be used immediately.

We are fermenting a variety of foods, including Kombucha, which is tea that is fermented by a bacteria and fungus colony. The process produces an effervescent elixir that is touted to have numerous health benefits and promote longevity. At Berkeley Bowl or Whole foods, one bottle costs about three dollars. We can produce it at home for a fraction of that price. One of the qualities that elves (those who live at Lothlorien, a reference from Lord of the Rings), are most proud of their ability to do things themselves and together. Culturing foods requires attention to detail and strict sanitation and hand-washing.

So this is a big co-op, and elves like to party. We socially consume alcohol, but have little money to spend on booze. So, we buy two-buck Chuck, but it doesn’t taste so fine. To remedy the situation, we are producing our own alcohol: apple cider, lavendar-chammomile wine, hard lemonade, mint-green hard tea that is about 4% alcohol, Hazelnut dry wine, and ginger sage champagne that is 12% alcohol. When brewing, we use ingredients that are easy to come buy, cheap, local, and organic. We forage herbs from gardens and dumpster cases of ripe apples and pears. Organic evaporated cane sugar is the main substrate that is metabolized by specific yeasts into alcohol.

The wheat sheaf, produced for Special Brunch, is a piece of food craft that conveys attention to detail and care. It takes about 6-7 hours to create this one loaf of bread. The time intensity reflects the importance of ritual to elves. When one person spends their time to create something beautiful to share, it helps build or community. When you see it you can tell that it took so much time to make it, and you feel loved. Elven celebrations center on food, community, and the passing of the seasons.

We make vegan buttermilk by adding a couple tablespoons of acidic lemon juice and apple cider vinager to soy milk. Then, we make vegan onions rings- soak the onion ring slices in the vegan buttermilk for fifteen minutes before dropping them into a mixture of white flour, corn flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne. When they are evenly coated, we medium fry them in a couple inches of canola oil. When golden brown, remove the sizzling onion rings, add some fresh ground salt and pepper and fresh chopped parsely from the garden. Creative cooking turns mundane bulk foods like flour and onions into delectable vegan meals. We use natural processes like fermentation and sprouting to turn basic ingredients into rich, complex dishes.

Rivalry at Underhill

I look from my eighth story window of Unit 2 down at the Underhill Field frequently. Each time I see a different sport being played, a different amount of people, and different formations of these people on the field. When people can get exercise elsewhere, why pay to have access to this field? I don’t believe it’s all about the exercise, but maybe more about some innate trait the Underhill Field allows people to eject.

5:35 PM

A lone man jogs the perimeter of the field. It may be more accurate to call it speed walking then to call it jogging. His hair is gray and thinned and his back hunched, but healthy he seems as he goes along the large perimeter several times at a steady pace. Understandably, due to the field’s popularity, the older man is not alone on the field for long. Soon on the field with him is a group of five, three guys and two girls, who entered with a soccer ball through the main gate and who goes to the far end of the field and starts to stretch. They keep in a group congregating closely, clearly marking off the part of field they will be occupying. They throw down their belongings near their territory and begin to dribble around the ball. Two other guys have also entered the field with a football and begin to pass it back and forth near the right fence of the field. The old man continues walking the perimeter, but seems to take note of the new population on the field and becomes nervous. The separate activities persist without any interruption till a much larger group enters the field. Everyone takes notice. As this large group of about fifteen college-aged persons enter with their belongings and a few white Frisbees they look about and stalk out where they will play. Something interesting happens now. As the Frisbee players travel to the center of the field the others who were already engaged in their own activities, the old man, the group of soccer players, and the guys playing catch all shift to make room for an ultimate Frisbee practice to commence in the center. Their sheer number takes up a greater portion of the field then that of the other athletes, and their acclamations and hurrahs ring out louder then those of the smaller groups. The old man exits the field and walks home. The first competitor is overcome.

There is a great sense of competition between the separate groups on the field. They do not directly compete in the same game, nor do they compete for the title of who plays the best sport, they compete for territory on the field. Unit 1 and Unit 2 are erected tall on the right and left side of the field. Almost as tall, certainly taller then the field, is apartment buildings butted up against the remaining sides of the field. The formation and size of these buildings render the field to resemble a massive coliseum, with crowds of spectators rising around all sides to watch the fight for territory, and the athletes becoming animalistic gladiators. This is why the chain link fences surrounding Underhill Field stand so tall. The field is a secured container. Outside of the fences society does not accept rivalry for territory on an everyday bases. But although the neon grass of the field is artificial, this animalistic trait in humans is very real. People come to this location not just to play a sport, but to exert this trait they have to otherwise keep inside.

6:05 PM

Although in different positions they started in, the activities continue. There is constant movement on the field, and the young, able bodies visibly flex and perspire in hopes of showing off and intimidating those around them. The gate opens again. Now enters another large group of eighteen or so, males and females. They come with equipment; a few of them carry footballs, one or two of them carry nets with flags in them, and they all carry their personal athletic bags. The field becomes quite crowded and as the large group divides into two and puts on their yellow or red flags, there is another shift and the other groups are pushed away, loosing some of the territory they were just playing on. The now comparatively small group of soccer players squeeze into one corner, the Frisbee players shift to the far half of the field that is shared with these soccer players, and the two who pass a football back and forth exit the field. Their strife to prolong their possession of territory on the field is ended by the other packs.

Another crew pushed out, old folks are done away with first, then the smallest least intimidating armies. But who will be ultimately victorious? Well it is the group that mostly resembles the victors in any war. The largest armies, dressed in uniform and overall intimidating. Characteristic of these armies are possession of many weapons and equipment and loud battle cries. And here now the absolute vanquisher arrives.

6:25 PM

You can hear the thousand clicks of their cleats against the pavement outside the field before you even see them, ringing out like a march to battle. It is a massive army of thirty. They carry with them nets of soccer balls, individual athletic bags, and even refs in black and white stripes to let everyone know they are official and serious about this competition for territory at Underhill Field. The small group of five soccer players in the corner sees them and leaves even before the large army comes through the gate onto the field. As the towering lights around the field slowly turn on at time of dusk, the new massive army of soccer players sets down their things and throws off their sweatshirts to reveal that they come in matching uniform, half in yellow and half in blue. Matching uniform and collaboration within such a large group is an intimidating strategy, showing dedication and stance in times of war. As they begin to warm up in the middle of the field, the remaining activities on the field, the small Frisbee practice and the flag football game begin to get pushed to the edges of the field. It looks as though their time to exert their buried innate drive to claim territory is coming to an end. The army of thirty takes out their soccer balls to warm up with and some begin to drag the large goal nets to either side of the field, adding to their equipment of war and setting up what is to be their territory. And the other groups do not withstand it. They do not have the numbers or the intimidation to push back the goals and reclaim the space that was once theirs. The large soccer army’s shouts and exclamations drown out those of the other smaller groups. The Frisbee and flag football players have gotten their power and territory taken away from them. With no more purpose on this field they pack up their belongings and exit the arena.

A Few Pointers on Avoiding Mediocre Observations

I had low expectations for this assignment when I walked into Sufficient Grounds to observe literally anything and everything that happened. After having a miserable time trying to observe a Top Dog, I decided to change my observed site to a coffee shop that I could see right outside the window of my room. My experience at Top Dog, coupled with the fact that I put little thought into my new site, made me more than uncomfortable about observing a coffee shop that was said to be closing down (Oblea 1). However, as time progressed and a collection of indecipherable notes began to pile up on my desk, I discovered that Sufficient Grounds was livelier than I had previously thought. There was also much diversity among the faces in this shop in terms of age, purpose, and even species. At first I had my doubts that I would record anything that would be the least bit interesting to report, but I developed a few useful tips for myself that would help me make Sufficient Grounds somewhat newsworthy.

Tip # 1 Make a good first impression: This isn’t so hard to do; you just have to be inconspicuous by blending in with the environment. I did the exact opposite going to Top Dog. Instead of ordering something, I just walked around looking at posters on the wall, which really annoyed the fry cook. In the case of Sufficient Grounds I bought a banana and then immediately sat in one of the tables to avoid suspicion. I repeated this for the duration of my observations; the result was that I remained on nobody’s bad side.

Tip # 2 Find a Spot Where You Can Observe All or Most of The Site: Here “observe” doesn’t mean see so much as listen. It’s important that you find a place where you can easily hear any potentially interesting conv ersation. For me the faces of people were not as important as what they had to say. My observations prospered under this guideline, as I was able to pick up on a variety of conversations. This was a bit of a problem when there was more than one conversation happening at once, which leads to the next tip…

Tip #3 Try to Pick the More Interesting Conversations: This isn’t going to be possible all the time. Sometimes you will just get some new college students talking about their life in school: what they are taking, what they plan to take, or just their interests. Every now and then, though, there will be people who talk about somewhat intriguing subjects. There was this one group of three people talking about tips on saving money. They sounded like older, more experienced college students and also talked about tricks on how to win big in Las Vegas, which caught my attention. I was later diverted to a conversation by two elderly women. I didn’t pay much attention to them until they started talking about how there should be a new world order dictating that families should only have one child each. This con versation was both intriguing and frightening; I shuddered to think what would happen if either of them were elected president.

The diverse range of topics of discussion, as well as the age of the people in these discussions, revealed Sufficient Grounds to be a center for all kinds of socializing, from the mundane to the extremist kind. It was like listening to an auditory timeline, where in the early years of adulthood people are more concerned with their individual needs and as people grew up their concerns expanded to the needs of society. Listening to conversations in Sufficient Grounds, one could learn about the many different stages of adult life.

Tip #4 Examine the Arrangement of Tables and Where People Sit: This may seem to be on the dull side, and most times it is, but this could lead to some noteworthy conclusions. For example, I noticed that the tables in this shop had a pattern to them in that the more conversational people sat in the center tables while those plugged into their laptops or keeping to themselves in other ways were situated in the tables along the edges, where the windows of the shop looked out onto Sather Lane and Durant Avenue. Socializing radiated from the center of the shop. Similar to a map with a key for population density, a map with a key for “social density” would display the center of Sufficient Grounds as the most “dense” part of the map. It’s easy to guess where the aforementioned wannabe high rollers and wannabe dictators would have been on this map.

Tip #5 Interact With Others in the Shop: Interacting is a good way to find insights into the nature of a coffee shop. I happened to interact with others, but they weren’t human. When I would finish eating my banana I just left the peel in the center of my table, intending to throw it away when I left. While I was taking some notes, some flies started buzzing around my table. I tried shooing them away, but they insisted staying close the banana on the table. So I threw the banana away, and the flies followed after the banana. Although this interaction may be considered degrading, I did notice that the flies flocked to the banana like it was some sort of center for socializing, much like how people would socialize at the center of sufficient grounds. In this case I actually did find an insight by interacting with others, albeit in an unorthodox fashion. I found that there is a socializing aspect common among animals both human and insect sized .

Sufficient Grounds proved to be a place where all kinds of life gathered, young and old, quiet and sociable, human and nonhuman. It may be hard to see at a glance, but Sufficient Grounds can indeed be a site for some notable occurrences, with a bit of creativity on the observer’s part, that is.

Works Cited

Oblea, Erika. "Owner Expects to Sell Sather Lane Coffee Shop." The Daily Californian Online [Berkeley] 11 Sept. 2009: 1-2.

Panzar, Javier. "Businesses Find Ways to Deal with Summer Slump." The Daily Californian Online [Berkeley] 22 June 2009: 1-3.

Shattuck and Cedar: A Series of Impressions

Located to the northwest of UC Berkeley campus, there exists a quiet crossroad at the intersection of Cedar St and Shattuck Ave. It is at this sleepy corner of town that I will make my impressions.

[x] map

Descriptions:

Surrounding the area is the campus to the south, shops to the north, and suburbia to the east and west. At this intersection, there is an Andronico's grocery store, a couple of restaurants (CrepeVine, Am-Cha, Dawn's), and a now defunct Elephant Pharmacy. Parked cars litter the area, but without many people to back them. I sit on a bus bench to make my observations. It seemed like a good place to sit down and watch people. Next to me is a sign signaling that the 7, 9, and 18 lines will stop here, and many newspaper dispensers. A couple trashcans pepper the area. The trees and bushes are very well kept, and the whole area seems pretty clean.

First Impressions

Overcast. The area seems still. Not in lack of physical movement—as there is always a car or person passing by—but in lack of collision. People come and go, and they were not talking of Michelangelo. In fact, they are not even talking at all. Everyone seems to have their own direction. Whether it is waiting for the bus, shopping at Andronico's, or rushing towards campus, everyone seems to have a purpose and they simply do not dawdle.

On my first day there, an old man—around 70 years of age—sat down next to me on the bus bench. He sat on the farthest end of the bench from me. It happens a lot in society, everyone seems to have a little bubble of impregnable personal space. The old man and I are sitting so close, but at the same time, our worlds are so far apart. I physically could talk to him. I, however, did not. I felt too embarrassed, too shy, too respectful for his status of stranger to break the ice. He is sitting not any farther than 2 feet from where I am, but the walls of society and impersonality keep us so far apart that he might as well be not even in earshot of myself.

Second Impressions

In the vast majority of my seven days observing from the bus bench, there has been almost no interactions between the people walking through. It varied a bit day by day—I loitered around for close an hour every day, some times there would be a couple walking together talking, or maybe even a group of students laughing with each other. But other than these little ripples of voices, footsteps, motors, and silence pervaded the intersection.

The whole place felt cold. Cold as winter. The physical temperature was probably not any different than south-side, but the feel of the place was much colder than that. The wide open space of the intersection was conducive to spinal shivers as gusts passed. Also, without the crowds of Durant or Telegraph, there is little body heat from crowding keeping you warm. But much more than that, the cold bites at a deeper level. The place feels simply impersonal. Much like a gas that is high in volume but low in particle count, the population is too sparse, and all the people there seems to go about on their own ways without so much an indication that anyone else was inside their world. Even the people who walked and talked inside groups were oblivious to everyone else outside the boundaries of their clique. People could be seen and heard but yet so utterly unnoticed. It is realizations like this that make me feel like I am all on my own in the world.

Even time itself seems frozen inside the world of the intersection. If you consider the intersection a bounded field marked off by an invisible walls at an arbitrary distance, what happens inside can be be related to an infinitely repeated play preformed again and again on the stage of the intersection by the people entering the area. If the area was considered a singularity, what happens every day would be exactly the same: some people would go shopping, some people would pass by, some people would wait for the bus. Nothing else happens. People would change, the world would change, but this place would not.

Halloween

On All Hallows' Eve, everything changed. Suddenly the place came alive. I heard shouting, I heard laughter, I heard pranks being pulled, I heard screams. People came running around in ridiculous costumes, buying bagfuls of things, and wishing each other happy Halloween. Was it a simply a Halloween effect? A festival effect? A discontinuity to the wave functions of daily life? Did it happen every Saturday? Every holiday? Every Halloween? Or perhaps I was just just there to catch the only time Shattuck and Cedar came alive? I cannot possibly draw conclusions based on one day, and I can only guess at the answers extended studies would show.

Final Impression

Whatever the reason for the surprisingly boisterous was, the magic only lasted for one day. On Sunday, everything fell back into place. People once again were distant and isolated, going about their own businesses.

Things[1,2] have perturbed the silence here, but everything always falls back into its routine. Actors once again assembled onto the intersection stage, each doing the eternal transitory dance of life. The people may have changed, but the place, the feeling, the actions, and the emotions are held steadfast. In short, the essence of the place has meandered off it's fourth axis, and time has stopped to flow.

Trapped, trapped is what I feel. I want to shout, I want to scream my frustration at this stifling coldness. However, my voice catches in my throat. What would be the point? I could make a ripple in this ocean of stillness, but as soon as I left the scene, everything will be back to normalcy. With a sigh, I pack up my notebook and leave for class.

Sources

[1] http://www.dailycal.org/article/106093/two_berkeley_women_assaulted_in_their_homes

[2] http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-10-29/events

It’s All About the Froyo: Everything I Really Need to Know About Berkeley I Learned at Yogurtland

I’m a huge frozen yogurt fan, so I was happy to have an excuse to go to Yogurtland every day for a week. Yogurtland’s name is pretty self-explanatory—you help yourself to any combination of yogurt and toppings, and they charge 30 cents an ounce after weighing your masterpiece of frozen deliciousness. Sunday night I went to Yogurtland with my friend Veronica (who was even wearing her Yogurtland t-shirt) and interviewed her as we waited in line.

Me: “So how long have you been coming to Yogurtland?”

Veronica: “Since the beginning of time! [insert dramatic hand-waving] When the great spaghetti monster reached its noodley appendage unto the world, it was not light he first created—no! It was Yogurtland. And it was good.”

Me: “…um. How good was good?”

Veronica: “Dude, that’s like, quoted from the Bible, so if you want to ask Jesus, be my guest.”

I concluded that we Berkelians are fond of froyo to the point of religious devotion. According to The Daily Californian, there are 7 frozen yogurt shops within a half mile radius of campus. Yogurtland, however, is usurping customers from its competition like despot monarchs usurped royal thrones back in the day. I’m loyal to Yogurtland over other frozen yogurt franchises, and it’s become a staple in my college diet. What’s more, I believe that Yogurtland can teach you everything you need to know about Berkeley. Here’s my list, in no particular order:

Eat great, starting late.

I know when Yogurtland closes. It closes at 11pm Sunday-Thursday and 11:30pm Friday and Saturday, and there’s a crowd there until the bitter end. The first and only time I went to Yogurtland in the morning (around 10:35am), it hadn’t opened yet. The “snuggle bench,” where couples sit together with one cup and two spoons outside Yogurtland, was pulled into the store. Employees were unloading yogurt in boxes from a truck outside, one of those 8-wheel contraptions that dominate highways.

When I went back a little before 1pm, I overheard a girl in line commenting that her bowl of yogurt was her breakfast. She even added some cinnamon toast crunch and fruity pebbles toppings. I guess in college, the day doesn’t start until noon. Yogurtland is busiest after dark. Most of the time there’s one cashier working throughout the day, and a second cashier comes to help handle the crowds of night owls in the evening.

Berkeley is 42% Asian.

The actual statistic is from berkeley.edu, but Yogurtland reflects that demographic… with flavors, toppings, and customers. There’s taro, green tea, and lychee tart flavored yogurt. For the toppings, mochi (sticky rice that looks like tiny pillows), red bean, and lychee fruit are popular choices. One night I was in line behind a middle-aged Chinese woman and saw her add three spoonfuls of red bean to her yogurt as she scolded her son about eating healthy. (What do your choices at Yogurtland say about you? Mine say I have ADHD because I like a smorgasbord of toppings and flavors and colors.)

Right now, Yogurtland is participating in a cross-promotion with Tokidoki. Tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese, and it’s a brand of adorable clothing, accessories, and other products in an art style resembling Japanese cartoons. The bowls and spoons are special limited-edition Tokidoki themed and I often hear someone asking for “One of the blue spoon too, please.” There’s nothing wrong with collecting cute things.

YOU TELL THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD THIS IS BEAR TERRITORY!

You can add pure Cal Pride as a topping! Among the 33 choices of toppings is a honey bear dressed in a mini Cal t-shirt and filled with blue and gold sunflower seeds. I dubbed him mini-Oski. Mini-Oski is usually at the right end of the toppings section, and a corkboard with football dates and times is at the very left of the store.

Of course, there’s also everyone and their mother wearing the ubiquitous Cal sweatshirt (mine’s hanging in my closet). Then there are those who go above and beyond—someone with alternating blue and gold dreadlocks left as I entered one night. Just as the force is strong in Luke Skywalker, school pride is strong at Berkeley.

Don’t give us any of that waiting nonsense.

I like yogurt. I like toppings. I like lots of choices. I don’t like waiting. Many Berkeley students feel the same. Yogurtland is popular and during the peak froyo hours, the line literally spills out onto the street. Every so often, someone will see the line and quietly leave, presumably to Papamingo’s or Yogurt Park. Like the Oakland Tribune reports, even if Yogurtland is the most popular froyo franchise, there are many other stores. People who leave are heeding the call of basic economics.

Last Friday I dragged a couple of friends over to Yogurtland, and they were dreading the line the whole way. When we got there, there actually wasn’t a line—perks of it being the day before Halloween. Some of them were just planning to walk us to Yogurtland and leave, but the lack of a line was too tempting and everyone stayed.

We’re either stressing or socializing.

I overheard an engineering GSI complaining about a student trying to get more points on an assignment that took her 6 hours. He was not impressed: he spent over 24 hours a week grading their homework, needed to study for 3 midterms the next week, and wanted her to stop bothering him. Berkeley keeps its students busy, and they need some way to unwind.

People who come to Yogurtland alone are a rare sight. Half the fun of froyo is eating it with friends and just talking vacuities helps take people’s minds off schoolwork and important life decisions looming overhead.

Yogurtland is quick, varied, and inexpensive. Anyone can get a cool, sweet treat from Yogurtland, but it is a particular favorite of Berkeley students. It suits our on-the-go lifestyle, where we’re busy stumbling to morning classes and jumping through the hoops of midterms and essays. We’re people on the move, coming together at Yogurtland with our unique personalities and anecdotes.

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Oakland Tribune, “Red-Hot Frozen Yogurt”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20091028/ai_n39381124/?tag=content;col1

The Daily Californian, “Chain Takes Bite Out of Local Yogurt Shop Market”

http://www.dailycal.org/article/106359/chain_takes_bite_out_of_local_yogurt_shop_market