Crime on Bay Area University Campuses

I was looking into a graduate program at UC Berkeley when I came across some disturbing information about the incidence of crime in the city. Apparently the area around the campus has a high incidence of sex-related crimes, or a reputation of such, at least. With further research, I came across a citizen-run news source on Berkeley crime called Berkeley Scanner (https://www.berkeleyscanner.com/), which reports five shootings so far this year, about thirty last year, and thirty-five the previous year. As for the university itself, its police force has its own bomb squad, according to this story about a grenade dropped during a car chase (https://www.berkeleyscanner.com/2025/05/02/arrests/berkeley-chp-chase-arrest-evacuations-grenade-reports/). Weird. I wonder how many universities around the world have their own police squads at all, now that I think about it. It's normal to me, but I've been immersed in U.S. crime culture my whole life.

Well I definitely will not be attending this school. UCB had (has?) such prestige; it's sullied in my eyes now. I keep wondering whether there isn't somewhere, anywhere in California that isn't this crime-filled dystopia of homeless camps, but also not some remote hicksville where I'd have another asshole pulling a rifle on me or calling the cops as I'm walking to the laundromat in broad daylight. The answer is no, apparently. I should stop wasting my time looking. I'm in one of the best places in the state, right here. At least there are no shootings here. It's sad that this state is going down the toilet.

I called my friend yesterday and found out that he's in the hospital. He suddenly had an infection and had to go in for surgery. I told him about my plans to apply for a Fullbright Scholarship in Taiwan and that I wasn't quite ready to leave. He asked me why, I kind of wanted him to know why, but it was too difficult to tell him that I wanted to spend some time here looking for a boyfriend. It's still too weird to talk to him about my newfound interest. Actually I never spoke to him about womyn very much either.

Maybe there are too many assholes here and I'm wasting my time, but I know that men here have some notion of how to treat womyn, some notions about basic feminism. It's part of our culture. I have low expectations of foreign Asian men in that regard. I was reading some Philippino guy's profile the other day, and his desired qualities for a girlfriend included "submissive" and "grateful." Submissive. Most American guys would know better than to post that shit even if that is what they want. One good thing about this type of cluelessness is that I'm not as worried about these foreign guys lying about their desires and intentions; they are too ignorant to even know that they're destroying their chances with Western womyn.

In terms of crime, Stanford seems to be faring better than Berkeley, the former having mostly property crime. However, the sheer number of property crimes is disturbing: theft or breaking/entering of cars, bikes, and electric scooters is reported damn near everyday. https://stanforddaily.com/category/news/crime-news/ It's not clear how far out from university grounds this reporting extends.

Apparently I cannot eat miso anymore. I keep getting stomachaches after I have some. At first, I thought the noodles I put it in were the problem, but I rinsed them off yesterday after the first few bites and the stomacheache did not progress. This has happened with two different brands, two different flavors of miso, the same miso I was eating a month ago without incident.

Fools keep talking at me while I'm reading and while I'm wearing headphones. The property manager of my apartment complex just pulled up in the parking lot where I was sitting and said hello, I didn't respond, he said hello again, and again I didn't respond. He was standing a few feet away from me while I sat looking at an open book that I never took my eyes off of. He did something similar just a couple of days ago, asked me how I was, and I didn't respond or even look up from my book then either. Weirdly, he said "good" after that silence, as if I'd responded.

I wonder whether the anti-intellectualism of this culture has something to do with this. Maybe people think reading is nothing important because they don't value knowledge. Or they don't read themselves so they don't appreciate the need for concentration. The property manager is not a white-privileged person (unlike all the others), so I doubt that his reason is the same as everyone else's. But maybe it is, to some extent. But talking at me a second time, after I do not respond, suggests a more aggressive and deliberate form of disrespect.

A lifetime of disrespect has made me into a brooding, tired, resentful, and unhappy person. One of the reasons I don't like being around other people is that my fatigue, rensentment, and unhappiness show, and people dislike that too. One portion of society will treat people like shit and the other will get uncomfortable and annoyed with the mistreated people's demeanor and psych problems and also treat them like shit. The expectation of "friendliness" and public positivity works against those of us who've been worked over so much that we've no more friendliness or positivity in us and are no longer able or willing to fake it. To hell with them; I'm going to let my unhappiness show. If they don't like it, they can do something to make this society a better place.

I need more basic Mandarin vocabulary fast, so I've begun studying a third textbook. This one is being given away for free on some Taiwanese government website. I suspect that my second Mandarin textbook is geared more towards mainland Chinese (despite the use of traditional characters), so I'm going to stop studying that.

This third textbook is just one volume, meant to (quickly?) get the learner through the first 500 "words." I'm already halfway through it because I know most of the vocab, I'm just trying to fill in the blanks in my knowledge of the basics so that I'll have an easier time when I go back to the first set of textbooks and, more importantly, won't get bogged down in less useful vocab on my journey towards the Mandarin level I need to qualify for study in Taiwan.

The same website also offers a three-volume beginner's set of textbooks that I may quickly work through next. Then I should be ready to return to textbook number one, which started off so easy but quickly became more difficult in the second volume.

I am having a pleasant time studying Korean now; retaining vocabulary is much easier. Maybe I won't need to resubscribe to Lingodeer. I'll have to find an intermediate-level Korean textbook once I'm finished with the current one. No, I won't quite be intermediate; the book isn't long enough nor does it contain enough examples or audio. I'll have to find a more difficult beginner's textbook, go through it rather quickly (more quickly than a true beginner), then move on to the intermediate textbook.

I didn't sleep for the past two nights despite my having taken afternoon walks. I suspect that my increased caffeine intake is keeping me up at night. I moved my cup of coffee to my first meal of the day (from my second) so that my body will have more time to metabolize the caffeine before bedtime. In terms of energy, it's worked well; no drowsiness. Now I'll get to see what effect, if any, it has on my sleep.

I keep having to experiment and tweak minor details like this with my health.