🎂 A Birthday Baddie 11/02/25

Hello everyone!

There’s an old saying that you might of heard of before. It goes along the lines of “Another year older, another year wiser”. As a newly minted 27 year old, I don’t know if I actually am any wiser than I was the year before. I can’t say though that this past year of my life has been one of the most impactful years I have ever had. It’s been a year of self-discovery, finding myself again, and finding a renewed sense of purpose and joy, something that I haven’t always steadily had since graduating from my undergraduate degree. It sounds very cliché, but there have been a lot of ups and downs, especially in regard to imposter syndrome and believing in myself, but overall, the trajectory has been up. I also want to thank all of you who have kept up with me, because I know that is no easy task. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for my 27th year of life. I can already tell it’s going to be a banger of a year.

What that said, let’s find out What’s Up With Will…

Last week, I had work piling up, so I decided that I needed to miss a class that I sit in on. I talked to my co-instructor-in-training the other day, and she told me that multiple people asked “Where’s Will?” Which is pretty cool that the students care about me! I think it’s hard to gauge my engagement with the students because there is a disconnect between because I am neither a student nor a teacher, but it’s moments like these that make me feel like a valued member of the classroom environment. It also lets me know have the ability to connect with students, in my old age now…

While on the topic of my this class, as this week is Halloween and Day of the Dead, for the second half of class, the professor took everyone outside into the communication building courtyard, and had everyone draw with chalk about a loved one who past. Then we all talked about the people that we miss in our lives. I took my time to remember my grandfather Delmar. I didn’t know him for that long, but I always hear stories about him being a fun-loving guy. My personal favorite was a story where he ended up racing his horse against a dude on a motorcycle because he thought it was faster…

While on the topic of Halloween, I was surprised to see all the costumes people dressed up with during the week, which made me feel a little underdressed for the occasion. Unfortunately, I had no plans for the Halloweekend, but that’s the problem with having a birthday so close to Halloween. Next year, I hope to go all out!

The Leadership Certificate Program had its most engaging week so far in my opinion. Our guest speaker, an instructor from SFSU, spoke about developing a personal leadership philosophy. The core of her talk was the idea that leadership begins with self-discovery. If you don’t truly know yourself, you can’t effectively lead others. She additionally emphasized that leadership isn’t confined to the 9-to-5 world, and instead, is about integrating your experiences and learning across all areas of life. Even moments of fun, like going to museums or my fraternity days playing beer pong, are part of the larger process of becoming a leader.

My first excursion during the week would be to the Asian Art Museum, which is one of the world’s most comprehensive libraries of Asian and American art, including both archeological finds as well as more contemporary works. One of my favorite pieces is a rhino vessel, which despite it size, is probably one of the more expensive pieces in the collection, with it being the only known one of its kind from the Shang Dynasty.

In addition to its permanent collection, there was a special exhibit entitled “Rave into the Future: Art in Motion”. Now, I haven’t been to a rave before, but I imagine that it is just how a rave an a museum would be like. As you walked through the room reading the descriptions and looking at the sculptures and artworks, music was playing in the background and other video and visual projections were played on the walls. In the center was a bronze dance floor, where I pulled out some of my classic moves like the shopping cart and the sprinkler.

The exhibit takes you through the stages of a rave to describe the rave floor as a site of kinship and collective healing, and dance as an act of joy and resistance. As the exhibit puts it, “we dance in solidarity, in the time between yesterday and tomorrow.”

This weekend my parents were supposed to come out to celebrate my birthday. We were going to drive up to Napa and spend the weekend there. Unfortunately though, last minute they became unable to, and while we were sad to not spend my birthday weekend with them, Rylee and I were still happy to spend time together in Napa.

To start off the weekend, Rylee surprised me with a birthday sash with “birthday baddie” written on it. I honestly didn’t realize how many people would tell me happy birthday because of it, but I was more than okay with that. This sash also led me to have one of the more memorable interactions this week. As I was walking an older woman asked me, “do you actually think you are a baddie?” I will let y’all be the judges of this, though.

Our first spot was Bazán Cellars. This is the passion project of Mario Bazán, who has been in the wine industry for decades, starting out as a farmhand, before working with Robert Mondavi for several years, to then releasing his very first estate wine in 2005. In fact, our server told us that he just had finished his 53rd harvest. Bazán Cellars had an incredible sparkling rose, and as a special treat for my birthday, our server let us try some a few sips of his 2005 vintage.

The next tasting room we stopped at during the day was MaCo Vineyards. MaCo was started back in 2009 by Jesus Maciel and Roberto Corona, hence the name. In addition to the estate grown wines, MaCo also produced wines slightly atypical to Napa Valley, like Petite Sirah and rose of Malbec, due to smaller allotments from other grape growers. We sipped underneath a neon sign that said, “¡Una Copa Mas!” Or in English, “one glass more!” Hey, I wasn’t going to stop our server from pouring me more…

Rylee then treated me to dinner at Zuzu, a cozy Spanish tapas restaurant that served some of the best paella I’ve ever had, perfectly smoky and rich. We shared olives, tender mussels, and a potato and egg omelet. To top it all off, they surprised me with a tres leches cake, one of my all-time favorite desserts, while everyone sang me happy birthday.

On Sunday (my actual birthday), we did some shopping downtown before our final winery. Our last stop was Backstage Winery, a beautiful old-world Italian building, that at a glance you might of thought you were in Tuscany. As our server showed us through the property, we learned that this was once home to Andretti Wines, as in the famous racer Mario Andretti, which made sense for its Tuscan inspired setting. Angelo Pera took it over and turned it into Backstage Winery in 2010, but has kept up the level of excellence. All of the wines we tried were very approachable, light and delicate. None of the wines that we tried were lackluster, which isn’t too common in all the tastings we have been to. And there’s something to be said about the ambience of hanging out in a vineyard.

Rylee told me that she tried extra hard to make my birthday special, and she did. If we are being honest, though, everyday is special with her.

I have been obsessed with watching these clips from this channel recently. The channel is full of old footage of different cities 100 years ago. I think it is cool to see how the world was that long ago. I walk through Market Street in SF all the time, I could not even fathom a time like this, but that is what makes it so amazing.