Hi Everyone!

Can you believe that the Olympics are over? I feel so out of the loop. When the Olympics are on, it is this pervasive, never-ending entity, so I was shocked to find that it was over. I don’t really care about hockey, but I can’t believe I was so busy that I missed curling, luge, bobsled, and Olympic biathlon. I liken the Winter Olympics to a multi-week-long ESPN8: The Ocho extravaganza, but now I have to wait another 4 years to see it. Dang. (Side note: I did tune in enough to see that Oakland Native Alysa Liu won Gold!)

Anyway, let’s find out What’s Up With Will…

In the class that I am teaching, I introduced the “We Are” poem, the follow-up (or sequel if you will) to the wildly successful “I Am” poem speech. Call me crazy, but I love a group project. Now, I haven’t had a group work horror story that I have heard about, so my view might easily change after even one bad experience, but the constant flow of ideas bouncing off of each other melding into something new is exciting. More importantly, group speeches are something that could happen in the real world, so it is important to expose students to these scenarios.

The most important things when in groups is communication (shocking, I know). Therefore, I did an in class room activity meant to make students think about group dynamics, decision making, and setting clear expectations from the get go. It asks you to rank 15 different supplies in how useful they would be in a crash landing on the moon. Instead of looking for the right answer, the goal was to ask them to analyze their process of ranking and, more important ask if they created a process or just jumped into the assignment. I am linking the activity here in case you want to try your skills. Let me know how many you get right!

Over the past few weeks, I have been working towards completing a series of ethics training courses by CITI. It’s apparently a $1000 course that SFSU students get access to for free. I finally completed them, but we also started briefly covering what ethical research entails. Among these is the Belmont Report, a document outlining three principles to guide research with human subjects: Beneficence (doing no harm or balancing risk with benefits), Justice (maximizing fairness in research), and Respect for Persons (respecting autonomy, protecting vulnerable populations, and informing of consent). Ultimately, what got from the trainings is the importance of creating an ethic of care in your research. 

It’s SF Beer Week, ten days where the who’s who of Bay Area Craft Breweries brew special beverages and host beer-y events to celebrate beer in the Bay. Now, long-time readers will probably already know this, but I am not a beer guy. Despite this, I felt a serious FOMO for missing out on this event, so I drove Epidemic Ales in Concord to take part in probably the only thing that could make drinking beer exciting: a Craft Beer X Girl Scout Cookie Pairing. The first pairing was a Toffee-Tastic with a Vanillin Villain Nitro Vanilla Cream Ale, then a Lemon-Up with a BeerTron Pale Ale (an SFBW exclusive made in collaboration with Five Suns Brewing), followed by a Samoa with their Cataclysm Triple IPA (Another SFBW Exclusive), and finally an Exploremores with a Brown Sugar Espresso Oatmeal Milk Stout. 

I was surprised at how well each of the cookies and beer synergized. Every single cookie elevated the beer, with the standout pairing being the Lemon-Up and the BeerTron Pale Ale. This might have been the best beer experience I have ever had. It just goes to show the power of Girl Scout Cookies. 

I have been in a weird place in my schooling. In less than a year, I kind of have to decide on what my Ph.D. plans are. I originally entered Communication Studies because of how broad the focus of this major is, with the idea being that I could explore many different subjects to uncover what I would be interested in researching. Unfortunately, the graduate seminars that I have been taking have been targeted to particular subfields, and did not provide as many opportunities to explore the field as a whole. I have been enjoying critical pedagogy, gender studies, and qualitative/quantitative research methods, but Communication Studies is a field that truly epitomizes the phrase, “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know”.

This weekend, I decided to go to the Western States Communication Association’s (WSCA) 96th Annual Convention in San Diego to explore the different sectors of communication, uncover new avenues of research, and find possible academic fields of interest. More importantly, this was my first ever academic conference! I had some idea of what it could look like, but I was still unsure of how the weekend would play out. I had nothing to worry about, though. I had a blast! Rylee also tagged along, just not for the convention.

Luckily enough, WSCA hosted its bi-annual Foundational Course Training this year. The course directly focused on how to navigate teaching the introductory public speaking class, which was great for me because I am just starting out teaching the public speaking course. I learned multiple different lesson plans, like using AI as an editor vs AI as a Writer, A family history speech meant to emphasize personal narratives as a means of speech, and an informative speech in the form of a talk show to help students practice extemporaneous speeches. There are some gems that I want to see how I can apply it to my class for future semesters.

I also helped table for SFSU at the grad fair alongside Kara. I was struggling to get people over to the table to chat with us, and that was when Kara told me some of their personal tips and tricks to being a Booth Babe from prior experience tabling at events.

I can vouch for this system. I got a lot more people to come chat with me this way. More importantly, though, I believe we convinced at least one person to consider getting a Master’s degree at SFSU.

Over the course of the weekend, I attended several sessions/panels exploring different areas of communication, seeing what constitutes research in fields like Organizational Communication, Media Studies, Interpersonal Communication, and Performance Studies. Out of these, I found Organizational Communication and Interpersonal Communication to be the most interesting. However, there was one session that I resonated with the most, labeled under the field of Language, Self, and Social Construction. The research had an almost anthropological framing, and one of the presentations covered a project being done focused on community building within breweries. This presentation ultimately made me feel empowered about choosing to take a semester to research wine. Not only is there work being done on a similar concept of food and drinks bringing people together (what I found out has its own name of study known as commensality), but being presented at a convention also shows that the academic community sees this as a viable and important subject to understand. 

WSCA also makes it a point to have special excursions planned around the city in which the convention is located. This year, we visited the Museum of Us to attend a talk hosted by the Friends of International Friendship Park, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reimagining Friendship Park at the U.S.-Mexico border. They shared that more than 40 million people can trace their American Story to a border crossing, which underscores the importance of honoring and amplifying these narratives. In partnership with the Museum of Us, they are working on an art exhibit highlighting the cultural and human impact of the border. The border wall has long been covered in community artwork and murals, so when portions of the border were replaced in 2023, the two organizations preserved parts of the wall to turn them into traveling tables. The goal is to tour the country to invite dialogue about migrations, connections, and Friendship Park’s future.

Everyone at the convention was so friendly, and no one had any ego whatsoever. People were happy to chat about their research and share how they landed in their field of study. Funnily enough, I also learned that WSCA has a reputation within the National Communication Association as being a “bunch of hippies” because they throw a dance.

I did not just go to the convention, though. One night, the SFSU Master’s students went out to Gossip Grill, a Women’s and LGBTQ+ Bar. We danced the night away, and I tried a Sashay Froze, a rose wine slushy with Deep Eddy Ruby Red Grapefruit vodka and other fruit juices. I think frose is totally slept on, and more places need to have it.

After the awards luncheon on Sunday, I  decided to skip the rest of the convention and explore San Diego, as I had just walked around the Gaslamp for most of my time there. I met up with Rylee in Balboa Park, but not before making a detour to the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego.

The exhibition In the Garden of Earthly Delights: I Ben to Paradise, by Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, makes use of silicone and salvaged materials pulled from deserts and landfills to tell a story of a stowaway vampire aboard a spaceship carrying the last human survivors on Earth. A computer malfunction explodes the ship, and suspended in space, the vampire becomes anew from the wreckage. The story comes from the Mesoamerican concept of the Nahual, a shape-shifting being that moves between human and animal figures, to embody transformation, survival, memory, and the persistence of human history.

I then found Rylee, and together we wandered around Balboa Park. If you did not know better, you would think that you were in a European Plaza. Balboa Park’s current iteration was built for the 1915-1916 Panama California Exposition, partially to announce San Diego’s Arrival on the world stage after the completion of the Panama Canal, and features Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, with ornate facades etched into carved stone.

Eventually, we stepped into the Timekin Museum of Art, featuring a special exhibit on Poetic Portraits: Allegory and Identity in 16th Century Europe.

This exhibits makes the argument that 16th century portraits were never just portrayed subject’s physical likeness. They were artworks that represented who someone was, or wanted to be. Artists used items to symbolize identity, character, social roles, and moral virtue through allegorical elements. Whether it be an arrow and laurel wreath to represent poetry, books representing intellect, or even dogs representing fidelity. I also found it interesting taking this perspective throughout the museum, as their were many portraits outside of the special exhibit too. If I ever get a portrait of myself, I am going to have to think long and hard about how I want to be depicted, and what objects might tell my story best.

Then to wrap up our time in San Diego, we ate at Werewolf. If there is one culinary invention that San Diego is known for it’s the California Burrito. 

Let’s be honest, the burrito has been played out. Chipotle, Moe’s, Qdoba. Too many places play it safe with boring rice and beans. Instead, Imagine a burrito filled with delicious carne asada, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and French fries. San Diego knows how to do it right (Funnily enough, the rice and beans burrito, AKA the Mission Burrito, traces its origins back to the Mission District of San Francisco). It felt amiss not to have one while I could. Werewolf’s variant swapped out its normal fries for garlic fries, and it was oh so good! As I devoured my meal in a way that was almost werewolf-esque, Rylee and I caught up with what we each got up to for the weekend.

While Will attended his conference in San Diego, I tagged along to enjoy some much-needed R&R. I went into this weekend without a plan, just some general goals—have good food, soak up some sun, and meet cool people. Let’s dive in:

Goal 1: Food

My favorite meal of the trip was from Gaslamp Breakfast Company. I LOVE brunch, and Gaslamp does it right. I treated myself to their waffle flight: s’mores (marshmallow fluff, chocolate fudge, and graham cracker crumble), mashed potato (mashed potatoes cooked into a crispy waffle topped with a cheesy gravy, spicy andouille sausage, chives, and scrambled eggs), and Orange Thyme (mandarin orange slices and whipped cream paired with a honey, orange, thyme marmalade). AND IT WAS ALL GLUTEN FREE! Their food was so good that I ended up going back a second day!

Goal 2: Enjoying the Outdoors

There are few places where I’m happier than when I’m on a boat, so I knew I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and spend some time on the water. I booked a charter of a small sail catamaran online, met Captain Ryan and my 4 other shipmates at the dock, and we set sail. Over the 3 hour tour, I lounged, learned about San Diego from the water, hung out with my new friends, and watched the sunset over the bay. It really was the perfect day.

I spent my last day in Balboa Park. I went on a long walk before settling down to watch a free Organ concert while I knit. I stopped in a few museums and hung out in the beautiful Japanese Gardens—whose Cherry Blossom trees are in full bloom.

Goal 3: Meet New People

I had the pleasure of making several new friends on this trip (including some of Will’s classmates and professors)! The coolest group I happened upon were my shipmates on the catamaran. When you book a spot on a boat like that, you never quite know what to expect of your fellow travelers, but I got lucky and ended up with the coolest all-women group with some pretty bad-ass professions:
-Biomedical Engineer (me)
-Entrepreneur with 3 companies
-Army Laboratory Technician
-(now retired) Hospital CEO
-Medical Device Sales Representative

We had such a unique, fun group, and I’m glad that I got to spend 3 hours of my trip getting to know these ladies.

All in all, this trip was so fun, and I’m hoping to spend more time in San Diego soon!

In the gender studies readings, there was a reference to William Hung. I grew up watching American Idol, so I remember this scene. It’s always interesting to see academia analyze media that you are familiar with.