Hi Everyone!

What does it mean to be a teacher? Is it someone who simply educates, or is it someone who uplifts the next generation with the critical skills needed to succeed? Well, the Mexican fast-casual restaurant Chipotle has answered this question for us. According to the “2026 Chipotle Healthcare Professional and Teacher” Sweepstakes, “the term ‘Teacher’ means any individual who is employed at a public or private school that regularly serves students in-person, not remotely, between kindergarten and 12th grade (or any combination thereof) located in the fifty (50) United States or the District of Columbia during the 2025-2026 academic year.” (Chipotle, 2026). Regardless of what your definition of teacher is, I am decidedly not a teacher in Chipotle’s book. Well, they are persona non grata in my book now.

Also, I found out that last week was the one-two punch: Teacher’s Day (May 5th) and Teacher Appreciation Week (Monday, May 4th, to Friday, May 8th). I can’t believe no one told me!

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

Since Finals Week was quickly approaching, I wanted the final two class periods of my public speaking class to be more relaxed and centered around fun activities related to special occasion speeches. Since we finished up presentations of the persuasive speeches last week, this week was also designed to give some space to focus on all of my students’ other classes, as well as catch up on any missing assignments for this class.

Last semester, while researching for a literature review on Fun and Play’s Place in Critical Communication Pedagogy, I uncovered a paper describing how murder mysteries can be used as a classroom activity for non-verbal communication, group communication, the importance of listening, and understanding how perceptions are formed (Macchi & Ridle, 2012). So, I decided to try it out while also framing it around the special event of a class reunion. Here’s the backstory to set the ambience:

Welcome to your 10-year SFSU Public Speaking Class reunion. Tonight was supposed to be a celebration, a chance to reconnect, reflect, and see where life has taken everyone since this class. Just before the reunion speeches began, one of your former classmates, Test Student, was found dead. 

Test Student had become a journalist, and based on what’s been discovered tonight, they weren’t just here to reconnect. They were investigating something. Over the course of the evening, Test Student spoke privately with several people in this room. And it appears Test Student was preparing to expose information about multiple classmates. Some of that information may have been embarrassing, and some of it may have been professionally damaging. For at least one person, though, it was enough for murder.

On the final day of class, we began by watching the Mr. Rogers Lifetime Achievement video and discussing it. Then, I had them write a short one-minute-long impromptu speech about two things people are proud of during this semester, and then shout out someone instrumental in helping them finish strong. Then, one by one, they would come up to the front of the room and receive their “I survived the Public Speaking Class” certificate, and give it in front of the class. I thought it was a great way to recognize all the hard work they did, as well as have one more opportunity to practice speaking in front of a crowd in a low-stakes environment!

In Gender Studies, we had a symposium, where we all presented our final presentations. I presented my topic, “The Stories Around Us,” where I analyzed three sections of my newsletter over the past year, using the readings, frameworks, and terminology we learned in class. The three sections I examined were the tea tasting with Uncle (💰The Real Treasure... 3/2/25), the California State Railroad Museum (🎵Lip-Sync For Your Life 11/23/25), and the Third Culture Bakery factory tour (🍵 Spilling Tea... 2/22/26). 

Stories are all around us, and analyzing my newsletter revealed tensions between personal connection, hegemonic narratives, and deliberate storytelling. It also had me reflect on my own positionality and how it shaped my interpretations of these experiences, what I could fully participate in, and the limits of my understanding. Everyday storytelling is messy and embedded within structures of power, but deliberate storytelling can create moments of reflection, connection, and community.

After class, we took off to the Dubliner to celebrate the end of the semester with a class happy hour. We inadvertently stumbled upon a trivia night, where I knew one of the answers to the questions! (Do you know who the creator of the syndicated comic strip Peanuts is? Hint: I have actually mentioned him in one of my newsletters.)

In methods, we wrapped up class with a Pizza Party! Our professor grabbed a plethora of pizza from Little Original Joe’s, including gluten-free and vegan options. I asked for pineapple on my pizza, but clearly that was one step too far.

We spent the first part of class covering last-minute practical questions, like formatting, appendices, and specific analytical questions relating to each of our research topics. We then moved on to a discussion of how to write a discussion, which is the part of the research where you actually get to answer the question you proposed at the beginning of the article. A great discussion restates the argument, revisits key parts of the literature review, covers how your research meshes with the rest of the research, and outlines any limitations and future directions for the research (intellectual humility is always a good thing). Finally, we ended the class with a workshop activity to develop a title for our paper, as some of the best papers are the ones that are catchy and draw people in. My current working title is “It’s Wine Not Surgery”, a reference to an observational field note taken at the Napa ENT conference I went to. 

BART was running into some issues on the way back from my dentist this week, so I made a pit stop at the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum.

The Berkeley Historical Society maintains a collection of materials that provides insight into the history of Berkeley, California. The current exhibit, On The Waterfront: The Other Side Of Berkeley, presents the history of Berkeley’s waterfront as a battle shaped by constant tension between exploitation, public use, environmental damage, and restoration. 

Before it was a scenic recreational area, it was once an industrial shoreline. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Berkeley’s shoreline became increasingly industrialized as city leaders sought economic growth through ports, railroads, dredging, and landfill projects that physically reshaped the Bay. Much of the modern waterfront itself was artificially created through dumping trash, industrial debris, and fill into tidal wetlands, while untreated sewage and industrial pollution severely degraded the shoreline ecosystem. 

At the same time, the exhibit shows how Berkeley became a center of environmental activism that fundamentally changed public attitudes toward the Bay. Beginning in the 1960s, grassroots campaigns such as Save the Bay challenged plans for massive new landfill projects and helped create agencies like the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), which restricted shoreline development and promoted public access and habitat restoration. While text heavy at times, this exhibit shines a light on our relationship to and history of the Bay itself. At the end of the day, it wouldn’t be the Bay Area without the Bay.

The 100% Gluten Free mini chain restaurant, Kitava, opened an outpost in Walnut Creek last week! In addition to their normal bowl-based menu, they have a special brunch menu on the weekends, and long-time readers of this newsletter know my propensity for brunch. I grabbed myself a yummy stack of mochi-esque pancakes covered with a blueberry compote, and Rylee got herself a set of breakfast tacos. Will Willis Brunch Approved!

While I miss living in the city, the perks of living in a big suburb is that sometimes parts of the city come to you (and if your lucky, some of those will be gluten free!) We now just have our fingers crossed for another gluten free bakery (Mariposa Bakery, perhaps) or maybe even a gluten free brewery to show up (looking at you Otherwise Brewing).

Imagine you spend all this time and hard work on making a work of art, only for a critic to say, “A pot of paint has just been thrown in the public’s face”? Well, that’s what happened to Henri Matisse in 1905. 

Sunday marked the opening of Matisse’s Femme au Chapeau: A Modern Scandal at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which presents Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat, 1905) as a groundbreaking work that helped launch modern art and the Fauvist movement. The piece was first shown at the 1905 Salon d’Automne in Paris, and the painting shocked critics and audiences with its bold, unnatural colors, loose brushwork, and unfinished appearance. Reviewers mocked the work as chaotic and outrageous, but they recognized that Matisse was creating something radically new. For this exhibit, they restaged this historic gallery space, reuniting the greatest number of works from that display over a century ago.

The exhibit traces the painting’s journey from Paris to California and its lasting impact on modern art. It also highlights the important role of Amélie Matisse, Henri Matisse’s wife and muse, whose background as a milliner and fashion designer influenced the portrait’s extravagant hat and stylish presentation. To celebrate Amélie, SF MOMA also partnered with SCRAP, a non-profit promoting arts and education through environmental stewardship, for a Hat-Making workshop. Using leftover butcher paper, tissue paper, tape, and ribbons, we had to create our own crazy, funky hats like those that Amélie made. Who made the better hat? I don’t want to sway you in any direction, but one woman came up to me and told me, “You look like a Matisse!”

This was Rylee’s first time at SF MOMA, so we took the time to walk through the rest of the exhibits. It just so happened that it was also the Museum’s Annual Jewelry Trunk Show, so we stopped to check out all the stunning jewelry! Who knew a museum could be this exciting!

I think there is an interesting discussion around all the advancements of winemaking within the past decade or so. This sort of delineation between the winemaker themselves and the technology that makes the wine. Is there a point at which the winemaker and the wine itself loses it terroir and individual flavor from technological manipulation? Is there a point where winemaking has gone too far? I think donut wine might be the closest approximation to going too far that I have seen so far.