Hello everyone!
I was reading something early that said that the Monday after the Super Bowl has historically been one of the most called-out sick days in the year, with projections of this year being over 26 million Americans. That’s absolutely crazy! I unfortunately couldn’t partake in this special event because of classes, but I hope anyone who was feeling sick that day had a speedy recovery.
However, Monday, February 9th was also National Pizza Day, and I did partake in this celebration (I have no clue why this hasn't been on my calendar all along, haha). Square Pie Guys in Walnut Creek recently opened a new store and was giving away free half-pizzas for people who signed up for their app. With my free pizza, I opted for the P-Lo Pie, made in collaboration with the infamous Bay Area Hyphy Artist himself, a vodka sauce pizza with Italian sausage, hot honey bomba, red onions, spicy ranch, and basil. I’ve never had hot honey before, but I see what the rage is! (Cue obligatory transition to Valentine’s Day Focused Newsletter) It is not as hot as Rylee, though!
Anyways, let’s find out What’s Up With Will…
As it is Valentine’s Week, I decided to get my students valentine cards. While I browsed through Marvel, sports, food, and even Paw Patrol cards at the store, I realized that nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day more than cute dog and cat ones with inspirational quotes that say, "Reach For The Stars!” I also got my own faculty page1 and personal mailbox on campus!
The highlight of the week for the class that I am teaching was a field trip to the Special Collections and Archives in the SFSU library to learn more about primary and secondary sources for a future research based speech as well as learning about the San Francisco State University Strike, a 115 day strike, the longest student strike in the history of the US, and ultimately resulted in the creation of the first College of Ethnic Studies. It is a fantastic example of using your voice and speech as advocacy. I have always felt that there is a whimsicalness to a class field trip, and I hope that the students enjoyed the experience as much as I did.
I noticed that I need to work on providing clearer and more comprehensive explanations of assignments and lessons. Because of my familiarity with the material, I have found that I sometimes explain things from point A to point B, unintentionally skipping smaller but important pieces of information that students need. I have been slowing down and taking time to restructure my explanations more intentionally, adopting a point A to point B and then to point C structure. I have been actively trying to catch myself by reviewing my notes to determine if certain parts require extra context.
On the day of my Gender Studies class, one of the students was demoing a Gender Monopoly game that is going to be presented at a future conference. I joined about 30 minutes late, but I really liked the idea of bringing concepts of gender into one of the most well-known board games in the world. It also acts as an exposure and entryway into more complex topics and discussions around gender, which I think is really cool. Additionally, in my literature review last semester on fun and play working alongside critical pedagogy, I found a lesson plan focusing on using Monopoly as a way to visualize inequality found within late-stage capitalism. It involved having some students play the game normally, but then, after a few laps around the board, everyone else would be able to join. By joining late, I got to enact this lesson plan I researched, too!
In our gender studies class, we looked at how gender is enacted through both the spectacular and the mundane. We looked at scholarship examining RuPaul’s Drag Race, as well as looking at everyday life as a site for critical viewing of gender. As the author Manalansan writes, “Unlike traditional historiography, which depends on grand narratives of ‘famous men’ and great events, the narratives of everyday life reveal the rich intricacies of the commonplace” (2007, p. 91).
While on the topic of the critical analysis of everyday life, we spent the time in my methods class continuing to examine observational study as a means of research, digging into the concept of ethnography, or the study of lived experiences, as a means of explaining the world around us. From an ethnographic lens, communication can be broken down into four distinct levels: the Speech Community (the shared rules for how and when to speak for interpreting communication), the Communication Situation (the social contexts in which the communication occurs), the Communication Event (activities that have beginnings and ends and governed by rules and norms of the context), and the Speech Act (an utterance that enacts a single social action or interactional function). For instance, in a college, the university would be the Speech Community, a classroom would be the Communication Situation, giving a lecture would be the Communication Event, and speaking off of a slide would be a Speech Act.
From this description, we were tasked with another observational study at the same spot as last week. This time, though, it was to examine two instances of a communication event. So, kickstarting our Valentine’s Day dinner was a pregame at Residual Sugar. Here is what I found:
In my second observational study at Residual Sugar Wine Bar, I focused on the communication event of “ordering wine”. Although the events ultimately end in the customer selecting a glass or bottle, the path to that decision varies widely. In the instances I observed, the wine educator initiated the interaction, positioning themselves not just as a server, but as a guide. Ordering wine unfolded as a process shaped by questions, tastings, humor, nonverbal cues, and shared decision-making.
Across observations, the complexity of the interaction depended on the customers’ certainty and familiarity with wine vocabulary. Some customers pointed directly to a menu item and requested brief clarification before ordering, while others engaged in extended dialogue, describing what they did not want (“not too tart,” “not too sweet”), sampling multiple tastings, and consulting companions through nods, glances, and brief side conversations. Tastings specifically acted as a pivotal way to determine if the customer wanted the wine. Nonverbal communication, such as finishing an entire sample versus taking a small sip, or exchanging a nod with a partner, also signaled the final decision before it was verbally confirmed.
Overall, ordering wine is a non-linear communication event. While it occurs within a commercial exchange, the emphasis is on cultivating personal preference rather than simply purchasing a product. The wine educator walks customers through a specialized vocabulary of region, varietal, and flavor profile, helping customers articulate and refine their palate. While playful commentary about certain wines revealed norms and hierarchies within societal perception (such as a joke about Pink Moscato), this communication event centered on guiding customers toward a choice that felt personally enjoyable.
On a more professional front, after hearing about the rough job market, I tried going to another career development session, this time sponsored by the Communication Studies department. While I received similar advice to look at teaching fellowships, the coordinator did recommend looking at organizations and departments in a university to better contextualize your experience within a college as a whole, to see how it works. It could be worth looking into, because I know absolutely nothing beyond my student and my limited teaching experience.
I also spent the week applying for the California Pre-Doc Program. It is a super selective program that, if you get accepted, you receive a stipend to cover trips to academic conferences, school visits, and Ph.D. applications. Additionally, you are given a paid research opportunity in the summer between your Master’s and Doctoral programs. My friend Kara has put me onto prophetic future tense, or saying something as if it already happened. It is something that is mostly found in the bible, but is also used for manifesting your dreams. I figured I might as well try it in this case. I cannot believe I got into the program!🤞
References:
Manalansan, M. F. (2007). Global divas: Filipino gay men in the Diaspora. Duke University Press.
We decided to celebrate our Valentine’s Day dinner at Il Fornaio, a small yet upscale chain Italian restaurant, on Friday. We were not ready for the chaos that ensued…
We arrived at the time of our reservation only to be told that there was a 30-minute wait. 15 minutes later, they brought us to our table, which was obviously a foldable table draped in a white tablecloth put up especially for the night. It was also evident that the table was not in anyone’s rotation, and a manager came up to us 20 minutes later, apologizing that we had not been served yet. I cannot complain, though, because the food we ate was genuinely delicious, featuring a crudo topped with blood orange, and a bomb lobster ravioli piled high with parmesan (I have a hard time saying “when” to servers). Spumoni also made its second Valentine’s Day Dinner appearance! What’s more is that they only charged us for the entrees, so we were wheeling and dealing this Valentine’s Day Dinner!
It’s definitely a Valentine’s Day for the history books, that’s for sure. I already can not help but laugh at the insanity of it all.
For Valentine’s Day proper, we decided to make one more use of our Calistoga Winter Wine passports.
Our first stop was Clif Family Winery, and if the name sounds familiar to a particular energy bar company, that would be because the owners of this winery also own Clif Energy Bars. They are also professional bikers, and one of them is a trumpet player. Talk about being jacks of all trades!
The tasting room contains various photos of cycling as well as an actual bike. For the tasting itself, we tried wines grown directly from its new Oak Knoll vineyard, featuring a Savvy B (that’s what the cool kids at Clif call it), and Chardonnay’s cooler sister (that’s what they called Viognier). Clif also has released a lower alcohol Cabernet Sauvignon that I got to try side by side with the full alcohol version. The wine educator talked about how the lower alcohol is achieved by an earlier harvest, increasing the canopy time for the grapes, and open fermentation to help some of the alcohol dissipate. While there’s only a 2% difference in the ABV, the taste is much more mellow and zippy, similar to Zinfandel body-wise rather than Cabernet Sauvignon. The reason behind this wine is that since the owners are cyclists, they wanted the essence of a wine at lunch, but not WINE, and then bike.
Our second stop of the day was Bennett Lane, which had a visual aesthetic of the classical old school Napa Valley. That being said, looks can be deceiving as the person checking us in hit us with an “awesome possum!”
Bennett Lane was mostly a red house, but we were given one Chardonnay before moving onto a red blend, a 2017 Petite Sirah, and a Cab. I was especially surprised by the Petite Sirah, as that was a bit older than I was expecting, and its age truly showed. I noted this to the wine educator, and they talked about how the winemaker will not allow a wine to be bought before it is ready, even if it takes multiple years, much to the chagrin of the owners.
It should be known here now that my favorite activity of wine tasting is swirling the glass. Something is calming and almost meditative about it. While I swirling a glass, the wine educator commented on my swirling capabilities (a point of pride for me), and we joked about how swirling a wine glass is effectively an adult fidget spinner.
This video is actually super sick! I never really watched Wallace and Gromit growing up (actually I only think that I ever watched Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), but this scene is engrained in my memories. And then some dude decided to just recreate it! It’s moments like these were I wish I was still an engineer.
