Getting a bit restless in the apartment, we decided to head up to Napa Valley for a day trip. First stop was a tour of Robert Mondavi’s winery. We also hit Chandon for some bubbly and Jaccuzi/Cline for free tastings. Perhaps the best part of the Napa trip was that all the good wines inspired…
Since I’m behind on updates, I’ve decided to just keep posting images from my adventures in no particular order. Here are two pictures from our day trip to Point Reyes a couple weeks ago. Jennie and Johnny were in the Bay Area visiting, so we grabbed a couple people and headed up the Marin coast…
Karla was one of our eighth grade students this year at United for Success. Back in May, by the light of the campfire on the last day of our school camping trip, Karla performed this poem. I was absolutely wowed, impressed, proud, inspired… The next week, back at school, I videotaped Karla doing her poem…
So much of our relationships depends upon context. I’m reminded of that moment in grade school when I first saw a teacher at the mall and was stunned to realize teachers went shopping just like normal people. Or this year, when we (as teachers) brought our 8th graders into the woods for a 3-day camping trip and we got…
Last night was an interesting experiment in convergences of threads of my life: photography meets teaching meets Duke meets TAF. A couple weeks ago, I brought some of my students to a Dinner with Scientists event hosted by our Oakland Unified School District science department. Of course, while we were there, I was snapping away…
San Francisco Bay Area. I am still endlessly amazed that I actually live here. Within the last week, several different friends have come and gone on their various Bay Area visits, and it’s been a great excuse for me to rediscover the sights that surround me. Berkeley. The view from Ho Chie’s roof deck at…
Wow. It’s been a year. At this time last year, I was visiting the Bay Area and interviewing with Oakland Teaching Fellows. It’s amazing to think how quickly life moves by. The week I was visiting also happened to be Taiwanese American heritage week, and I got to be here for part of the Taiwanese…
Adam Wang is an actor based in Los Angeles. In fact, he’s the killer that James Van Der Beek is chasing down he whole time in Formosa Betrayed. And he delivers some great lines in flawless Mandarin at the end. While he was up here visiting the Bay Area, Adam wanted to do dramatic artsy…
Shawna Yang Ryan is a talented hapa Taiwanese American writer whose debut novel, Water Ghosts, was just released on Thursday. This week, I met up with Shawna for a late-afternoon shoot on the UC Berkeley campus. Read the spotlight article we just posted on TaiwaneseAmerican.org and visit Shawna’s website at shawnayangryan.com to learn more. Last,…
last night, ho chie, a couple friends, and i went to cafe la flore in the richmond district, SF, to see chinese-taiwanese-american indie singer-songwriter alice tong perform. she has an absolutely amazing voice; it’s the type of deep, rich, sound that surprises you as it billows out of such a small, unassuming person. watch a…
as i mentioned in the previous post, TAFers converged on the bay area last weekend, and we had a rather ridiculous photo shoot, inspired by jon and howard’s taiwan glamour shots from five years ago. for those of you who have never experienced asian glamour shots, it basically goes like this: they dress you up,…
at the end of january, our school had a professional development day up at the oakland zoo. it had nothing to do with the zoo– we just used a lodge building that was on the zoo property. but the off-campus outing was quite nice. it’s refreshing to get some perspective with a healthy dose of…