Look Mom, No Training Wheels
Oh my gumdrops, hello everyone! I am so excited to be in this year's cohort for Q-Fest 2025! There is so much I get to do now that I am going for a second time around, and so much I get to reflect on from when I was there as well. For my very first blog, I wanted to be in high spirits for what I am getting into for another year of movie watching and judging! Going into this program for a second time is honestly a blessing for me because not only do I get to critique movies like it’s my job, but I also get to enjoy the beautiful city of San Francisco again. This city really is a once in a lifetime kind of experience. It is my mom’s dream city to go to and a city that holds a lot of memories for me from my previous cohort. This year I am excited to be in a leadership position where I can help guide some newer members of the cohort to places that they might enjoy! Here is a brief overview of my pre-trip thoughts and ideas going into the trip.
As you can tell by the title, I no longer have my training wheels on my bike; I can have some confidence in what I am doing and what to look forward to. One of the destinations that I will be heading back to for this trip is Chinatown. Not only was it huge, but it felt like I saw so much culture in one place, and it was really awesome to see this community essentially thrive on its own, especially with their own little world. Food is also to die for! Another place that I will be going to again is the Japanese Tea Gardens, this place was stunning and was a feature in one of my 180s in the previous year.
The goal for my 180s this time around is to get at least one or two on Castro Street. We are there often, but the theater is closed again this year for renovations. I hope to do more about what I see on Castro Street, specifically about the new addition to the Frameline film festival, the Juneteenth celebration block party. This was unique to last year and is happening again, and I want to cover this mainly because we are in a big city for this kind of event with lots of diversity. It makes you feel like you were always meant to be there.
During this experience for the second time, I want to hopefully work on learning about intersecting identities that are in the San Francisco area. This can include any kind of identity, but I always want to step into a topic I can learn a lot about, and I would like to learn about disability awareness in San Francisco. As anyone could guess, San Fran is not accessible at all, like it’s worse than you can imagine. Guess what? So is Eau Claire! One of the most distinctive factors is the hills in both cities. On campus we have the dreaded hill and in San Francisco everything is a dreaded hill. There is a lot of correlation between the two and it wasn’t discussed much last year when it came to presentation topics, so if it isn’t my group that is doing it, I would love to see another group do it!
Another issue that we face in Eau Claire is a lack of diverse queer people. This is something I would find interesting to focus on as well. How does San Fran support their diverse queer community and how we can take notes? Finally, research-wise I would love to learn more about the huge political climate that San Francisco has and compare it to Eau Claire. In all honesty, there isn’t much to compare. San Francisco is the place to be if you want to support any kind of morally correct movement. I would love to investigate the past political climate and how it built the current one.
With that, it’s a wrap on my first blog! I cannot wait to ride my fictional bike with no training wheels, which in translation is being a leader and helping others to make this trip just as good as the first time I went! I can’t wait to see what this cohort will bring back this year, and all the different memories that will come from this trip. I also cannot wait to see what presentations that we bring back as well! There is so much potential with this group, and I am excited to see what we do this year! To the previous cohort members reading, I hope you are proud of us!
