Western Regional Conference

The conference was a disappointment ):

The theme was "Unchecked Boxes: The Faces Behind the Labels." It sounded interesting, the workshop names sounded cool, and I had heard positive reviews of the conference from years past. However, I didn't really learn anything new, and I didn't have much opportunity to interact with people in the workshops I attended.

So on Friday, I went to SJSU campus. A while after 17h00, Ton drove Shiva, Theresa S, Nikole(?), and me to Berkeley. Traffic on 101 and 880 -_- Got to Berkeley around 19h00. Registered in the MLK Student Union, got a yellow bag (included a pen, conference evaluations, program, an ad for QACON, and a T-shirt). Found out that Shiva and I were to room with Thien V and Steven P, who was planning on having people in our room for night-time fun/partying in 307. Not happy. Went to the opening keynote speech stuff. Did not pay attention much because I was sick (for the whole weekend too, and I had gotten Shiva sick too, sorry!).

Dinner with Shiva, Ton, Paul W (Shiva's friend), Jason, Diana, Alex L, Michelle P, and Cathy B at the so-called "Asian Ghetto." Shiva and I split a Tom Kha from the Thai food place. We and a few others bought food from the Thai place and brought it over to the Italian place to eat with the other half of the group.

Then time to go to La Quinta Inn to check into our rooms. Shiva and I had asked to room with another group of people because we wanted undisturbed sleep. Stayed with Crystal, Karishma, Cathy, and Michelle in 224. Six people, two beds. Still a comfy fit. Shiva and I slept sometime around midnight or 1 (I don't remember).

Saturday morning was an early start. Alarms went off at 7h00. Continental breakfast. Michelle drove us and Cathy to the conference. Initially, we were going to take the bus ($2 one-way), but we realized it would be slightly cheaper to drive and park. When we got to the Berkeley campus, we all went to the opening ceremony. Again, did not pay enough attention (though, the speeches didn't motivate me much anyway when I did listen closely). Too sniffly and coughy. I brought my bandanna to tie around my face so that I wouldn't be coughing all over the place and all over people. I felt like a wannabe gangster XD But the bandanna was useful. It helped me breathe easily at times.

So Shiva and I went to all the same workshops because we were interested in pretty much the same ones: how to raise a gender-neutral child; comparative fluidity of sexuality and ethnicity; transitioning from academia to the workplace--coming/being out in the workplace; and media portrayal of homosexuality. The actual workshop names were generally in the same ballpark as these descriptions.

One of the workshops that Shiva and I both wanted to go to was for Queer and Asian people, but it was canceled at the beginning of the conference ):

So you know, when I hear the word "workshop," I usually think of a group of people learning new tricks, methods and/or ideas to apply to their work or life. However, none of the workshops I went to did this. The facilitators (mostly other college students) did not teach anything new. They would say one or two things and then let the audience say opinions. The facilitators didn't even really comment much on the opinions. So I couldn't really connect what many people were saying with what the purpose of workshop was supposed to be. Also, there were tangents and secants. I found myself listening to the stories and opinions, agreeing and disagreeing but not really connecting to the comments. I don't know how to explain it.

Oh, when Shiva and I went to the fourth workshop, we left after a few minutes. Shiva asked one of the facilitators about the workshop, and they said that the actual workshop did not fit the description that was in the program. So disappointed. It was supposed to be about how the media perpetuates homophobia and negative images about the queer community. Instead, the workshop was to let people create "ally maps," a map of your support system. Nothing to do with media apparently... So yeah, we left. Went back to the MLK building, up to the fourth floor; Shiva and I laid on the ground to rest because my tummy had been hurting since a little while after lunch. I'm sure people were wondering why there were two people lying on the ground haha...

Afterward, at 16h30, it was Storytime. Meeting in supposedly large groups of people according to first name groups. I stayed with Shiva because I didn't feel like searching for the place I should have gone to for Storytime.

Storytime itself with Shiva's group was a bit mundane. The two facilitators, Eric and Sol(?), didn't really do much to keep the group going. Nor did most other people, definitely including myself haha. Long stretches of silence with the facilitators asking, "Would anyone like to share a story?" When someone did share a story, Eric would just say, "Thank you for sharing. Would anyone else like to share?" It was like he was stuck on repeat. He shared one short story of his own. A few people shared twice. About half the group didn't share anything. Shiva shared our story about the guy who yelled "NOOO!" at us when we kissed. But anyway, eventually, Shiva and I left early after an extremely long silence.

We had been hoping that Storytime would make up for the workshops, but it didn't. Instead, it provided stories that mostly meant nothing or stupidity. Very few were actually entertaining or meant something important. The one story I can remember that I liked was from the girl who went to Viet Nam to study and work with the deaf community in Hanoi. Her story was awesome hahaha XD

Mm, so the "free" lunch that came after the second session was meh. I got a vegetarian sandwich (a chunk of avocado and a bunch of sprouts on ciabatta bread), macaroni salad (couldn't eat it; made me feel sick after a few bites), fruit chunks (watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, and pineapple--decent), and a cookie (tastiest part of the whole meal).

Dinner was troublesome. Miscommunication, delays, and such. Shiva, Paul, Ton, Michelle, three WRC people (Terra, Matt, and a girl whose name I don't remember), and I went to an Indian restaurant (called Naan... something...). Paul didn't want to go there and wanted to check other places, but the group went there anyway. He wasn't happy because (later he told me) he was telling everyone that that particular restaurant sucked--the food wasn't that great, the service was bad, and he had seen the workers spit in people's food before. Ultimately, Paul paid for the buffet and didn't eat because he was upset (he wasn't just upset about the food situation though, just so you know).

After dinner, Paul left abruptly but came back immediately. Ton left to go back to the hotel. While Shiva and Michelle went to Michelle's car, I went with Paul to Blondie's so he could eat pizza. Talked with him. Matt and Terra joined us. Talked about the conference and workshops. Generally not too impressed.

Afterward, Paul and I went to go meet up with Shiva and Michelle on campus. Paul was going to leave but didn't. Hung out, walked around looking for restrooms. MLK and surrounding buildings were all closed. MLK was closed in preparation for the dance. So the four of us walked to Dwinelle to find a restroom. Something was going on there, so the women's restroom had a line. Ooh, the restrooms had signs that said the restrooms were to be gender-neutral for the weekend because of the conference. Except women still went into the women's and men still went into the men's. Sad haha. Michelle and Paul left to go to the MLK. Shiva and I went up to the third floor to use the restroom. Empty and open. Woohoo! Old school restroom, so spacious. Reminded me of a dormitory restroom.

Met up with Michelle and Paul again at MLK. Were about to go in to the dance. Except I read a sign posted outside that said "NO (something), NO WEAPONS, NO BOTTLES." I realized that both Shiva and I were carrying our knives XD I pointed it out. Whew. Would have been so bad to go through the metal detector with all the cops standing right there. Though the knives are legal, they probably would have kicked us out and not let us in. So we all went back to Michelle's car to put away the knives.

Sat near the entrance to the parking garage for a while to talk. Learned a little bit about the romantic(?) pasts of Shiva, Paul, and Michelle. The sky was lightly sprinkling. We walked back to the MLK. Got inside. There was a drag show going on. I find it sad that though I've seen drag kings and queens in person already (at QTIP's drag show last year), I'm still kinda uncomfortable seeing them now. I dunno why I am, but yeah. It could be all the make-up that they put on that scares me. That could possibly be it--excessive make-up on anyone would scare me.

Anyway, the dance itself started sometime before 23h00, which was sad because the dance was supposed to end at midnight. But I wasn't really into the dancing. I tried to get into it, but I just wasn't feeling it. I really had wanted to just go back to the hotel and sleep. Or just sit somewhere and not be around so many people. But I stayed at the dance. Interesting dance moves that people do nowadays. It seemed that there is a new stomping kinda dance craze for some songs. I don't know. A lot of people seemed to be doing the same thing, so that's my assumption. Mm, so when Shiva was finally really getting into the dancing and the music, the dance ended XP Sad. They should have started the dance earlier or made it last longer.

So, back to the car. In the pouring rain. Back to the hotel. Late-night leftover Tom Kha dinner with Shiva, so that we could take Tylenol Cold. Ton came into our room with the other four girls to talk and eventually to sleep on the floor because his roommates, as well as floormates, were too loud.

Btw, Shiva and I are, or at least I am, surprised. So at 2 in the morning, we were out of our room looking for a recycling bin. Couldn't find one, so went back to our room. I ran up the stairs, and Shiva chased me XD As we were running back to the room, a guy who worked at the hotel yelled at us because there were people trying to sleep and we were making too much noise. So we walked. Later in the morning when we woke up, we found out that the third floor people were chatting and partying it up all night and morning without any complaints -_- Grr.

Anyway, Sunday morning. Were supposed to wake up around 7h45. Got up around 8h15. Got ready and packed some stuff. Had another continental breakfast. Back to the room to pack the rest of our stuff. Shiva and I brought our stuff out to Ton's car. Theresa and Nikole weren't riding with us back to SJ. Ton drove us to the conference. We were late. Did not want to be late for the fifth workshop because Shiva had been told that the "Fuck the Media: I Love My Queer Body" workshop would be a good one. One of the conference organizers had said so; he had also told her that we had went to all the bad workshops or something. So yeah, we rushed to get to this workshop.

The three of us were twenty minutes late, I think. Was hopeful that we didn't miss anything important. We didn't. But we didn't really experience anything different from the other workshops we had been to. Three facilitators choosing audience members to speak up about body image. Only heard one person specifically mention anything about queer image. But quickly the comments turned back to just body image in general.

So the three of us left about twenty minutes before the end of the workshop. Felt rude, but we didn't feel like subjecting ourselves to redundancy (dunno if that's the right word to use). Lost Ton for a while. Went searching for him. Couldn't reach him by phone. So I told Shiva to go to another workshop that she had wanted to check out, which was about talking about gay marriage in South Asian cultures. I found Ton, who had to go back to the workshop because he dropped the parking garage ticket somewhere. While I waited for him, Shiva called me and told me that the other workshop had been canceled at the last minute ):

So the three of us decided to just go home. Except we had a few bouts of panic before leaving Berkeley. Shiva couldn't find her camera, yellow WRC bag, and later her iPod. Found all of them. Camera was hidden very well in her messenger bag; yellow bag was taken by Michelle by accident; and iPod had been placed in my backpack (I didn't put it there!). Ton then couldn't find his cell phone. Rushed back to the inn and checked the room. Found his cell phone and a cookie XD

Then we were out of Berkeley. Sadly, we didn't get to go to the marina. But we did see the bay for a bit along the freeway. Now, Shiva wants to go to the beach again :P

Little traffic. Got back to SJSU within an hour. So fast...


So I feel like the workshops could have been so much better if the facilitators had been trained beforehand, so that they could better direct the workshops. You know, instead of saying a thing or two and letting the audience speak. While it is good that we are learning something from our neighbors in the audience, the facilitator should add in more insight, knowledge, and advice. Do something to engage the unengaged. Tell us something that we don't already know (Shiva and I felt like we had already learned in school everything that was spoken). Have extra facilitators on standby to take over if the main ones can't make it, so that workshops won't get canceled so easily. And since the workshops were mostly full of attendees speaking, they should all be called "caucuses" instead, like the Femme Caucus and the Masculine Caucus (I kinda wish I had attended the Femme one because Mackenzie L, Mallory V, and Theresa S were facilitating that one, I think, and attendees spoke highly of it).

I dunno. Maybe I'm being too negative or critical, or I was too sick to enjoy the conference. But I was greatly disappointed. It also felt like everything was crammed into the days, so that there was no time to really kick back and talk to a lot of people.


But anyway, that is the gist of the weekend I had. Not completely satisfying, but the group of friends with which Shiva and I shared a room made the weekend bearable and fun. Good conversations that helped pick things up a little.

Oh, btw, BMUN was this weekend as well. Saw high school students in suits and formal wear. Brought back some memories. Mostly of BMUN training haha. But yeah, I was hoping to run into Madame or Phipps somewhere, but I wasn't free for much of the days to run into anyone sadly.

That's all I can recall at this moment. So good night. I'll add more if I remember anything else. Hopefully something pleasant.


Oh oh, wait, I never updated about Queer Prom. It was great! I mean, Shiva and I showed up late to the setup. But the dance turned out pretty well. The ballroom was so big that it looked like there weren't that many people there. But it turned out that almost as many people showed up this year as last year. So that's good. DJ played amazing music (Kaskade and Deadmau5!). Photographer (friend, Phil) did an amazing job. Most attendees seemed to be pleased with him. His shots were pretty good too. It was also great to see friends dancing. Amy, Lisa, Stephanie, and Christine came. So did Harrison and Marian L. Fun to watch them dance. There was a massive conga line. Just a bunch of good stuff. Some bad stuff happened, but I didn't find out till a few days later though. Some guy was drunk and passed out in the men's room. Also, the maturity level of a few people could have been higher. But anyway, yeah, that's it.

Ok, sleep time haha.