Greetings, friends!
We hope this note reaches you in good spirits, healthy and safe. 2025 was a beautiful year for us, and we’re grateful for so many happy memories.
Ian (Wan Xiao-An) is a happy and healthy 9.5 year old who is super into building LEGO and Minecraft, making pottery, and reading books about science, animals, and fun facts. He’s thriving at Berkwood Hedge School and loves Woodshop and Latin classes the most.
Jessica continues with her many projects…and added a few more. :)
She’s in her third year running her executive coaching business and also works part-time with Raisewell Ventures and the Teams@Haas program at Cal. If you or someone you know is looking for a coach, reach out at j@jessicawan.com. Jessica specializes in 1:1 coaching for execs & senior leaders across multiple industries, including the arts, tech, startups, and nonprofits.
Interest in The Ampersand Manifesto podcast continues to grow. Jessica co-hosted in-person Ampersand Summits in SF and NYC, and she’s now also co-leading an online community of Ampersands called The Cohort.
She performed a recital The Moon & Me in October, which we recorded and now lives on via YouTube, Spotify, etc!
This year, she also joined the Berkwood Hedge School Board, achieved a bodyweight deadlift, and became a fractional Broadway investor in the new musical Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).
John still teaches a whole lot of undergrads.
Berkeley’s brand new College of Computing, Data Science, and Society just granted its first degrees: over 1,700 graduates across its Computer Science, Data Science, and Statistics majors.
LILT continues to develop some pretty fancy AI tools for translation and multilingual content generation (and we’re hiring).
His beloved little sailboat Cricket carried him safely to San Francisco, Tiburon, Sausalito, and Angel Island.
Sesame held her very first Office Hours for EECS students on the Glade. She got excellent reviews.
Highlights of the year:
We got to be part of three beautiful weddings in Napa, Berlin, and Chicago!
We did our 2nd year at Cazadero Performing Arts Family Camp, which filled us up with creativity, connection, and wonder. An extended campervan trip after took us to Mendocino and amazing tide pools.
We visited some of our favorite places: Berlin, Amsterdam, Maui, Tahoe, LEGOLand, Lake Minnetonka, Montréal, & NYC.
We got really, really close to a panda.
We got to babysit the new Berkwood Hedge chickens while they were still baby chicks!
Thank you for being a part of our lives! Wishing you a wonderful 2026!
