![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Sitting at a desk past the rows of books laid out for the Book Fair, senior Kimberley Walters assists people in purchasing books and finding titles. The Book Fair is taking place Dec. 16 through Dec. 20, and is an annual event during which students and faculty have the opportunity to go and purchase books and other trinkets in the library. Kimberley said she encourages all to go to the Book Fair, even if they think they don’t like to read. “If you make reading something that is fun for you and you find the things that you like to read, it will never be a chore,” Walters said. “So [the Book Fair is] a good opportunity to find something that will respark your want to read [like] when you were a child and you went to the book fair and you loved the ‘I survived’ books. Maybe you'll find your ‘I survived’ books of your high school experience, and it'll re-spark that kind of love for reading that may have died out.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Addie-L-47-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, sophomore Olivia Mahlmeister and seniors Samantha Jameson, Adhit Eswaramoorthi and Justin Khadavi celebrate completing first chamber in the Congress Meet. All four students advanced to the final chamber. “Out of the 20 kids in the final chamber, we had a seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th, and they took the top four to move on to state,” AP US History and Debate teacher Josh Marsh said. “[Even though] we didn't make state this year, all four of them moving on [and] placing is phenomenal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Marsh](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Regional-Congress-Team.jpg)
![Standing in front of a small audience, senior Kimberley Walters shares a social criticism poem titled “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Felinghetti. Every month, sponsored by the poetry club, the library hosts a poetry reading. “I never thought I would be interested in [poetry readings] because I’m not the biggest poetry fan,” Walters said. “I think poetry is a very succinct way to express feelings and get a story across. Whereas lots of books have a span of a whole story, but it’s put in a lot of words. The power of poetry is that you can be so succinct within, and there’s a lot of power within the words that are used.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KIM-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding the Grand Nationals trophies, drum majors Helashi Wijayawardhana, Abigail Pettey and Eddy Kim pose for a photo. The BOA Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis on Nov. 14-17. “My favorite thing was just looking back at the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I know all of their names, I know who all of them are’,” Wijayawardahana said. “It's just insane to me that I was able to make so many connections. [Being a drum major] taught me how to build relationships with people who I’m not really that similar to, and how to juggle a ton of things all together.”
Photo courtesy of CPHS Band SmugMug](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AJC.GrandNatsFinals-169-1200x801.jpg)
![Delicately placing the string to form the shape of a cornucopia, seniors Haley Burton and Avery Nelson create the November arrangement for the Flower of the Month Club. This club is led by Advanced Floral Design Students and provides a monthly arrangement to community members who subscribe to receive them. “I think flower of the month club is a really impactful way to show your loved ones ‘hey I really care about you,’ or even if they’re just for yourself, they’re a little pick-me-up throughout the month that [say] ‘I’m doing ok, and these flowers make my day a little bit brighter,” Nelson said. “I like giving people flowers because people value the flowers more and they value themselves more.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Ava-Holmes-3-edit.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
As an Ariana Grande fan for many years, I have always kept up with and followed her music. After she announced her new album, “eternal sunshine” in January, I knew that I was going to be listening to that album nonstop. Even now, as the album has been out for weeks already, I have not been able to stop listening to it.
On Jan. 12, Grande released the single for this album titled “yes, and?” and it definitely received some feedback from listeners. I had seen a lot of negative reviews about it on TikTok about how the intro to the song was too long, how the message of it wasn’t good and also about the production overall not being so great. Instead of these reviews turning me away from this album, I was instantly curious as to what the album was going to sound like, and was impatiently waiting for it to come out.
On Mar. 8, “eternal sunshine” was released and I had honestly forgotten all about it. On the day that it was released, I kept putting off listening to it because I was a little nervous about it. I really didn’t want a bad album because Grande has never disappointed me. But I finally sat down to listen to it over that weekend, and instantly regretted having not listened to it as soon as it came out.
The album begins with the track “intro (end of the world)” that totally swept me off of my feet. I felt as if it really set the mood for how the rest of the album was going to sound, and it completely dispelled my nervousness. The track has this melodic almost angelic sound to it, and adding Grande’s vocals made me not only impressed but also so excited to listen to the rest of the album.
Jumping ahead to her fourth track in the album is the “saturn returns interlude.” This interlude was sampled from astrologer Diana Garland, who was describing the Saturn Returns period of a person’s life, when Saturn is in the same position as when the person was born, causing them to go through changes and transitions in their life. I think that this is such a powerful thing to have in an album because it alludes to the changes that Grande was going through in her own life. The instrumental over Garland’s descriptions, the way that the audio echoes around itself and the constant repetition of “wake up” gives me full-body chills. Another aspect of this interlude that I love is the way that it fades into the next track, “eternal sunshine,” because it’s such a satisfying thing to listen to.
The tenth track in this album is “we can’t be friends” which came along with a music video. I not only love the song, but I think that the music video is perfect too. Grande’s album was inspired by the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and the idea of wiping away painful memories. The music video goes through that process of her opting to get her memories taken away, and actually forgetting the memories of that lover. I thought that this was such a clever move to do for this music video because of the idea of the song being about waiting for love, and the music video being about forgetting that love. I also love how she took that inspiration from the movie, and applied it to her own music.
The last track in this album is “ordinary things” and it features Nonna, Grande’s grandmother. I love this song because I think that it not only has a nice sound to it, but it also just feels like the perfect way to end this album, especially with her grandma giving advice at the end. Not only does this song sound good, but it has broken records. Grande’s grandmother is now the oldest person to debut on the Hot 100 chart. I also think that it’s such a sweet thing to feature on an album because it really shows how much Grande loves and appreciates her grandmother.
The most underrated tracks of this album in my opinion are “supernatural,” “true story” and “imperfect for you.” I feel like all of these songs are not only so catchy, but also really showcase Grande’s amazing vocals. I also think that the lyrics in all of these songs are so profound and complex, and I feel like they add so much to the rest of the album.
Overall, I absolutely love this album. I went into it thinking that it was going to be disappointing, and came out not being able to stop listening to the album. I think that everything about it is so addicting and enjoyable to listen to.
I give this album 9/10 stars.
