![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)
![“I was very happy to hear the OG season was coming back,” junior Gulin Gurbuz said. “It’s very nostalgic for me and I am sad [the old map] is gone now. Fortnite has definitely made me more friends because it lets me talk to a lot of different people, and it [also] helps strengthen [our] connections.” Fortnite images courtesy of Epic Games](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/fortnite-1200x687.png)
A loud blare echoes in the headsets of many, indicating that the circle has once again reduced in size. As player after player runs from the damage-inflicting storm, fights break out amongst those who spot each other. Weapons that have not been available in over two years are seen throughout the map and places that are reminiscent of a past era bring about a sense of nostalgia. Inside of a one-by-one hut built solely for the purpose of reviving teammates and taking a chug jug, players begin to feel as though they are reliving the time that Fortnite struck the world for the first time.
Fortnite, considered the world’s most popular video game in 2021, re-released their original map on Nov. 3, 2023. After this update, the Epic Games franchise began to see a significant increase in the number of players, sales and demand. After many speculations and player requests for Fortnite OG—a term used to refer to the original Fortnite version from when the game first swept the globe—to come back, Epic Games announced the return of the classic weapons and widely-known locations.
“I was very happy to hear the OG season was coming back,” junior Gulin Gurbuz said. “It’s very nostalgic for me and I am sad [the old map] is gone now. Fortnite has definitely made me more friends because it lets me talk to a lot of different people, and it [also] helps strengthen [our] connections.”
Senior Charles Frease similarly said that he was excited for the new season’s release and that he has begun to play much more with friends than in the past. One of the reasons people play online games is to build further connections with others, and Fortnite succeeds in doing just that.
“I play Fortnite around one to two times per day with friends,” Frease said. “I played the game on the first day the map came back and it was so fun seeing all the nostalgic memories of the old places on the map.”
However, many players believe that although the OG map and weapons returned, the game did not have the same atmosphere that it used to. As the generation that was brought up on Fortnite grew, it became difficult to recreate the same vibes that were once present, considering the past target audience aren’t as young anymore.
“I was very happy to hear about OG Fortnite coming back because I had missed how Fortnite used to be and I was hoping that the gameplay would feel that same as it used to,” sophomore Cole Elliott said. “I think the game has already started to die down because of how fast updates are coming. Everybody liked when the game was in its prime, [and] not after the updates kept being added.”
As Fortnite continues to bring in a larger audience, the corporation of Epic Games has utilized Fortnite’s “item shop,” in which players are able to customize their characters with unique skins, backblings, pickaxes, and more.
“I have bought a few skins since the rerelease happened,” Frease said. “I’ve probably spent about 40 bucks on the game within the past month, and it’s really easy to spend money without realizing the total amount [I’m spending]. When you’re playing games with friends, it’s really easy for them to persuade you into buying things, and this is what happened to me with Fortnite.”
Due to the large demand and popularity that the original map garnered, Fortnite has announced that there will once again be another return of the OG Fortnite in 2024.
“I have definitely heard people talking about Fortnite and I think a lot of people started playing again,” Gurbuz said. “While I don’t think I’ll play the game for much longer, I’m excited to know that OG Fortnite will return again, and that I can experience the same game as I grow older.”
