![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)
Driving into the school, a student driver is looking for a spot to park in, moving their head from left to right, they try to find an empty spot when they notice…Homer Simpson?
Before the beginning of the school year, dozens of senior students camped out in the school parking lot and poured hours of work into painting their senior parking spots. They vary in design and range from movie poster parodies and video game characters to even Michael Jordan. Students bought a $40 pass to park on campus through the AP website and seniors were offered the option to paint a parking spot for an additional $75. The painting costs varied with how many supplies students needed for their design.
Seniors Hadrian Hurn and Mercy Forrister are two of the many of the seniors who decided to paint the parking spots purchased from the school’s Project Grad fundraiser. Hurn and Forrister had the idea to paint Lightning McQueen and Sally, from the movie “Cars,” wearing graduation hats.
“I think we wanted to start out with something that was Disney related,” Forrister said. “We kind of went through our ideas of just couples in Disney, like Wally and Eve. Those were our other ideas. But then we got around to it and we were like, that’s a very good idea.”
But they weren’t the only ones who painted a movie. Starting her new adventure, senior Alivia Robinson also themed her parking spot off a Pixar movie; she painted the flying house from the movie “Up.”
“I got help from my family painting my parking spot,” Robinson said. “I really wanted my spot to be more colorful and stand out more. My sister actually helped me with my spot. Whenever she was a senior, she didn’t get to paint her spot.”
Some parking spots take longer to paint than others. For example, it took Hurn and Forrister over 13 hours to paint their spot across multiple days.
“We were there on Saturday night,” Forrister said. “We stayed overnight waiting in line until 10 in the morning and then we painted for six or seven hours that day. And then on Aug. 29, we did another four hours. It wasn’t that long, but we went, and we finished all the details of the smaller bits. Some were less complicated, ours was more detailed.”
Hurn and Forrister experienced many challenges and inconveniences while painting their spots, but managed to pull through.
“The worst part about painting our parking spots was getting sunburned from standing out there,” Hurn said. “We came back yesterday and there was a bunch of paint that was missing from the cars and stuff, but whatever!”
Robinson spent about 10 hours painting her spot, but also had to juggle softball practice and being able to find time to paint.
“I camped out overnight to paint my parking spot,” Robinson said. “As soon as I got my spot, I had to hurry to softball practice. We selected the spot at 10 a.m. and I had practice at 11 a.m., so I had to go home, get ready and then rush back. I got to paint my spot starting at like 3 or 4 p.m. and I stayed until about 9pm, so I had to come back another day.”
Many people decided to camp out overnight to ensure they were able to paint their spots.
“The people who spent the night were mainly athletes or dancers,” Robinson said. “Since there are limited spots in the back and in the athletic area, we all wanted to make sure we got the spot we wanted. For me, I wanted a spot in the back and on the curb.”
Since Robinson painted the house from “Up,” she included the balloons attached to the house, which, according to her, were one of the hardest parts to paint.
“It was mainly hard because, painting all those balloons, you mess one up and then you’d have to redo multiple of them,” Robinson said. “I did the balloons last, it was late and I just wanted to go home.”
Painting a spot has its many challenges. If students are thinking of painting one, Hurn and Forrister shared some advice to keep in mind.
“Buy a little bit more paint than you think you’ll need,” Forrister said. “Bring some sort of fan because it definitely gets hot. Be creative and do something that you think represents yourself, but don’t take it too seriously, it’s all fun and games. I’m glad we did what we did. Do what you like to do, it doesn’t matter what other people think.”
