Credit: Maddie Zajac

WSPN’s Maddie Zajac and Marissa Mendoza begin their second year of Humans of WHS as they interview six people about their school year so far.

With the first quarter of the school year ending, Co-Features Editor Maddie Zajac and News Editor Marissa Mendoza interview different students, teachers and staff about how their year is going thus far. Talking to a variety of people, some different perspectives are captured by asking four broad questions.

Freshman Vik Chaudhry
What was your proudest moment this quarter?
“My proudest moment this quarter was definitely becoming class president. It was a lot of hard work and it paid off.”

Who is someone who was essential to helping you make it through this quarter?
“My brother and close friends were essential for me this first quarter. They have always been there for me and I couldn’t thank them enough.”

What are you most afraid of right now?
“Right now I am most afraid of having logistical problems between our fundraising partners [which] could get in the way of [my class’s] success.”

What is something you are looking forward to?
“I’m looking forward to connecting with my eBoard and grade and growing my leadership skills.”

Sophomore Max Curbelo
What is your proudest moment this quarter?
“Getting almost all A’s. I did really bad on a history test the other day, so I’m not too proud of that but besides that, I’ve maintained an A in every single one of my classes.”

Who is someone who was essential to helping you make it through this quarter?
“I would say my friends. You need somebody to lean back on, somebody to tell you everything’s good just in case you fall, they can catch you.”

What are you most afraid of right now?
“Getting in trouble. I’ve been getting in trouble a lot these past few weeks so I’m just [trying to] keep it peaceful and keep getting good grades.”

What is something you are looking forward to?
“Probably learning new tricks on my skateboard. Going to the state park with my friends and just chill [lets me] just forget about all [my] school problems.”

Junior Anna Yalli
What is your proudest moment this quarter?
“My proudest moment this quarter is probably getting almost 100 on my Spanish test, because I struggle in Spanish, and I was really proud. I think I finally used a good study technique, a new study technique, and it helped.”

Who is someone who was essential to helping you make it through this quarter?
“I’d say my friends because they helped me in math when I wasn’t understanding. And then in other classes, I always can ask my friends for help.”

What are you most afraid of right now?
“What I’m afraid of right now is starting the new quarter [because] I’m hoping that I can get good grades again. It’s stressful to go from one [quarter] to another because I feel so solid in having a good grade already, and then I have to work up to getting another good grade in the next quarter.”

What is something you are looking forward to?
“I’m looking forward to states for volleyball because our schedule comes out on Tuesday, so I’m just excited to see how far we go. It’s just fun continuing the season, and we just want to get far. I just hope we get further than last year and it’s going to be fun.”

Senior Brady Spencer
What is your proudest moment this quarter?
“[My proudest moment this quarter] is doing good all quarter long. I expected it to be a little hard, but I powered through and triumphed through all of my tough quizzes and ended up doing well.”

Who is someone who was essential to helping you make it through this quarter?
“Someone quintessential to my success [this quarter] is, without a doubt, [Sarah] Pourghasemi who has helped me through troubled times, aiding me with help and being a personal mentor.”

What are you most afraid of right now?
“What I’m most afraid of right now is getting rejected from all the colleges I applied to,” Spencer said. “I want to further my education, and getting rejected from all my dream schools would be super despairing.”

What is something you are looking forward to?
“What I’m looking forward to is getting to enjoy all the senior events, and just relaxing for the rest of the year after I’ve gotten into the school I wanted to. And having a good senior year.”

Physics teacher Paul Shiffler
What is your proudest moment this quarter?
“I am really proud of helping both my college freshman and my college juniors get into college successfully, they seem happy and doing a good job there. As a parent you obviously [get] pretty worried about certain things but it all worked out. You just take it little by little and there are never any giant disasters, just small problems that you try to overcome.”

Who is someone who was essential to helping you make it through this quarter?
“Probably my physics colleagues Mr. Froberg, Ms. Kreutter and Mr. Rideout. They’re always there if I have any questions on teaching, subjects [or] getting stuff ready. They’re just always there to help out.”

What are you most afraid of right now?
“You always hope when you get to this time of year, you make sure you’ve taken care of all those things you need to take care of. You got students that have make-up work, you got make-up assignments [and] I have college recommendations that I need to upload to Naviance. There are all kinds of little things you wanna make sure you get right. Cause this seems like a big stretch right before Thanksgiving break so I think little things can seem a lot bigger, but you just gotta act on them. You need to force yourself to do it.”

What is something you are looking forward to?
“Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, it’s fun. I don’t really know why, it’s kind of a low pressure holiday. We never travel on Thanksgiving so I don’t have to worry about traveling, [and] I get to spend time with [my] family.”

Librarian Jennifer McGillis
What is your proudest moment this quarter?
“My proudest moment so far this quarter was I started teaching one portion of seminar and just getting all the kids engaged in that. It’s been going good. I just did an offset so it wasn’t the whole seminar. I [will] truly start in December, but I did just one class on B days because there were three seminars scheduled at the same time, so we had to split up.”

Who is someone who was essential to helping you make it through this quarter?
“I would have to say Mrs. O’Connell, my co-yearbook advisor, because we could not do what we do without each other. And if I could name one more person, I would say, of course, Ms. Smith, who is essential here in the library to help me get everything done.”

What are you most afraid of right now?
“[Right now] I am most afraid of all of the seniors not getting in their content for the yearbook. [The yearbook] not being done and having blank spots for people’s baby pictures or quotes [is] stressful.”

What is something you are looking forward to?
“I’m looking forward to seeing what all the [seniors] dress up as for Halloween.”