Gigi K., senior — interview conducted by Angela Wang
Wednesday, March 15th, 2023, 11:50: We’re sitting at the bench before the glass screens of the student commons. I click record. “Welcome, Gigi.” The interview has begun…
Angela: All right. The first question is, you could choose only one song to play every time you walk into a room. What song would it be?
Gigi: Saoko by Rosalia. Yeah. Because I love Rosalia. Yeah. And that song is so good.
Angela: I have a friend who’s really into Rosalia!
Gigi: Oh my god, who?
Angela: Sophia Heseltine.
Gigi: Okay. Yeah, I think she's on my intraterm.
Angela: *laughs* Uh...she has a poster of Rosalia without a shirt on in her room.
Gigi: Oh my god. I have that hanging in my room, but my mom made me take it down. It was a really sad tragedy in my life.
Angela:
Our second question is what is something unique about you that your classmates might not know?
Gigi: I had a goat, who I saw give birth to triplets. Her name was Maybelline. She gave birth to triplets and they were like little baby goats—like cat-sized goats, but they would follow my cat everywhere and look in their little row of three, and the cat was terrified. And so she'd run up trees, and the goats would try to follow her up the trees, and they were able to get up, but then the goats would get stuck, and the cat would get stuck further up the tree...that's not really about me, but I don't know.
Angela: They were cat-sized goats?
Gigi: Yeah, because they were babies. And then they grew up, and they were like normal-sized goats.
Angela: Do you still have all 3?
Gigi: Well, our neighbors have them, so we can see them, but they're not ours. And now we have a pig named Shelby Bacon.
Angela: Is that the one on campus news?
Gigi: Yes. Yeah.
Angela:
Looking back at your experience at CPS, what is something you'll never forget?
Gigi: This is kind of a bad answer, but my freshman year in my English class, there was this one kid who was very, like—it was super slay. But then, once we were reading the Odyssey, and there's the scene where Odysseus is, like, cooking some meat. And the teacher was like, what do you think this means? And he was like, I think it means that Odysseus is quite literally cooking meat. And that just really stuck with me, because it was such a wrong interpretation, but it really stuck with me. I feel like there are a lot of experiences like that at CPS. I feel like it's a common CPS thing: people speaking with confidence, but also being totally wrong. And it's so funny, and I love it.
Angela: *laughs* Alright. What are you looking forward to in the future?
Gigi: I guess I'm looking forward to, I don't know, going to school and meeting more new people. At CPS, I've gotten to know who I want to get to know, or like I feel like, very comfortable here. But I want to be in an environment where I like seeing new people every day, right?
Angela: What kind of school size would that be for you?
Gigi: I don't know. I feel like anything is gonna be bigger than CPS. Maybe like, bigger than 3000 people.
Angela:
If you could say thank you to one room and CPS, which room would it be?
Gigi: Aminah’s office.
Angela: Interesting! No one’s said that yet.
Gigi: Really?! Aminah’s office is the one-room where its always very warm, and there are good snacks. And there’s conversation. But also, Aminah’s not always there anymore. But I guess that’s made me even more grateful when she is there.
Angela: That's true. Very true. All right. Our last question is, what do you feel like you've accomplished within or outside of CPS?
Gigi: I feel like I've done a lot of things that I'm bad at, but done them anyway. Like I joined the volleyball team in my junior year. When they were like you're a junior, so you can't be on frosh-soph, because you're a junior, you have to be JV, and then after one day on JV, they were like, okay, no, no, we'll make an exception for you and they put me on frosh-soph. It was so good. And I was terrible. Like I was so bad at volleyball, but I did it anyway. Same thing with musicals. I hate singing—I cannot do it. Now I’m doing swim, and I'm so slow. I'm like crawling through the pool. And everyone else is laughing at me. I think my time is like—I don't actually know this. I'm making this up. My time is probably like triple what the varsity players are doing.
Angela: I commend you for trying these new things! Not that many people do that. It’s really cool!
Gigi: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like more people at CPS should take advantage of the fact that sports are bad here, you know.
Angela: Do you like the swim team so far?
Gigi: I love it. I love it. It's so fun. I'm so bad at it. It's so fun. I feel like that's so good. Yeah, I don't know.
Angela: What's fun about it?
Gigi: I don't know. It's just a blast. I feel like it doesn't feel like exercise and also the coach Avi. He’s really funny. And the other coach Anthony. He's just a character! Like he went on this rant about like, why he doesn't have a beard and the purpose of beards. Like, they're both kind of odd people, and it's funny to be coached by them.
Angela: That is weird. I mean I guess one other thing about swimming is that you're not really sweating.
Gigi: Yeah, exactly. And it's like nice. Like, I love being in the pool. It feels like vacation.
Angela: That's true. What are you gonna do this summer?
Gigi: Ooh, I'm going backpacking with my friends on the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
Angela: In Spain?! That's pretty expensive. It sounds.
Gigi: Yeah. Well, we've kind of figured out we bought hostels. And it's also like a group of, like, nine of us. Costs are divided and like, pretty well. But yeah, I got excited.
Angela: Well, that’s the end of the interview. Good talking to you, Gigi!
Gigi: Thank you so much!
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