May Z., Senior — Interview conducted by Araddhya Tibrewall
March 9, 2023: Droplets are falling from the sky, and the bell rings, cutting sharply through the air. I click record. “Welcome May,” and the interview has begun.
Araddhya: Hi May, what’s up?
May: Hi Araddhya, how’s it going?
Araddhya: It’s a rainy day.
May: Yeah it’s kinda scary. Actually there’s going to be a softball game today, the first softball game, but I guess it’s not a happy day.
Araddhya: Wait, nice, does CPS have a softball team or do you play outside?
May: Yeah we have one this year, after 3 years. (!!!)
Araddhya: You all should make an assembly announcement!
May: Yeah I think we’re making one next week. We have exactly the right amount of people to play games.
Araddhya: So let’s get started. If you could only choose one song every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what would it be?
May: Oh my gosh. I was talking about this to Angela this morning because I didn’t know what to say. I think “When I’m Gone,” like the cup song, because I want people to miss me when I leave.
Araddhya: So sweet. *laughs*
May: It’s a catchy song that’s going to get stuck in my head.
Araddhya: Okay, what is something unique about you that your classmates might not know?
May: *long pause* I don’t know. Wait, wait, wait, let me think…
Araddhya: Maybe that you did a speech on bananas.
May: But I feel like a lot of people know that about me. I don’t know, I’m kind of boring! Can we do this later?
Araddhya: Yeah, we’ll come back to it. Looking back at your experience at CPS, what is something that you will never forget? This can be a sports team, a memory, a teacher…
May: Probably just the little moments. You know I could be doing this every day, but then it’ll hit me and then I’ll realize how cool it is. If I’m doing math with some people and we do this every day, then I realize, “oh this is so cool, I get to geek out about math and have a great time talking about numbers.” You know, stuff like that.
Araddhya: What are you looking forward to in the future? This can be college, your summer, your last few weeks here, whatever scope.
May: Probably just more independence. Like I wanna do spontaneous things, and just go for it. It can be really small. Like, one day I wanna eat cheesecake for breakfast, so I go and buy something for myself and eat it. Something small.
Araddhya: If you could say thank you to one room at CPS, what would it be?
May: Probably the practice room. The music building. Probably because I’ve had a lot of great moments there. It’s always, like, a comfort space, and I can take a nap there.
Araddhya: What do you feel like you have accomplished?
May: Probably not doing everything that a typical person should do or what my parents wanted me to do. Probably just having a lot of good conversations. I’m proud 0f myself for living in the moment and getting to know people and all their interesting interests rather than overfocusing on myself and my accomplishments.
(We come back to this…)
Araddhya: What is something unique about you that your classmates might not know?
May: Something that people don’t really know about me is that I play the Chinese bamboo flute, and that I’m in this Chinese orchestra. We play a group of traditional instruments. We have an orchestra and a performance. It’s pretty cool, but I’m used to it since I’ve been doing it since fourth grade, but we have a concert this weekend, so Araddhya if you want to check it out…
Araddhya: Totally. Give us more details. Where do you perform?
May: I think it’s in Santa Clara. It’s going to be, like, 2 hours. I’m also going to MC the show, so you’ll be hearing a lot from me. I wrote a few music jokes.
Araddhya: Cool!
May: They’re really bad, but I’m hoping at least a few people laugh.
Araddhya: I will. Thanks so much, May.