Humans of WPGA Vol. 2 – Logan and Sophie

By Julia Bohnen (’24), pictures by Anderson Gao (’24)

Each Humans of WPGA volume showcases short profiles of students who attend our school. Aimed at bringing our community closer during this year of intended connection, we hope that HOWPGA allows you to see inside the lives of students attending our school and encourages you to seek connections with people you’ve yet to meet. And who knows, maybe you’ll meet a new friend, or a few! 

Logan Roberts (24’) is new to WPGA this year and shared some holiday musings for this December issue!

“My name is Logan Roberts and I am in Grade 10 this year. I’ve been at the school for about three months. I’m on the swim team, the  JV basketball team and the ski team. I also go to Service Council and Model UN. This is my first week of normal PE (at the time this interview was held) and we’re going to the fitness centre and after our class’s workout we all got Timbits from Ms Leblanc.  

I lived in Australia for 6 months in grade seven so I have been to four schools, one in Australia. I’ve spent two Christmases in Australia and I will say that the Christmas experience on the Australian continent is very different from here! It’s definitely not as big and it’s very strange to experience because it’s quite warm and there’s definitely not as many decorations. People don’t call their Christmas break, Christmas break; it’s always referred to as winter break or summer break I guess. I really missed Canada’s Christmases because it’s definitely a more traditional experience here with having hot chocolate and cookies and there’s not so much of that in Australia. 

I think when to start listening to Christmas music depends on the year and on yourself but I’ve been really excited for Christmas this year so I started quite soon after Halloween. But, my parents usually outlaw it until December 1st! Don’t restrict your Christmas music listening until then because you can only enjoy it for a certain amount of weeks until Christmas. But, if you start in November then you have upwards of two months! I don’t really listen to the radio much but I think in Australia when I was there they didn’t play a lot of Christmas songs on the radio. Maybe a song or two once in a while between the radio songs. 

WPGA has been good so far! Tomorrow I’m going to be volunteering at the junior kindergarten admissions for the school and I’m very excited to see all the little kids together. It’s going to be very rainy though!

Sophie Dawe (‘26) is new to the senior school this year and sporting compliment clips thanks to Wellness Council’s kindness initiative!

“My name is Sophie Dawe and I’m in grade 8 this year. I’ve been at the school since grade 7 so that’s 2 years. I was on the swim team and the cross-country team. I play basketball outside of school and I tried out for the school team and now I’m playing basketball at school. I’d also love to join the Podcast Club in the future.

I had so many presentations this week and I don’t like public speaking so that wasn’t the best! I’m excited for winter break though and for watching the Grinch (all the versions) and baking all types of cookies! And eating pies (which are better than cake). These aren’t really underrated but I would recommend skiing and snowboarding during the winter. I snowboard but my family skis. I think snowboarding is better 🙂

We celebrate Christmas and for Christmas we usually decorate around December 1st. On Christmas Eve we have a big dinner and we all get to open one present. It’s also my mom’s birthday on Christmas so in the morning we wake up and we have brunch and we open presents. 

If I could give one piece of advice to WPGA students I would say – don’t think it’s a Day 1 when it’s a Day 2. I’ve totally gone to all the wrong classes!”

Thanks so much to Logan for her international insights and Sophie for her holiday recommendations. Make  sure to tune into the next volume to see inside the lives of other Humans of WPGA. 

Humans of WPGA is inspired by Humans of New York, a project started in 2010 with the aim to give the world a view into the lives of strangers living in New York City. With over 20 million followers, this account has initiated a new style of journalism that intimately  connects readers with people they’ve never met before.