Goodbye

By Grey Tang ’26

Two years ago, one of our previous Editor-in-Chiefs Emma published a heartfelt goodbye to the school and the Post.

At the time, her words seemed foreign. It was my first year writing for the Wolfington Post–in September, Dr. Boland had eagerly connected Emma and me through email–and it felt like I was still waddling through high school, like a toddler taking its first steps. It’s hard to understand the struggle of experiencing your ‘Lasts’ when you’ve hardly experienced your ‘Firsts’. But here I stand, in her exact position, two years later.

There’s a lot I could say. I could say that it still doesn’t feel real, even when I’m staring directly at a dwindling number of days left on Wolfnet’s calendar. I could say that I will long for the school grounds, having spent 12 years of my life trekking up and down these campus hills. I could say that leaving the nest is equal parts nerve-wracking and exhilarating, that the magnificent tangle of grief and joy and sorrow and excitement facing each of us Seniors is an experience like no other.

​All those things are true. But as cliché as it is, the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. What I will miss the most are the small things–things like buying snacks with Sophie from the UBC H-MART to prepare for a long night of cramming, staying late after school with Thomas and JC to play ‘just one more round’ of Mahjong, walking with Quinton down 10th for our yearly bubble tea catch-up, running Popin’ Cookin’ with Sheree for five consecutive Arts Weeks, and analysing the Ides of March with Mira. I might even miss Damon’s ‘Earthquakes’ (though they’ve caused me to nearly fall out of my chair on multiple occasions), Alan’s ridiculous Darme portability gesture, and Jeffrey’s goofy posture (takes one to know one).

​And naturally, I will miss the teachers who have shaped me. Thank you to my fourth-grade teacher Mr. Amiel, who praised my blizzard horror story enough to spark my passion for writing. Thank you to Mrs. McGee, who took that passion and transformed it, literally changing the way I navigate the world through the books she teaches. Thank you to Ms. Wittmann, who gave me the confidence to accelerate in Math, and thank you to Mrs. McAdam, who put up with Thomas and my bickering over 1-point mark differences (and made pre-calculus super coherent and understandable). There are countless other teachers I need to personally thank, but I’ll spare Post readers a 50-page article and confine my gratitude to one-on-one exchanges.

Speaking of the Post, of course, I’ll miss our fantastic, marvellous, ambitious, and dedicated Wolfington Post-ers too. It’s been a pleasure editing tech-aviation-missile articles from Luke, biology-disease-earthquake articles from Annie, and holiday-news-pope articles from Karlos. Damon’s cooking blog was also a welcome addition, besides the occasional spoiled milk incident. Lu, thanks for sticking around to watch Ann and me take a crack at running the Post. Please keep writing so I can catch up in Cali.

Obviously, I have to commemorate my fellow Editor-in-Chief, Ann. Though our tenures were both a little unconventional, it is because of her organization and commitment that we managed to bounce back from last year’s inaction (and she has great taste in engineering-baking shows). That said, I have the utmost confidence in our new exec team. I hope you guys continue to feature Gordon Ramsay in future meetings. Current Grade 8s, please don’t give them any trouble.

High school has been a blessing. I started off both physically and metaphorically blind–please do not look at my 8th-grade photos–and ended up seeing and building a future for myself. Beyond getting a slightly better haircut, I even picked up a couple of good habits. My biggest blessing in Senior year has been the work of David, who picked my sorry louse self up from ruminating miserably and sent me to the gym in an Uber he paid for. As Mr. OD heard in my Capstone presentation, that gesture sent me on my gym arc and drastically improved my physical and mental well-being. So, though he might not act his grown 19 years all the time (spending $70 was worth it to see him mimic a plane on the runway), I think he can be incredibly mature. That goes for all our grads this year: it seems like only yesterday that I met with everyone on the old Junior School playground to play Grounders, and now we’ve all successfully survived university applications and made it out. There are countless instances of kindness that I’ve seen my classmates show one another, pushing past social barriers and friend groups to extend a helping hand. So yes, I have utmost confidence in my fellow grads, too.

As for the future graduates of WPGA, they have a new playground. Fresh off Grad Board Games Night, a couple of us Seniors went to scope it out, swinging across the new rope and parkour terrain like veterans reclaiming our place. But it isn’t our place– not anymore. It’s theirs. And that means I’ll need to say goodbye, like Emma before me. So here we go.

​Goodbye, Wolfington Post.

Goodbye, WPGA.