![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Sitting at a desk past the rows of books laid out for the Book Fair, senior Kimberley Walters assists people in purchasing books and finding titles. The Book Fair is taking place Dec. 16 through Dec. 20, and is an annual event during which students and faculty have the opportunity to go and purchase books and other trinkets in the library. Kimberley said she encourages all to go to the Book Fair, even if they think they don’t like to read. “If you make reading something that is fun for you and you find the things that you like to read, it will never be a chore,” Walters said. “So [the Book Fair is] a good opportunity to find something that will respark your want to read [like] when you were a child and you went to the book fair and you loved the ‘I survived’ books. Maybe you'll find your ‘I survived’ books of your high school experience, and it'll re-spark that kind of love for reading that may have died out.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Addie-L-47-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, sophomore Olivia Mahlmeister and seniors Samantha Jameson, Adhit Eswaramoorthi and Justin Khadavi celebrate completing first chamber in the Congress Meet. All four students advanced to the final chamber. “Out of the 20 kids in the final chamber, we had a seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th, and they took the top four to move on to state,” AP US History and Debate teacher Josh Marsh said. “[Even though] we didn't make state this year, all four of them moving on [and] placing is phenomenal.” Photo courtesy of Josh Marsh](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-Regional-Congress-Team.jpg)
![Standing in front of a small audience, senior Kimberley Walters shares a social criticism poem titled “Pity the Nation” by Lawrence Felinghetti. Every month, sponsored by the poetry club, the library hosts a poetry reading. “I never thought I would be interested in [poetry readings] because I’m not the biggest poetry fan,” Walters said. “I think poetry is a very succinct way to express feelings and get a story across. Whereas lots of books have a span of a whole story, but it’s put in a lot of words. The power of poetry is that you can be so succinct within, and there’s a lot of power within the words that are used.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KIM-1200x800.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding the Grand Nationals trophies, drum majors Helashi Wijayawardhana, Abigail Pettey and Eddy Kim pose for a photo. The BOA Grand Nationals competition took place in Indianapolis on Nov. 14-17. “My favorite thing was just looking back at the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, crap. I know all of their names, I know who all of them are’,” Wijayawardahana said. “It's just insane to me that I was able to make so many connections. [Being a drum major] taught me how to build relationships with people who I’m not really that similar to, and how to juggle a ton of things all together.”
Photo courtesy of CPHS Band SmugMug](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AJC.GrandNatsFinals-169-1200x801.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
It’s a classic scene in my family. All seven of us kids lined up behind the cashier, eager to tell them our order. Once our whole pack of nine has had a turn, the cashier reads back our order. Four chicken sandwiches, two chicken strip kids meals, three chicken nugget kids meals, four buns and four large Diet Cokes with a side of lemons. By the time the total is final, it well exceeds $50.
Now, $50 is a lot to spend on one dinner. So, to combat the growing price on fast food, my family has many ways to save money. From only ordering off the kid’s menu to only going out to eat on “half-price cheeseburgers after 5:00 p.m.” or “talk like a pirate and get a free glazed donut” these days. One of the biggest ways my family saves money when it comes to fast food is using all the fast food apps.
There are five apps we use the most: QuikTrip (QT), Sonic, Chick-fil-A, McDonalds and Whataburger. All of these apps have a different assortment of deals, rewards and app user perks that make each app worth getting. However, some of these apps are definitely better than others.
My least favorite of the five is the McDonalds app. Honestly, I really only go to McDonalds on long car trips or for the occasional breakfast, so I might be biased because McDonalds is my least favorite fast food restaurant of the five. The app itself usually always has a really good deal on it like one dollar for large fries or 20 percent off any purchase of $5 or more. So if you go to McDonalds a lot, I would definitely recommend getting it. I am, however, constantly deleting it and redownloading it because I get a lot of notifications. Another downside to the app is that it has a hard time working in the McDonald’s restaurant. So while it has good deals, you can’t use them half the time because the app isn’t working.
My second least favorite is the Chick-fil-A app because it’s only okay. Of all the apps, Chick-fil-A has the best point system but it doesn’t give you a whole lot of coupons. Every couple of months, I’ll get a really good coupon, but that’s about it. If you are an app user you do get a free cookie during your birthday month, so that’s fun. But other than that, the app is a little disappointing.
Next is the QT app. When you first download the app you get a free drink, which is pretty sweet if you like soda. Actually, for the first couple months of owning the app I would get a free drink on almost every holiday, but sometime last year that stopped happening. However, despite taking away a free drink every holiday, the QT app always has an abundance of deals. Usually, there are about eight coupons in the app. In my experience, one of those coupons is always a 50 cent small coffee and there is always a coupon that includes a pretzel and a coupon that includes energy drinks. Every couple of weeks there’s a coupon for a croissant. My family considers this coupon to be gold because QT’s bacon, egg and cheese croissants taste like heaven. Unfortunately, the QT app is also very picky about when it wants to work and sometimes coupons that you knew you had just disappeared or the app wont open when you want to use it. In the end, it’s worth getting the QT app just to get the coupon for the croissants and the occasional free drink because both are really good.
The next app I use is the Whataburger app. This app has good deals when it gives them, but it is very spontaneous. Right now everyone living at home, me and my four quintuplet siblings and my parents, all have the app but we all get rewards at different times. It also seems like the app favors certain users because while I’ve gotten a lot of rewards, my sister hasn’t gotten any. In conclusion, this app is pretty good if you like Whataburger. It doesn’t have any problems working and you get pretty good coupons from this app.
My fifth and favorite food app is the Sonic app. This app probably should not be in the number one spot because nine times out of 10 there is a problem with it. However, it is in the top spot for one reason, half-price drinks all day long. I love Sonic Diet Coke, but the regular price is kind of expensive when you factor in the amount of ice Sonic adds to their drinks. Other than drinks being half-price all day long, Sonic actually has some good rewards like buy one get one free cheeseburger or free medium tots with purchase of a cheeseburger. Recently Sonic updated their app and somehow managed to make a bad app even worse. Ever since the update my dad hasn’t even been able to log into his app and the app works slower. In the end, this app is very quirky, but I’ll take half-price Sonic diet coke any day.
Honestly, it blows my mind that people don’t download food apps when they have such great deals. Sometimes offering free food or 20 percent off, it sounds like a steal to me. Food apps help my family save money and they can help you too. Seriously. I don’t why tons of people spend $3.09 for a large drink when they can have it for only $1.54. If you don’t have a food app, you should get one.
