Hassan Sufi and Tristan Chabanis: Bonded by common interests, Harbinger has brought us especially strong friendships with the other boys on staff

Brotherhood — boys bonded by a common interest. It can mean bonded by anything — from watching “Kung Fu Panda” to pickle-eating competitions. For us, the brotherhood was created through Harbinger.

We joined Harbinger the second semester of junior year. Outnumbered in a class filled with 68 girls, we were forced to build a relationship that we hope will continue beyond our time on staff.

For both of us, Harbinger has been painful. We’ve watched our grades drop each semester and cringed while Tate grilled us critique after critique. Together, we have anxiously awaited the end of each semester to see the flood of grades entered in Skyward rise back up to an A. After several arduous issues and less-than-enjoyable deadlines, it’s obvious that the writing hasn’t been the best part of our time on staff.

In reality, it’s been the brotherhood that we’ve developed throughout the past three semesters. Sharing a common interest through sports made conversations flow easier and friendships form effortlessly. We intensely debated sports topics from professional soccer to East sports with juniors Luke Beil and David Allegri, forming a bond that we both hope will carry on after the 24 issues spent together. 

In between hunting for edits during deadlines, we spent hours in the conference room, laughing about inappropriate jokes, discussing our love lives or getting a fourth chocolate chip cookie.

Harbinger has allowed us to explore topics, such as whitewater kayaking and band, that we never would have gravitated towards in the first place. Throughout the long and grueling cycles, we have greatly improved our writing skills and made acquaintances of an extremely diverse group of people.

These valuable skills will stay with us for whatever comes next. Our post college plans range from being a businessman to an immunologist — both of which are about as far as it gets from journalism. But the valuable skills attained through the hours spent writing and interviewing will help us in our future endeavors.

So although we haven’t had a great time writing, editing and voting on the editorial board, we have definitely formed relationships that we will both cherish for time to come.