This week, we’ve been thinking a lot about bonding. We’re finally at the point where we know a lot of the new staff members pretty well, and that makes things a lot easier on us. Also, we’ve had some pretty awesome bonding experiences this week, with staff members who we’ve known for a while.

Last year, when junior Braden Shaw was new on staff, Jena made a plan called Operation Eggshell to “break him out of his shell.” She got a seat next to him and talked to him for the majority of every class period. Sometimes, B-Shaw wouldn’t even respond, but Jena would keep talking at him. To be honest, we’re not sure if B-Shaw just got fed up with Jena’s anxious J-room work night habits (like stress sweating and nervous singing), or if he actually became more comfortable with us, because now B-Shaw is one of the sassiest JagWire staffers. Bonding is a wonderful thing.

So wonderful, in fact, that we’ve done some serious bonding this week. For those who don’t already know this, Jena’s and senior Nick Booth’s personalities aren’t very compatible. This week though, after three years on staff together, Jena and Nick found a common interest. They’ve both been watching “Jane The Virgin” on Netflix. While it seems like the most unlikely topic to bond over, they’ve actually been bonding over their love for the show all week. If Jena and Nick can find something to bond over, anyone can. We’ll see how long it lasts.

The other day, we were working after school when Jena decided to play the iconic Kanye West and Jamie Foxx song “Gold Digger” (the clean version, of course). As the song started playing, Justin began to sing along to Jamie Foxx’s part, with amazingly on-pitch vocals. (JK.) This prompted us to bond with Liz and senior Shelby Hudson, who were also in the room, over laughter and the amazingness of “Gold Digger.” Check out Shelby’s fire tweet (which is actually a retweet of another tweet) about the situation.

@JCURT14 https://t.co/gHVhQnYdEi

— Shelby Hudson (@ShelbyyHudson) November 5, 2015

We love to bond with other staff members, and we’re so glad to have them as our friends. We’ll keep you up to date throughout the rest of the year about our future bonding escapades: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Lessons of the week:

J-Curt: This lesson has been building up over the past few weeks, but lately I’ve been realizing that I’m unhealthily plugged into technology because of newspaper. This contributes to me being busy and stressed — but I can’t necessarily stop using my phone and laptop either, or else I couldn’t get anything done for web. So, I’ve basically resolved to take a few days off using any electronics when we have a nice, long break from web. And honestly, I can’t wait.

Jena: This week, after school was cancelled for the Royals World Series victory, in the excitement of cancelled school, I didn’t even think about how far behind in our editing cycle we would be until after we were back. Work hard, play hard is a wonderful phrase, but lately, I feel like I’ve only been working hard. For us, it’s usually play hard then come back and work even harder. It’s hard to keep up with staffers constantly contacting me, and while I really do love my job, every day I’m becoming more excited for the week of Thanksgiving when we have no web content scheduled to go up.  

That’s all … for now.

Seniors Justin “J-Curt” Curto and Jena Smith are the editors-in-chief of Mill Valley News online. They appreciate captioned photos, categorized and tagged stories, staff members who don’t text about web assignments at 11 p.m., teachers and students who talk about things they read on Mill Valley News and all things multimedia.