"Alright guys, settle down, I have an announcement." A few chairs moved as everyone found their seats, Kurt and Mercedes tried to stop laughing at whatever Artie had said, Santana kept painting her nails, or at least it smelled like it, Puck was texting (probably Quinn since she wasn't in class), but everyone else was actually already settled. "Mr. Schue, if this is another one of your announcements where you tell us way too much information about your failing home life, can we just skip it and get to the oh so valuable life lesson that will inevitably follow?" God, Santana's a bitch… yeah sure Mr. Schue can get a little personal every now and then, but I think that's cuz he's trying to connect with us. If it weren't for him, I don't think I would have made it through the whole Puck and Quinn thing, "Actually Santana, this has nothing to do with my home life. As you all know, regionals is only a month and a half away. We've worked hard to get here, and now I think it's time for a little reward." "Mr. Schue, can you hold onto my candy until next week? Coach Sylvester said we aren't allowed to eat solids this week because our routine looked worse than your hair." A few people laughed, but Mr. Schuester just shook his head, "It's not candy Brittany, and please tell me you aren't actually going to stop eating just because Sue told you too." Pulling out a big orange envelope from his bag, he said, "This small insignificant envelope, holds a rare lifetime opportunity for each one of you…" I leaned over to Artie, since he was closest to me and whispered, "What's insignificant?" "Not important." "I know it's not important dude, I just wanna know what it means." "No Finn, insignificant means not important." He laughed and told me, "I'm getting you a thesaurus for your birthday, and before you ask, that isn't a dinosaur." I smiled; it was the closest thing I had gotten to laughter in awhile. "Mr. Schuester, if I may… I don't think another name pulling out of the hat would be a good idea. Remember what happened last time?" Rachel was already trying to grab at the envelope, but Mr. Schue held it out of her reach, "Rachel, that's not what this envelope has in it, now please sit down and let me show you." She turned around and I couldn't help it, I stared at her; she was really pretty when she pouted, as long I wasn't the reason for it. "Now, I'm going to hand each one of you something, and you aren't allowed to open it until I say go." He passed out smaller white envelopes to each of us. I looked at mine; it had my name on it and the school's address, but nothing else. Puck was holding his up to the light, trying to see what was inside. After he was done handing out the envelopes, Mr. Schue hopped onto the piano. And sat there forever… kinda like the night before Christmas when you know there are going to be presents from Santa in the morning and you can't sleep…. That's what it felt like. Then he said the magic word, "Go." I hadn't even started to open mine when two very high, very loud, screams came out of Rachel and Kurt, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?" they started rambling and honestly, when either of them talks faster its hard to keep up, so I went back to my envelope, hoping I didn't get a letter that my mom had to sign. After one paper cut and a little help from Artie, I finally had it opened and pulled out a ticket, " How can we afford to go to New York?" Artie looked at me and shrugged, "Hey man, don't question a gift from God." When he saw that some of us weren't as excited as Rachel and Kurt, Mr. Schuester had to ask, "What's wrong guys? I thought you would be excited about a real field trip to somewhere other than the aquarium or the petting zoo." "I like the petting zoo… they let me feed the ducks." I think Brittany suffers from that disease that makes you say things when you don't mean to… ferrets? "It's hard to believe she doesn't have tourettes." Man Artie's like a genius… and I think he just read my mind. "Well Mr. Schue, some of us aren't exactly rolling in money, so I think we're all kinda wondering how we are going to fund this field trip." I nodded at Puck's statement and looked at our still smiling teacher, "Well, after selling my condo I had some spare change and decided to put it to good use, but if you don't want to go…." That was all it took, Kurt and Mercedes were already planning on what they were going to pack, Rachel was already up and asking Mr. Schue a bazillion questions, and everyone else was talking about how cool this was going to be… everyone except me. I knew this was going to be awesome, so why wasn't I excited? Why haven't I been able to feel anything lately? "Alright, alright, settle down. This doesn't come without a price." Everyone groaned, " Now I'm not asking you for anything you can't handle… just a song. It seems like everyone is going through something difficult in their lives right now, and before we embark on this expedition, I want us all to clear the air. So, your assignment for the week is to find a song that expresses what you really want to say." This was easy, I had tons of songs that meant a lot to me.