The visit to the Tribune Building was the field trip the entire class had been anticipating since we had all heard about in seventh grade. All the guys really wanted to go because it gave them an excuse to wear a suit as well. That included me. Going on the field trip also meant missing school which is always a bonus.
Waking up the morning of the field trip was a total struggle. I had to get up at 6:30, which is never a good time to wake up any day. I could barely keep my eyes open walking to the bathroom to take a shower. As I peered out the window, I saw that is was a rather cloudy day. All I could do was hope it wasn’t like that in Chicago. I arrived at school exactly at 7:20, and I was surprised to see that over half the class was already waiting in the vestibule (the area between the office and the outside doors.) As we waited for the bus, we all told each other that we looked sharp in our suits.

The train that we were riding to the city was very crowded, and there was nowhere in the entire train to where two seats were open next to each other. As Ms. Burner called my name and told me where to sit, I turned around and saw a man right next to where she was pointing. I then realized this was going to be a very awkward train ride. When I sat down, I suddenly felt very out of place on the train. I was just a kid among many business people, and I could tell I was not wanted there. The man next to me seemed to be ignoring me on purpose by engrossing himself in his newspaper. I was sitting in the aisle seat; so every time I tried to look out the window to see if we were close to the city, I felt his eyes look at me to see if I was causing any trouble. So when I heard the words, “Now arriving at Ogilvie Transportation Center,” I was relieved. A train ride of awkward silence was finally over. As we walked through the train station, I soon observed that we were dressed nicer than ninety-five percent of the people there; and we looked just as nice as the other five percent of the people. But walking to the water taxi, the dirty looks still came. I had never been on the water taxi, so even though it wasn’t really a big deal, I was excited.

After getting off the water taxi, we walked a few blocks to the Tribune Building. Since we had time before the editorial meeting we got a tour of the building. At ten o’clock, we all filed into the meeting room and waited for the meeting to start. When the meeting started, the editors seemed to carry on as if we weren’t there; and when we did speak they seemed to take what we said into consideration very seriously. I’m sure that made every single one of us feel very important. They discussed the balloon boy story along with some others. After the meeting, Bruce Dold talked to us about how the editorial section of the paper worked and told us that grammar is very important in any profession that we enter. As we left the Tribune Building, I think we all felt as if we had just heard a secret that no one else had, and that we were somehow part of the Tribune.

Since we had plenty of time until our train left for Arlington Heights, we got to wander around the train station. On the train ride back, I felt that I had heard a lot in the meeting and that our opinion really did matter to them. It was a feeling of triumph and accomplishment.