March 30, 2025

Dear Diary,

I am definitely not used to write journals for myself. But Anisha said that it helped her when she was going through THAT period. So hear am I.

This sure is weird.

I don’t even know why I’m doing this. People who write diaries are either deeply poetic, deeply troubled, or the main characters in books where they magically find love and adventure. I am none of those things. I am just… me.

I’m not ugly, but I’m not the kind of girl people write love songs about either. I’m not mysterious or alluring. I’m just the girl people sit next to when their friend isn’t in class. The one teachers love because she actually does the homework. The one who gets asked, “Wait, we had an assignment?” five minutes before the deadline. Always the friend but never the bestie. Yeah, people like us do exist outside a sitcom. And we like being boring.

But here’s the thing—my life? It’s weirdly interesting. Not me, specifically. I am as normal as a math textbook. But the things happening around me? Straight out of one of those absurd K-dramas where the unpopular girl somehow ends up catching the eye of the chaebol heir (though I don't think that my crush is a secret CEO or something).

Let’s take today, for example.

A guy—an actual, real-life, human male—said my name today. Not to ask for notes, not to confirm I exist, but just… said it. Like I was an actual person worth addressing. Okay, fine, maybe it was because he almost ran into me while scrolling on his phone, and it was more like a “Oh—uh, hey, Rashii” But still. Progress.

Also, my neighbor might be a secret millionaire. Or a criminal. Or both. He keeps leaving the house in suspiciously expensive-looking suits but lives in an apartment where the elevator barely works. I’m currently debating whether this is a situation that needs further investigation or if I’ve just watched too many detective dramas.

And then there’s my best (and only) friend, who has recently decided that my life is a “romance waiting to happen.” I told her that the only romantic thing that happened to me today was walking past a bakery and inhaling the scent of fresh cinnamon rolls. She wasn’t impressed. But she insists that something is about to happen.

Speaking of my friend, she is fully convinced I’m being set up for a love triangle. A love triangle, Diary. As if. Her reasoning? The mystery neighbor. She caught me looking out my window yesterday because I was trying to see if he was going to leave in another one of his suspiciously expensive suits, and now she thinks I have a crush on him.

I tried to explain that I was just being nosy, but she wasn’t buying it. She said, “First, the mysterious rich guy. Now, a classmate showing ‘concern.’ The signs are all there.”

The signs of what?! A conspiracy? A prank show? My slow descent into delusional thinking?

Sigh. I don’t know, Diary. Maybe she’s right, and something is happening. Or maybe I just need to get more sleep and stop staring at my neighbor like a detective in a crime drama.

See? My life is awkward. I am awkward. But the world around me? Chaotic. And if I don’t write it all down, who else is going to believe that the nerdy, invisible girl is actually living in a sitcom?

Until tomorrow,

The Most Normal Girl in the World

April 3, 2025

Dear Diary,

I have made a terrible mistake. A mistake so embarrassing, so completely horrifying, that I may need to drop out of school, move to a remote island, and live among seagulls who will never ask me about my love life.

Let me explain.

It started like any other day. I was in class, half-listening to the teacher, half-doodling in the margins of my notebook, when my brain decided to take a detour into Daydream Land. More specifically, What Would Happen If Someone Actually Liked Me Land? I don’t know why my brain does this to me—it’s not like my life is a romance drama. I am not the clumsy-but-charming female lead. No chaebol heir is going to suddenly notice me. And yet, there I was, mindlessly writing down thoughts like, Maybe if I were a little cooler, a little less awkward, someone might actually like me.

And then, because I am an idiot, I wrote his name.

Not just any name. His name. The guy I have liked in secret for an embarrassingly long time. The guy who, up until this morning, had probably never said more than three words to me. The guy who, if he ever found out about my crush, would probably react with the same level of shock as someone being told that their stapler had feelings for them.

I didn’t even realize I had written it. I was lost in my own ridiculous thoughts, my pen moving on its own, until suddenly—bam. There it was. His name, in my handwriting, in my notebook, surrounded by my messy, half-baked thoughts about how impossible it was for a guy like him to ever notice a girl like me.

And then came The Catastrophe.

The teacher called for us to turn in our classwork. You know, the classwork that I had completely ignored while writing down my most private and humiliating thoughts. In my panic, I ripped out the wrong page and handed it in without checking.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized what I had done.

I reached into my bag to grab my notebook, fully prepared to continue sulking about my awkward existence, when I saw it—the assignment. Neatly tucked away in my folder, completely untouched.

Which means…

I turned in the wrong paper.

Which means…

Right now, sitting on my teacher’s desk, waiting to be graded, is a page filled with my daydreams about my crush.

I think my soul left my body in that moment. I sat frozen for a full five minutes, staring at my hands as if they had personally betrayed me. Because this isn’t just any dumb mistake, Diary. This is next-level humiliation. If my teacher actually reads that paper, I will never be able to look them in the eye again. Ever.

And what if—I can’t even say it—what if the paper somehow gets back to him? What if my teacher, in some cruel twist of fate, decides to return it to me in class? In front of everyone?

There are only three solutions to this crisis:

Drop out of school immediately.

Fake my own disappearance and assume a new identity.

Pray that my teacher has terrible eyesight and assumes it’s just nonsense scribbles.

Option three is obviously the most practical, but considering my luck, I’m not holding my breath.

The worst part? This isn’t even a situation I can casually fix. It’s not like I can go up to my teacher and be like, Oh, by the way, if you happen to see a page in my handwriting confessing my deep, unreciprocated feelings for someone, please pretend you didn’t see it.

So now I wait.

I wait for the moment my teacher pulls me aside with that look. I wait for the possibility that my crush might find out. I wait for my inevitable downfall.

Dear Diary, this may be my last entry. If I don’t survive the embarrassment of tomorrow, know that I lived a good, mostly invisible life—right up until today.

Until my impending doom,

The Most Mortified Girl in the World

June 26, 2025

Dear Diary,

I have somehow survived The Accidental Confession. Barely. But let’s not talk about that yet. Let’s talk about how I have once again found myself in an awkward, socially exhausting situation: a group project.

I don’t know why teachers love them so much. Do they enjoy watching us suffer? Do they think it magically teaches us teamwork? Because let me tell you—it does not. What it actually does is pair together a bunch of people who would rather be anywhere else, forcing one poor soul (me) to do 90% of the work.

This time, though, something weird happened. Something that I did not see coming.

It started with the usual: The teacher announcing the groups - Me praying for a miracle - My hopes being crushed. My group consisted of:

The Overachiever – Likes to talk a lot but rarely submits anything useful.

The Ghost – Never shows up, never responds to messages. Does this person even exist?

The Aesthetic Enthusiast – Only cares about how the slides look. Content? Who needs that?

The Popular Guy – A social butterfly, known by everyone but mostly uninterested in anything academic.

Notably, not my crush. Which was a relief, honestly. After The Accidental Confession Incident, I do not need more complications.

I fully expected Ritesh, The Popular Guy to ignore the project entirely, show up last minute, and take credit. That’s how this usually goes, right? But instead, he—get this—messaged me.

Ritesh: Hey, do you have the outline?

Me. Staring at my phone in disbelief.

What was this? A prank? Was he hacked? Did he actually care about this project?

Turns out, yes. He did.

Apparently, he needs to keep up his grades for some scholarship, and this project is worth a huge chunk of our final score. And guess what? He is terrible at projects. He overcomplicates everything. He forgets to save his work. His idea of “research” is opening one article and calling it a day.

For once, I was not the only one struggling.

As expected, The Ghost, Pia didn’t respond until two days before the deadline. Their message? "Hey, what’s the plan?" Like we hadn’t been asking them that for two weeks.

The Overachiever, Yuvraj kept sending long paragraphs about what we should do but never actually did anything.

Meanwhile, The Aesthetic Enthusiast, Preeti refused to touch the written content, but they did create the most beautiful, professional-looking slideshow I had ever seen. I mean, it had animations, custom fonts, and a color scheme that somehow made learning about economics look artistic.

Against all odds, we somehow pulled it together.

The night before the deadline, we were all in a chaotic video call, half of us panicking, the other half pretending not to panic. I was typing as fast as my fingers allowed. The Ritesh was trying to figure out citations like he had never seen a bibliography before. The Yuvraj was still talking. Pia was confused. Preeti was picking out transition effects for the slides.

It was absolute mayhem.

And yet… somehow… we did it.

The teacher actually liked our project. Praised us for our "teamwork." (Ha!) We even got an A.

But the weirdest part?

When I walked into class the next day, Ritesh saw me and actually nodded in acknowledgment. A small gesture, but it felt strange. Like, for the first time, I wasn’t just background noise to someone like him.

I don’t think this means we’re suddenly friends. He’ll probably go back to his usual crowd. I’ll go back to mine (which is mostly… just me). But for one brief moment, it felt like I was part of something.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t a movie moment. But it was… something.

And that’s enough.

Now, back to my other disaster.

After an entire day of panicking, I gathered the courage to approach my teacher about the mix-up with my assignment. My plan was simple:

• Act normal.

• Retrieve the paper before they read it.

• Escape.

What actually happened:

• My teacher handed back the assignment without a word.

• I snatched it up and ran.

• Later, I checked the paper. There was a small note in red ink.

"Please focus on the assignment next time. But for what it’s worth, your writing is very expressive."

I wanted to die on the spot. But at least that meant… they didn’t tell anyone.

So, crisis (mostly) averted.

For now.

Until next time,

The Perpetually Embarrassed Girl

________________________________

Note from the Author's desk: Let me make this clear, The main character is inspired by me, but the life is not mine. The numerous incidents are mostly imaginary, derived from the people I have come across in my day-to-day life. It may be in my school, college or even while travelling. I like to travel and observe. So yeah...

P.S. - The first draft of "The Catastrophe" was "The Accidental Confession". So that explains some of the lines which you may find confusing. But the phrase can just be used normally without sounding weird.

That's all. Goodbye for now.