The Group Project Disaster

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

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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.

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