Oh Crap!

Dear Diary,

How foolish I was to have believed that young woman! I cannot do this! This was what people like Lana did, who could probably do anything. But not me. 

Today morning on my way to school I wandered upon a woman in her late twenties. She said that she was a fortune teller and told me that I would be having quite a lucky day ahead to which I asked her, how in the world could she say that, and she told me that it was true as mars is aligned with Jupiter today. I told her I didn’t believe in all this, that all of this fortune-telling shit is actual bullshit, she left me then and I continued on my journey to school. But her words kept nagging me the whole way. And during the first period Ms. Singh asked me to solve a numerical of the new chapter in physics I obviously don’t get, I think the chapter has something to do with magnets…

Anyway, so the freakish woman’s freakish words kept nagging me until lunch when I told Mia, my best friend, about the freakish woman and she said why don’t I check my fortune by searching the astronomy section in our library and finally end the mystery. I told her I would. So, after I had humiliated myself quite again by not being able to tell the difference between pepsin and peptones in biology class, I left for the school library. I searched through the astronomy section and chose a book (ok, I didn’t really search, I just picked out the most eye-catching book I could find on the first 3 shelves). ‘Mars and Jupiter, let me see, where is it ….’, I hummed to the new Taylor Swift song until I found what I was looking for. 

When Mars and Jupiter are allied, 

One who dreams will live

The one who persists will outlive the third

And the third will give 

After reading this my first thought was-‘ What the hell does this mean?’, then I had a full 3-minute argument with myself on whether I should just ask someone what this means and risk being awkward or should just forget about all of it since I could never be able to make sense out of this. Finally, I asked Ms. Anita, our librarian, to help me understand the lines. 

 “Ah, Ms. Perez I would guess that this means that whoever who dreams, as in, wishes to do something will be able to do it,” she said

“Okay” I replied

“and as for the other two, one who will stick to their work or dream will be able to-

But I had lost my focus. So maybe if I want to do something today, I will be able to do it. I couldn’t believe it. What if I participate in the debate competition against Lana? When I win, the look on her would be priceless.

“Is that clear to you?” Ms. Anita asked

I nodded as a reply and ran to tell Mia my decision. Fortunately, she was in class. You must be thinking why I said ‘fortunately’ instead of ‘unfortunately’, well wait till the end

So, I go to the debate room and ask Mr. Lawrence if I could participate in the competition

“Yes, sure Sabrina. You can, I’ll add your name too in the participant's list. Just make sure you are at the hall 10 minutes before the school ends so I can tell you all the rules”

“Don’t worry sir I will not be late” I tell him as if I was promising him my return from war.

And now, back to the present, I am sitting in the hall on the front bench, and literally the whole school is sitting behind me. I have no experience in debate and I am so sure I am going to pee my pants right now! Oh, there’s Mia. She’s looking at me as if I am going to die. Maybe I am because Lana has the creepy smirk on her face which she usually has before humiliating me and I am so glad that Mia doesn’t know that the only reason I participated was that I actually believed the woman today morning. Maybe I should just tell Mr. Lawrence that I want to back down, that I don’t know how to even talk in front of people! That I am so bad that even-

“Now Ms. Perez will speak against the topic” Mr. Lawrence just announced that

Oh crap!