Hello all. I am back again with more embarrassing recollections. If you know me, they’re not surprising, but if you do not, put your seat belts on!

Since school has gone back to in-person, I have had more opportunities—sadly—to embarrass myself. 

Here are some of this year’s highlights so far… 

So, I like to get a second chance breakfast sometimes—’cause, why not?  the lady I get it from (every time) never says hi to me. She’ll say hi to my friend who doesn’t even get breakfast, but won’t say hi to me when I am the one getting breakfast AND saying hi to her. So, one time, I loudly said hi to her and she STILL only said hi to my friend. Confused, I asked her why she never says hi to me if I say it to her, and she goes, “Oh, I’m sorry. Hi Palav. Is your name Palav?” She thought my first name was Palav, and I was too shocked and embarrassed to correct her (see my article about people messing up my name in the December issue of The Clarion). So, I just went along with it. At that moment, it had already taken me so much strength to confront her—although it was not much of a confrontation as it was an inquiry—that I had no courage left to tell my name was Sakshi. It all went so fast. Now, everytime she says hi to me, she calls me “Palav,” and I don’t even say anything, because what in the world am I even supposed to say? It’s too late to correct her now. She’s going to wonder why I let her call me the wrong name for so long. I WONDER WHY I’M LETTING HER CALL ME THE WRONG NAME FOR SO LONG! Getting a second chance breakfast is beyond humbling now.   

Rewinding to football season. I went to a home football game with my friends and had fun, but—mind you—I don’t know anything about the sport. I go to the games to hang out with my friends and eat stale nachos from the food court. That’s my sole purpose of attending and when I go, my friends have to explain the game to me. So, this one game I attended was going great in my eyes. It had just started—the game was maybe 30 seconds in—and we made a touchdown. Team Selma made a touchdown. So, excited, like the school spirited student I am, I jumped up and screamed “yay.” However, we had not in fact made a goal, and that was actually a goal scored by our rivals, Kingsburg. Embarrassed, stripped of my reputation, feeling like failure, I got up and left. I understood what I needed to do, and that was to not be at a game where I accidentally cheered on our school rivals. I have not gone to a football game since. I know better. 

Moving on. 

A couple weeks into January, I got a haircut. I hadn’t cut my hair for two years and was *figuratively* dying to get a short, almost buzz cut type haircut. It would be an enormous change for me and I was worried how others would perceive me if I cut it so short, but buzz cuts are so cute, and if I don’t do it now, when will I? So, I decided to go for it, but got a pixie cut instead to try out if I liked short hair in the first place. I went from relatively long hair to a short, curly pixie cut. It was so out of norm for me, but I loved it. I was trying something new and I actually liked it. Anyways, it was my second day at school with this new hair style, I’m walking to my sixth period class, and I heard a male voice from behind me asking, “Is that a man?” My jaw dropped. If you saw me underneath that mask, my mouth was on the floor. I am not even completely sure if he was talking about me, but at that moment, I wished I had a wig on me. Any confidence I had with my new hair FLEW away. I have never walked to class so fast in my life. It was the most embarrassing thing, AND IT WASN’T EVEN CAUSED BY MY OWN ACTIONS. I was just walking, minding my business. To this day, I wonder who said that. Was it you? 

Anyways, those are a couple embarrassing instances that have occurred during the span of my senior year so far. I am holding on by a thread, if you couldn’t tell. But, school is fun and I think going through a couple embarrassing moments makes it more interesting. It gives you more stories to tell and more content to gloat about. So, live big and laugh about your mistakes because if you don’t have embarrassing stories to tell, are you living a fun life?