Hello!

This is a special entry. It doesn’t have much (anything) to do with journalism, but for my English A-level coursework, I analysed a diary entry from the book Cringe. I recently found my own diary from when I was 16, and my god, I need to punish myself for being such an appalling person in 2008. Melodramatic suicide notes, endless funeral planning, flippant remarks about everything, apathy, bursts of rage, ‘really deep’ thoughts and to be honest, entire entries of utter insanity. I would’ve hated myself aged 16, to be honest. Nevertheless, I think it’s important that the world sees what a real 16-year-old girl thinks, so I’m giving you some genuine excerpts from my teenage diary. Please don’t judge the current me based on the hideously overdramatic freak I was four years ago!

02/01/08: “Russell Brand’s book upsets me. I feel so indescribably sorry for him. He doesn’t deserve everything that’s happened to him. Same as most people really.”

09/01/08: “Smouldering really IS quite smouldering.”

11/01/08: “My mum literally despises me. She’d so prefer it if I was dead. I’ve ALWAYS been second best though, to everyone. I’m sick of it… I’m just sick of fighting for attention and affection all the time when other people get it handed to them on a plate. FUCK.”

17/01/08: “I like the catastrophe warnings when the first snowflake is witnessed in like, Newcastle in Britain. Really really nice pens make me really really happy. I enjoy Geography.”

03/02/08: “UGH. I could just kill myself. Then everyone’d be a whole lot fucking happier. Can’t be bothered though. Gutted @ planet Earth etc… My life is ridiculous. It’d be funny if it were someone else’s anecdotes in ten years time. But right now I’m not laughing.”

05/02/08: “Pancake day today. Pancakes are hardly cakes are they? I wouldn’t squirt a lemon over a Vicky sponge, for example.”

10/02/08: “Bollocks day tomorrow. Tech, PE, English. Fucksake.”

16/02/08: “I’d love to be dead. Not in a depressed way. It’s just then everything’d be easier. And right now it’s all complex and I’m fat and I hate this pen. Must plan funeral music (again).”

19/02/08: “If I die in my sleep and someone reads this, I love you all. Here are some songs you might like to consider for my funeral: *insert two full pages of songs here*”

02/03/08: “I’m back from Rosie’s and I am fucking mental and dicked in the cocking cocky head. Not a cockhead. ESKIMOES MILLIE by which I mean Billie. Sophie said I looked rough but she hugged me when she said it so it’s fine.”

04/03/08: “I love eyebrow plucking, especially the left eyebrow. I realised today how arrogant it is to write fiction. To just be like, yeah this didn’t really happen, but I’m telling you what probably would’ve done, had I been in control. Having said that, I just wish I had the time and dedication to write a novel.”

19/03/08: “He told me to bugger off so I shouted ‘FUCK OFF’ at him. Then I felt guilty so I said sorry and he said he didn’t love me, and I said ‘Great, fucking fantastic’ and he called me a dickhead so off I went again.”

25/03/08: “’Maybe we’ll go out quietly.’ That was from the Pikmin to Olimar. SO sad. Actually I’m crying now. That and a sudden sadness at the thought of the bunnies dying. I’m too depressed now.”

Oh god, oh god. So cringe-inducing. Just you wait, I’ll have my funeral music planned in case I kill myself from the shame of these…

Kayleigh