Stereotypes

I'm not somebody very noticeable. In school, I'm the nerd. The one who does all her homework. The one that finishes classwork in time. The one that the teachers adore. And the one that hates it all.
Stereotypes are common and we all stereotype people. I do it too, and I'm surprised and ashamed when it turns out that I couldn't have been more wrong about the person. Just because I know one facet of somebody doesn't mean that I know them, almost certainly not well enough to judge them. I'll use the example of this girl in my band. She's a percussionist, and I'm a double reed (she's in the drum/xylophone part, and I'm an oboe) and for marching band, we were both in the Front Ensemble, also known as the Pit. I don't know why it's the Pit, it just is. One of our weird band things ;)
Anyway, this girl is a really good student- let's call her E. E. was (school year's over) our Pit Captain and she was a model student, but she was still nice to everyone. All I knew of her was contained in that one class period where we played and she helped us honorary percussionists (double reeds...) how to make pretty music with the marimbas. And that was all well and good. I'd seen her, spoken to her a lot, and I thought I kind of knew what she was like. Then I saw that she was in two of my other classes, French and Humanities. And I saw her interacting with her friends (not that she hated us- she didn't know any of us very well, that's all...) and I was surprised because she was smiling and laughing and talking a lot more than she talked to us. And I saw how she had different sides to her.
Most people have different sides to them, personalities that not everyone is aware about. Maybe it's your significant other that sees a side of you that nobody else has? Or maybe you can let loose with your friends and show them the true you. Either way, I can't claim that I let myself be myself with everybody, all the time. Can you?
~~SKS