Would like like a dash of sympathy with your stereotypes?

She’s the girl who swans into lectures half an hour late, holding a latte in one hand and a Louis Vuitton bag in the other. She brings a laptop to class and is the one who asks the questions that invariably are laughed at quietly by the rest of the class. It’s so easy to hate a girl like this. While everyone else puts in the effort to get what they want, she has it all with even having to try.

There’s a girl like this in my French class. Let’s call her Laura. Laura is pretty and has always been one of the popular girls. She always has events to go to; her social calendar is always full. Her outfits come directly from the pages of fashion magazines- pretty sundresses and white playsuits. And she has been known to reduce the class to silent laughter quite unintentionally with her flippant and/or ignorant comments.

A while back a peculiar thing happened though. Laura arrived late to class, as per usual. Shortly afterwards we started to read aloud in French around the class. Before long, it was Laura’s turn. She groaned a little and proceeded to stumble over reasonably easy words. She stopped and asked what a couple of words were. The teacher replied and then she had to continue reading. She only got a few more words out before she stopped and said, “I can’t…” Her voice was shaking and her eyes were full of tears. As the reading continued, Laura let her long hair hide her face and she was the first person out of the room when the class ended.

Since that day though, I’ve come to see Laura as more than the little rich girl. She stresses out, she slacks off, she has shit days and she has faults just like everyone else.

I don’t know if I can precisely say that moment was the turning point, as it was a slow process, but I can say that she lost a bit of her foreignness that day. After all, aren’t we all a bit unsure and stumbling inside?