Self Reflection

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." I had a peak at the letter my Professor wrote to the judge today, and it got me thinking. This was not a letter of recommendation, but rather a note from an old friend. This was never intended for my eyes. The other clerks were looking through their files, and I thought I would peak at mine. This is a professor whose class I did very well in, and ended up TAing for in the fall. He had many good things to say, including, that I was a good citizen. He also had some interesting things to say that I had not expected. In his eyes I am rough around the edges, dont dress up, probably come from a unprivileged background, and have trouble with some social cues. This is coming from my favorite professor, the teacher I respected most. I do not even know why any of those negative aspects would be relevant to me being a clerk. He is right about a couple of things, I do not come from a privileged background and I never really cared about how I looked in class. Ok, I also might come off a little rough around the edges at first. However, I never really consider myself as having trouble reading social cues. But does it matter how I consider myself, or am I just what other people see me as? I had never had that many interactions with the professor, so I racked my brain trying to pin point where his idea could have gotten that idea. We had never interacted in social circumstances, all our interactions had been academically related. It is strange to see yourself in another persons eyes. Clearly me and the prof come from different backgrounds. I went to an small hippie liberal arts school and he went to Harvard for our undergrad. He is Catholic and I am Jewish and there must be many other cultural differences. I wonder if we have differing expectations of social cues. Perhaps we can never really know who we are until we see ourselves though someone else.