Thanks Hec! I think #4 is my favorite, but I need to look at them all some more. I like #5, but it won't work with my cowlicks.

I skimmed. THe Very short Crop off the Face is one of the pictures (or is very similiar to one of) I looked at when first going short.

I've been handed an interesting project. MORE responsibility. Also there's a permenant position opening up in another division. My supervisor pulled me aside and asked if I was going to apply. I told her no, because I know there's someone else who really needs to get it and that ifI had decided I would have told her first. She said good, because they are trying to get my job switched to permenant. So YAY That. plusI really have to kick ass and prove them right for wanting to keep me.

Shit, Connie. All the -ma in the world, love.

Wow, Erin. Wow. Sorry, I can't resist.

Dear [stupid cow],

You say "I am intitled to my opinion as much as the next person." You certainly are entitled (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way) to your own opinion about what constitutes a good teacher. However, you are being remarkably disingenuous to pretend surprise at having inspired a negative response with your offensive, ill-informed and appallingly spelled email. You and I are strangers. You know nothing about my skills base, nothing about my professional conduct, nothing about my moral code, nothing about my philosophy of education, nothing about my competence in the classroom, nothing about my intellect, nothing, in short, about who I am. What you have right now, lady are your assumptions and prejudices, and nothing else.

You say: “I think teacehers should be PROUD of what they do and are ROLE MODELS for youth.”

I quite agree that teachers (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way) should be proud of what they do. I am tremendously proud of how hard I work, and how passionately I care about my job. I am proud that, given my intelligence and broad skills base, I have chosen to follow my heart and devote myself to helping young people to develop their skills and understanding, rather than working in a better paid but less worthwhile career. I am proud to be a role model for my students; I believe passionately in helping them to fulfil their potential and I actively model not only intellectual curiosity, self reliance, independent thinking and academic integrity, but also compassion and open mindedness. I do not teach my students to be bigots. I do not teach my students to make assumptions on the basis of little or no evidence. I do not teach my students to look down on other people.

You say: “…you do not have to be so angry about it. But I am not supriised that a person like you are who have would write such an angry letter back at me.”

You certainly should not be surprised (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way) that your offensive, presumptuous and threatening email to a total stranger provoked an indignant response. In education, we call this “cause and effect.” It is, in my opinion, more than a little disingenuous (this is a long word we educated people sometimes use to mean "pretending to be stupider than you really are") of you to try to present the appearance of the wounded party at this point. You started this.

You say: “I should write your school adn tell them what a bitch yuo are but since you are not teaching my children I can tell you would just like that as a way to feel ike you are somebody important.”

By all means, dear lady, do write to my school and (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way) tell them what a bitch you consider me to be. Surprisingly, my employers actually do know me quite well. It is even conceivable that, having actually MET me in person, and having witnessed my teaching style, observed my work clothes, monitored my professionalism and conduct towards my students and to my colleagues, that they may have a slightly better understanding of my character than you (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way) possess at this juncture. As to whether a complaint from a total stranger would make me feel like (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way) I was somebody important – dear lady, my self-esteem is based upon a thorough knowledge of my own strengths and weaknesses, not upon complaints or plaudits I might receive from someone such as you. I am an intelligent, witty, sexy, capable professional, and I certainly do not need affirmation or condemnation from total strangers who don’t have the wit to cover up their pitiful grammar and spelling with something as simple as spell check.

Your pithy little letter ended thus: “So I think you can just FUCK OFF and one day you will probably be fired for being a FUCKING WHORE as I am sur eyou are from how you talked to people you don't know. Don't worry I won't (continued...)

( continues...) writ eyou again, because I am a better person and have better things to do with my day than waste on somene LIKE YOU!"”

How eloquent. Are you genuinely under the impression that I, not you, have been the offensive party in this little conversation? I don’t recall using expletives in my response to your unsolicited attack, so your deduction that this exchange of emails shows you as “a better person” demonstrates crazy troll logic, in my book. Lady, you have had the effrontery to set yourself up as an arbiter of my fitness for my chosen profession, and you know absolutely nothing about me. By this point, however, you may have gathered that I’m quite a lot smarter than you, and that I am at home to Mr Punctuation and Mr Grammar. This might possibly indicate to you that I do have at least some qualifications for my position.

(Speaking of positions - if I should ever take up prostitution and become, in your charming vernacular, a “FUCKING WHORE”, then I dare say I should earn considerably more money for considerably less work than I receive at present, so being fired from my teaching position would be the last thing I’d be worried about.)

Sorry, perhaps that sentence was too long; I get the impression that you’re not exactly comfortable with the conditional tense.

Let me explain. No, it’s too complicated. Let me sum up. As a teacher I strive to help my students overcome their difficulties, and I try hard to model courtesy as well as kindness; when dealing with adults who purport to be my equals, however, I see no reason to use kid gloves.

Your extraordinarily ill-informed, ill-spelled and ill-mannered epistles have made you a laughing stock already. You embarrass yourself with every word you attempt to type.

You may rest assured, however, that I shall not humiliate you by letting the other people at the wedding know how painfully ignorant and small-minded you are. It can be our little secret.

marries Fay

t love Fay

Go Fay! I love teachers on the warpath.

Erin, that woman is a scab on the face of the earth. I hope she drowns in her own bile.

Actually, I just feel sorry for the children she's currently warping.

Perkins, I like five and seven. Number three looks like it would take too much effort to get it to actually look that way all the time.

gives Fay a standing ovation

adds: My friend Aimee, also says, EAT IT!

Love, love, love Fay.

wrod.