Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us
Robert Burns
No offense, Bobby B., but your observation hardly comes as a revelation to any teacher who actually reads what his students say about him in their evaluations. I’ve certainly had some doozies over the years. In response to a query about how this instructor “compares to others you have had,” one budding scholar simply wrote “shorter than most.” The vertical challenges I face has been a consistent theme: “He looks like a normal person from the waist up.” Finally, there has been no shortage of criticism of my sartorial style or my sense of humor:
“He wears high-water pants and thinks he’s Johnny Carson,” and more recently, such damnably faint praise as "some of his jokes are funny."
You would think years of such put-downs would have muted my curiosity about how students see me, but last week I succumbed to the temptation to check myself out on ratemyprofessor.com, where I found among some fairly positive comments the following observation: “Sweats a lot and manages to pull off a skullet.”
I will admit that in my zeal to inspire in the classroom I have been known to perspire up some good-sized “saddlebags” under my arms. I was perplexed by the “skullet” reference, however, until I finally although I finally surmised that it had something to do with my hairstyle and its relationship to a “mullet,” which for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a decidedly downscale "do" featuring a severely cropped top accentuated by a flowing mane in back. Thanks to the experts at mulletjunky.com, I now know the skullet is indeed a variation of the mullet in which rather than buzz cut, the top has simply been shaved. Technically, then, what I have is not a skullet but what they call a “forcekullet” or a “bullet” (balding mullet). According to them, the bullet is all about compensation; "A lack of locks on top, shit we'll just make up for it in the back". I’m afraid they’ve pretty much got the goods on me there. According to their illustration of the phases of skullethood (See below), I guess I’m in Stage III, but I refuse to concede that my condition is as advanced as that of the gentleman in the photo. I rest my case on the following shot of me (also below) taken just this morning without any tricks with lighting, airbushing, or Photoshopping, I swear! Let me know if you agree. By the way, just in case you are thinking of going all Robert Burns on me, I have no problem with your telling me precisely what you think I want to hear. After all these years, I've had quite enough ol' Burnsy's "as 'ithers see us" crap. By the way, check out the pic of Burns below mine. He appears to have a pretty good crop up top, but I notice that not one of his portraits even shows his profile, much less a rear view. Hmm...
