"I guess, first off, I don't think you would have rubbed me the wrong way regardless of if I knew you through lj or not- You're a bright, spirited and warm-hearted conversationalist."

I'm glad of that. Not least because I like compliments. :)

"And this, not so much clarification as musing and simple response...I don't think of it as acting so much as chosing which facets I am going to emphasize at any given moment."

I like this view of things better. Much, much better. It's much more accurate a reflection of what's really happening.

I figured out after posting this, when I read your heavy post, that I'd probably been wrong about the perfectionist thing. And I'm not like that in many areas of my life. My house is chronically messy, my laundry chronically undone, my marking is scattered in piles around the classroom - you get the idea. My mind, however, tends toward the ultra-organized. I get very self-critical when I realize that I haven't thought something through or haven't done my best at something. I used to beat myself up over marks in the nineties if I knew that the mistakes I made were careless ones where I knew the answer. I didn't beat myself up over the honest mistakes - just the careless ones. I have to fight with myself to let myself be human sometimes.

I have to go, it's Piet's turn and I'm sleepy. I'm glad you had a great day.