Made the mistake of shaving my beard

This picture was taken a few days before shaving.

I grew a beard since being in the hospital. I liked having it, except all the grey in the chin - but hey, it adds character...and about ten years to my look. I work in a Catholic High School that does not allow facial hair for the students. Although the adult employees are technically allowed to have beards (at least there's nothing in my contract prohibiting facial hair - and there are a couple teachers with beards in some shape or form) I don't think it's enthusiastically accepted. This was emphasized by my coworkers who gave me a razor for my birthday - of course it was in good fun...but point taken. So I decided that I would try shaving my beard three weeks before work started back up to see how I looked...basically if I didn't like the way I looked without the beard I would have three weeks to grow it back and just deal with the comments from coworkers, etc. And if I was ok with how I looked, I would go clean shaven and all would be right in the universe that is work.

So I am sitting here now with a weeks worth of scruff willing my beard to grow faster...any suggestions? I look ridiculous with my moonface and no beard, I was shocked at how much my beard concealed this particularly fun prednisone side-effect. For a few days, my kids stared at me with mixed looks of pity and fear (in fact the other night for family prayer, our 4yr old Caleb prayed that my beard would grow back faster). I would post a picture of myself, but I refuse to chronicle this...I will say though that it is a bit reminiscent of Eddie Murphy in the fat suit in the Nutty Professor (except I'm white. maybe more like Mike Myers as Fat Bastard in Austin Powers...). Supposedly this all goes away when I hit a dose level of about 10-15mg of prednisone a day...I'm currently at 50 and tapering slowly. So I will probably have a beard for most, if not all, of the following school year. And I think I will be able to deal with the comments just fine, when considering the alternative.