Sorry I didn't catch it earlier.
The sender of the question provided the label "Katie?" and I just thought she meant that this kind of mentoring sounded a lot like other things Katie has posted on her own blog, at RYS, and here.
Of course, Katie's history is long with us, and I cannot take another event.
Fab
How about "it's okay to be creepy and skeevy"?
ReplyDeleteWould it be better or worse if the professor were male (and/or the animals were dogs)?
ReplyDeleteAnd why did we suddenly decide to live dangerously today? Things too quiet around here?
ReplyDeleteMind you, as a nearly 50-year-old single woman who hasn't gotten around to finding a successor to the cat who died a few years ago, and socializes very little at all, I'm not in a position to throw stones.
I'm not sure if the mentoring and parties are for the cats for former students. I'm also not sure which would be worse.
ReplyDeleteYep, creepy and skeevy. And sad. I hope things get better for her.
ReplyDelete"Would it be better or worse if the professor were male"
Definitely worse. For all that it's PC to pretend otherwise, a man is much more likely than a woman to be behaving like this with a predatory motive.
Sad. Not creepy, just sad.
ReplyDeleteI can't help feel that this is based on recent posts by a well-known academic blogger occasionally mistaken for Katie from Kalamazoo; if not, it is a suspiciously coincident set of characteristics.
ReplyDeleteI feel it incumbent to point out that this is a skewed summary of what is actually represented by the blog in question: as a regular reader, I can't help but note that she mentions a wide range of social activities with family, local and long distance friends from multiple life stages and colleagues as well as with graduated students. She is clearly far more social than I am.
And my cat is a much better room mate than any human room mate I've had, although she's not into dance parties.
I hope this isn't the case. I don't read Katie's blog, but I'll check it out. It's quite clear that the blogger you mention and Katie are one in the same. We have the IP addresses and at least one email sent in error that connect the three identitites, her real world identity, the blogger you mention, and Katie, who wrote for RYS and CM previously.
DeleteI may take this down anyway because she has previously asked for us not to use her information.
Fab
I also read periodically, caught the relevant post, and agree that the summary in the now-redacted thirsty, both in respect to the particular post, and in general. The blog does regularly mention interaction with a wide social circle, including but by no means limited to former students.
DeleteAs I alluded to in my comment above, I'm aware that, as a fairly extreme introvert, I could easily be seen as just as odd, just in a different way.
Is Annie in Akron someone we already know? The question might have been innocent, but the "Katie?" label makes me wonder whether *someone* may have thought it was too quiet around here.
oops. Insert "was skewed" after "in general." That's what I get for writing (and revising) overly-long sentences.
DeleteHow do people know if their colleagues have no friends? Does Facebook tell them this information?
ReplyDeleteMy department is very collegial, but only one person would be considered my friend. While the others think they know me, as I think I know them, I have no idea who their friends are and am certain they have no idea who my friends are.
I would be suspicious of any 38 year old WANTING to befriend younger students (as in anyone under 30). I find myself enraged half the time I talk with anyone under 30. The other half of the time, I'm bored.
"I would be suspicious of any 38 year old WANTING to befriend younger students (as in anyone under 30). I find myself enraged half the time I talk with anyone under 30. The other half of the time, I'm bored."
Delete^^^Exactly!^^^
Every now and then, there's a student who's worth talking to on a social level. I'm in the about-40-year-old range, and I've friended a few ex-students on Facebook, and one drops by my office every now and then to chat. They're rare, but they exist.
DeleteYeah, sometimes age doesn't prevent people having interests in common (whether that's a passion for science, cats or a particular genre of fiction). If I was a more socially ept person, I expect I would have kept friendship type contacts with some students after they graduated - I certainly have friendly and regular email chats with some. Nerdiness is not limited by age!
DeleteYeah, sometimes age doesn't prevent people having interests in common (whether that's a passion for science, cats or a particular genre of fiction). If I was a more socially ept person, I expect I would have kept friendship type contacts with some students after they graduated - I certainly have friendly and regular email chats with some. Nerdiness is not limited by age!
DeleteI can talk to 20 year olds about shared interests, but my students are not my friends and I don't think they should be. I don't rely on them for emotional support because it isn't an equal relationship. I keep up with students who have graduated and with ones who have taken courses from me who are still on campus, and we will chat occasionally in the hallways, but they wouldn't be the ones I'd call if I needed a ride home if my car broke, or if I was fighting with my significant other and needed to vent.
DeletePartying with former students is definitely awkward and inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteI do, though, wish the our general cultural attitude toward older, single women would evolve a bit. I am in my early-forties (with two awesome cats, by the way, whom I adore). I have a job that I find very meaningful and satisfying, a decent salary, some dear old friends and many colleagues with whom I'm friendly. I also have many friends via the athletic activity in which I participate regularly. I am happily single and not a scheming, grasping, desperate cougar.
I like my life just the way it is, thankyouverymuch, and the idea that anyone would call my situation "sad" maybe shows how narrowly-defined our expectations for women still are. I have freedom, professional fulfillment, and autonomy that women in any earlier era would find astounding. Yet, I still sometimes fall under a faint cloud of suspicion or pity merely because I've chosen not to marry, and that irks me a little, sometimes.
Amen to this (and to Stella's second paragraph below, and at least parts of the first). I wish I had the decent salary, but, otherwise, I'm in full agreement (and I'm certainly not looking to get married as a way to address the money question; there are all kinds of problems with that, and all kinds of good reasons to want the value of my work to be recognized with decent pay whether or not I'm married, and/or technically "need" the salary. That's not how the American economy works). And while I'm not opposed to the possibility of marriage, I'm also not at all opposed to the idea of remaining single, and have never actively sought a relationship (though I've been attracted to individual men, a somewhat different thing). I'm very grateful to live in an era where I can make decisions on the basis of the individual person/relationship, but also aware that a certain stigma still attached to singlehood, and would rather we didn't perpetuate it here.
DeleteI hate that fucking blog and I think the writer is a self-involved moron who has too much time on her hands and needs a shitload of therapy. Ditto several other equally odious blogs by female academics that focus endlessly, both implicitly and explicitly, on the writer's belief that they're FAR too attractive/popular/whimsical/iconoclastic/etc. to be academics, when they're really just dumpy, plodding women nearing forty.
ReplyDeleteYou know what? Academia IS MADE UP OF dumpy, plodding women nearing forty. OWN IT!!! OWN IT YOU BRAINWASHED MOTHERFUCKERS!
I'm quite willing to own "dumpy" and "plodding," though I'd like to point out that those qualities are in no way inconsistent with being smart, or doing essential, difficult work (so maybe "plodding" should also be "dedicated," though I'm not overly fond of that word, which partakes a bit too much of the "teaching as a vocation" trope, which always somehow comes around to arguing that the money doesn't matter). I just wish that work were recognized with better pay.
DeleteNot sure why the focus here is on female stereotypes.
Delete:/
This is such bullshit. As I've noted here before, I've met Katie, and teach in the same neck of the woods. She's a 100% fucking nutcase.
ReplyDeleteIf you read the comments and previous posts you can see that she took her own posts, doctored them, sent them to RateMyStudents and our site a number of times. When she took shit for her insane "attraction" to her students, she asked the mods to take them down.
Then she cried plagiarism. Are you kidding me? You couldn't make that shit up.
I won't even say her blog name, let alone her real one, because her blog is just as Stella describes it. She's an embarrassment.
Can you imagine being in Katie's department?
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry for her poor colleagues. Everything she has printed here on RYS and CM showcases someone who needs therapy. I don't say that lightly either. Earlier when the connection was made between her own blog, I read some of that. I couldn't get past the entry about her going to her hometown and bedding down some guy she barely remembered from high school in his parent's basement. She was 33 at the time.
And that shit with her BFF student - of which there were numerous posts - that's just pathetic.
Oh, and I don't mean I have a problem with a 33 year old single woman getting some on the floor of a basement; it was the way she talked about it, as if it was a mode of discourse. I'm not even kidding.
DeleteWhat I hated was that she'd send a post in as Katie - always a version of something from her own page. It'd be up for a while, then she'd send an email saying she didn't send it, and SOMEONE had plagiarized her.
ReplyDeleteLike Cal, I had IP matches and in one case she used her SCHOOL email to send me something that later also came from her "blog name."
THREE IDENTITIES. And as far as I can tell, all loony.
Wow, that level of crazy doesn't deserve cats!
DeleteI'm inclined to tolerate a colleague who is "crazy" or different, as long as s/he (including all of hir identities) is trustworthy, knows hir field, and grades hir students with integrity. I don't read someone's blog if I don't want to. Sometimes I get over-the-top drunk myself, like I (and my avatar) did yesterday, but I do my job well, keep confidences, keep up with the latest hamster fur research, and grade the students right.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't keep up with the Katie issue.
Each person needs a space to be loony and some freedom to feel loony. I'd be concerned if employees were loony while representing my school.
Agreed, Bubba. I'm all for allowing people to be loony (or odd, or whatever; I tend to think of myself as odd, or perhaps falling at the extreme end of normal, or perhaps a bit past, on a couple of scales), within bounds (and pseudonymity does help define/construct those bounds). The blogger in question also seems dedicated to doing right (as she sees it) by her students. Like Darla, I don't think I'd want to serve on a committee with her, because she seems so sure of herself and her opinions, but that's a somewhat different issue (though admittedly one that can affect the ability to work well with others, hence the probably-don't-want-to-work-with-her thing).
DeleteYou, on the other hand, I'd be delighted to work with, drunk or sober (well, in the case of drunk, I'd probably offer you a bed for the night or a ride home, and wait until the next day to transact business, but I'd be happy to hear/read any poetry or other creative products that emerged in the interim). And as I mentioned before, I was very much cheered to see Harvey, a friend to the odd/crazy/different but fundamentally good, make an appearance on this blog. He seems at home here.
"Sometimes I get over-the-top drunk myself, like I (and my avatar) did yesterday..."
DeleteAh, now that would explain a lot! ;-)
This blog could use a nasty, filthy knock down fight with Katie.
ReplyDeleteLet me get my popcorn ready first!
DeleteNow, now, Ben. Katie has problems of her own: she doesn't need our help.
DeleteIs she thinking about giving up the blogging? Connected blogs indicate that she's losing patience with the blog format:
ReplyDeletehttp://reassignedtime.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/really-im-still-here/