I knew my writing students were using AI. Their confessions led to a powerful teaching moment (The Guardian, 5/10/26)

[highplainsdem]

10. I doubt you were "homely" - most women feel insecure about their looks. But clothing and even hair

color can get the wrong sort of attention. (I remember one guy I was dating complaining when I stopped dyeing my hair blond, tried dyeing it back to reddish brown. I'd been platinum blond as a child, and my sister and a cousin we often went out with were natural blondes, which is why I thought I'd try blond again, back in the days of "blondes have more fun" advertising. My re-dyed hair turned out auburn, more red than brown, and then I found out that as much as that guy had preferred blondes, there were guys who had an equally irrational preference for redheads - none of which made sense.)

I didn't complain about that poli sci professor - he had too much clout in the department, there weren't any witnesses, and it would have been my word against his. I probably would have complained if he had given me a bad grade for the semester after I turned him down, because I don't think he could have easily explained the low grade. I found out later that another female poli sci major had mentioned his behavior to friends, but the student who told me didn't know the name of the student he'd harassed, and it had happened a few years earlier. Guys got away with a lot of harassment then. Still do, but it was worse then.

>ETA: Edited for tenses derangement - I just got done with hot yoga and my brain is fried lol.

I never tried hot yoga, but I suspect that even back in the days when I could manage some yoga poses (pre-sacroiliac injury), hot yoga would have left me collapsed on the floor, as well as with my brain fried. I can.barely tolerate temps over 100.