======= Date Modified 23 34 2010 23:34:05 =======
Something has come to my attention. As you know, I'm having a few problems with my sup, who keeps losing her rag and then being all apologetic and telling me I'm the best student she's ever had blah blah blah. Anyway, I have noticed something that keeps happening. Every time she is horrible to me and has to apologise, or I tell her I'm not very well, she spends ages looking over my work and giving me huge amounts of feedback in a very short space of time, i.e. the next day. I figure this is her way of trying to apologise/help by showing me that she cares about my work or something. Yesterday afternoon I handed in four pieces of work (2 powerpoint presentations and a poster for upcoming conferences and an 8,000 word paper that's in its final stages before submission). So she called me into her office today having marked all four things in less than a day. But it was clear that she had marked them in a foul mood because the comments were not particularly encouraging and I could just hear her tone of impatience in what she wrote. Why would she think that giving me a whole load of negative feedback would make me feel better? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the help I can get- but she knew I was exhausted and not very well, quite down, so she gives me a such a nasty dose of feedback that it reduced me to tears (although admittedly it doesn't take much at the moment!!). I mean, where's the logic? Anyone? Are all supervisors this weird? KB

hi keenbean
I'm so sorry that your supervisor is temperamental
thankfully mine isn't
but yes I do agree with you that supervisors can get weird (not all, though)

hang in there
love satchi

Hi KB, yes, I too am sorry to hear you are having a difficult time. It took me a while to reply because I wasn't sure what to say and I wanted to think about it properly, I have a deadline today, so not much spare head space.

I think this could be a case of the roller-coaster ride getting to you etc. In my experience, when people blow hot and cold I become very suspiscious of everything they do.

However, my supervisor's written comments are always pretty brutal, although there is sometimes a bit of written praise and he praises me and is much nicer in person. Her narky comments might just be because she did it so quickly, I know that the more essays I have to mark and the less time to do it the less nice I become - it just comes out like that when I'm working under a lot of pressure, certainly nothing personal. Perhaps the abruptness of her notes is due to the haste in which she made them?