Poppy Red has left a new comment on your post "Hypocrisy!":
I also don't think you're a hypocrite -- you're complicated, as strawberries said, and you're also very understandably looking out for yourself and trying to finish your degree!
I'm not a science person, so I don't really know what it's like to be in the middle of an experiment and need help at that moment in order to save the experiment, so you can take or leave any of my suggestions about the advisor thing. But I will say, I think it might be worth it for your sanity to have this nicer advisor. I wonder if she would treat you differently if you were officially her advisee? For example, maybe she'd be around a bit more? (She's new, right? Does she have people she's advising?) Or maybe she'd be willing to give you her home/cell number to use if you get screwed up in an experiment? You know, as long as you used it sparingly or something. Is there a way to work around HER schedule more, be in the lab when she's around and build your schedule on hers?
As for her motivating you/keeping you on track: is there some way you can get this motivational support from someone else instead? My advisors do not motivate me or keep me on a schedule either. I've just sort of learned I have to find that motivation elsewhere, and it's not going to come from within me (I do not do very well without a set schedule). So I do things like write up a schedule for myself that I then give to a friend or my fiance to check on me, or I tell as many people as possible that I'm going to do X by X date, so that I'll be embarrassed if it doesn't happen.
It just sounds like you really don't respond very well to the kind of "motivation" your current advisor gives, so maybe it would be worth it to take a little more time than you want to but to do it in a more pleasant way. If you do stay with the current advisor, you might have to start ignoring him when he says things about your laziness, etc. My friend has an advisor who has crazy expectations, and I just tell her to be sure to process what he says after each meeting so as not to start believing everything he says all at once and all at face value.
Posted by Poppy Red to academicsecret at 5/21/2007 2:51 PM
