So I got the nerve to discuss my paper with my Thursday Prof. I was totally flustered and tongue-tied, mostly because I value her criticism of my work. Sadly, I might have appeared or behaved like a neurotic student. Ugh. But after getting some one-on-one feedback on my issues with articulating x, y, and z, I felt an immediate sigh of relief. She ended by saying (and I'm paraphrasing here), "it's the perceptive ones who have trouble writing because they see complex problems in the text" -- okay, so it was something to that effect. A positive advice, I take it; so I walked home feeling somewhat inspired to think about my paper more critically.
I wonder: does this mean I am writing a paper to impress her? Or am I creating my own and thus asking her to understand me? Not sure I can really tell, and I doubt I am altogether conscious of these questions during the writing process. Hmm...
At any rate, it is interesting to think of the kind of intellectual growth that can come out of a teacher/student mentorship. I'm going to try to see more of my profs during office hours to get a sense of who I can work with and ask to read my thesis next year. Mantra: "It's not so bad."
Why do I feel like listening to Patsy Cline's "Crazy" ?
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