Poor English

[shermarama]

Today isn't going well, in certain ways. My car's back from being serviced and now runs better and has new oil and stuff, but it took several goes of ringing the garage to get them to admit it. I said I'd drop in and collect it just before 5 but when I put the phone down, about half two, I tried to get back to doing work and found I just couldn't deal with it all. So I went then and picked the car up and drove home and here I am.

Looking back I think I remember wondering if it was a good idea to go and study with a supervisor whose written English is so crap. I think I meant it as a joke, more or less, but I should perhaps have taken the little wriggle of doubt that prompted it more seriously. I've got to do a whole bunch of writing and I'm just banging my head against a brick wall, trying to get my head round how to structure it, for the sake of later use in the thesis write up and for what the boss-man wants. I went to see him this afternoon and tried to get it clearer but I left practically crying after 20 minutes because he doesn't even understand the question. At the same time it's not down to him, I don't really care if he thinks it's good or not because any rating of it is meaningless coming from him, it's frustrating that I can't get it done to my *own* satisfaction. But it would really help if the person who's supposed to be giving me guidance on these things had a clue.

*sighs* Time to go to band practice over in Acton. Drumming usually helps but I seem to have the doom on today; I have a nasty feeling that I'm going to get hung up on all the things that are wrong with this band today.

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

*sigh* tell me about it. Mine does that too. He waits until a poster is printed out expensively in A0 size before he tells me that actually there were corrections to the text, when he's had two edit-cycles in which to tell me before I got it printed. Most of the group develop selective listening, because he has selective advising.

I am trying to think of a way I can help, because I know lots of nanomaterials people and it should be right up my street. A lot of people I talk to, I end up drawing at least one thing because we don't have enough common language to explain it in words, not just locally but at international conferences. So he is probably good practice for dealing with materials scientists, but not so much for submitting PhDs that pass. Going to a conference might be a good way of finding contacts who are slightly more clued-up than him and can be asked to read over chapters and things. I'd also be willing to look at stuff if you ever want, too, though of course I'm at non-Dr status too so can be of limited use.