A friend notified me of an
e-mail from our supervisor. After that ‘bashing’ session, I was totally
grief-stricken that I'd lost any interest to check on my mail.
But after a while, I regained
my conscience and opened my mail. It was an unusual mail from him (our
supervisor), and I’ll produce the content here verbatim.
Dear all,
If I stressed you out or
I hurt your feelings or I am too hard on/fierce for you, please let me know. I
can try to change my supervising style. It is not healthy for you to have such
feelings. Student-supervisor communication is really important to make things
work.
I apologize if I make any
mistakes but I would like to let you know I have no bad intention to treat you
in such a way. So, I hope we can work things out.
Regards.
Judging from the timing of
the mail (around 6.00 p.m., the day of my suicide mission with him), it was sent
right after that session, where he (unintentionally) skinned me alive.
I harboured no hard feelings
towards him, honestly. I took it all as a challenge. It’s part and parcel of
life to be criticized. I accept criticism with substance.
But I don’t know what the
rest of us are feeling towards his approach. He’s brutally honest…blasting his
points with razor sharp words. His candour and demeanour have no middle ground…you
either like him or loathe him. There’s no grey area.
I’m looking forward to
working closely under his tutelage. There is so much more to learn…sometimes I
feel like I’m running out of time. Time is of an essence. Seeing people wasting their time by playing
games, surfing facebook, talking incessantly and doing nothing makes me angry.
We have no more time to waste. Let's pull our socks up and stop wasting any more time.
I'll work harder after this.
