Taking the very good advice of my commentors--especially Horace, Tenured Radical and Tony Grafton--I emailed my dissertation director yesterday and quite enjoyed it. Typing that chatty, cheerful, and occasionally slightly cheeky note I almost persuaded myself that its tone reflected the actual nature of our relationship. And if there's little historic truth to that particular fiction, at least it's a hopeful way of thinking about the future.
She wrote back within 12 hours, with typical brevity, but at enough length to tell me how nice it was to receive my "upbeat and grown-up" (!) message, mention one work she's now completing, and say that I should certainly let her know if there was anything I wanted her to read in the future.
So--what more could I ask for, and reasonably hope to get?
7 comments:
I am ROFL at "upbeat and grownup."
I think we have the same advisor.
Hooray! Well done, and I'm happy you got such a favorable response. :)
(BTW, I know you may still be in the midst of all sorts of travel, but will we see you in Boston anytime soon?)
NK: I seem to recall, from things you've said about your advisor elsewhere, that they ARE scarily similar. Are you sure that you didn't secretly get a degree in English?
RLM: Alas, no--I finally return to my actual home on Tuesday, and aside from three conferences and many trips to QSC, I'm hoping to STAY there for a while. But best to all the peeps.
Whohooooo!
Hey - way to go! But I already *knew* you were upbeat and grown-up! :) Glad to see that it's catching!
What's funny is that much of my time in grad school, I felt like a lit person hiding out in the history department! I was once talking to some lit folks at a conference and said something about considering myself a historicist and they looked at me funny and said, "Well, yeah - because you're a HISTORIAN!"
But yes, I think we do have the same advisor. Or they were separated at birth or something.
Just want to thank you, Flavia, and the others who've posted their suggestions and responses on this and the previous post about emailing advisers!
I've needed to send my adviser an email for a long time, but I've been dithering over it, feeling as though I needed to send some "impressive" account of my doings to him. But reading these comments helped me realize that I just needed to send him something brief and relatively low-key that let him know what was going on while also indicating a genuine interest in his work.
That took a big load off my mind, so I just typed it up and sent it off. Thanks for helping me stop procrastinating!
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