Advisor Avoidance

Well, I turned it in. Sent a copy of the thesis via email attachment and dropped of a hard copy in his mailbox. I know chapters 5 and 6 need work but I am confident about the other 7 chapters. 6 of the 7 "good" chapters are based on publications. I think he is going to want to publish chapter 5 (which is why it will need work even though good enough for a dissertation). And chapter 6 is just hooey. Ventured into a topic arena which is quite outside of my normal venue.

As most of my readers know, I haven't communicated with my advisor for some time. In fact, for the last four weeks I haven't even tried to contact him. I was feeling quite guilty about this, like I was doing something "bad". I guess I thought that you shouldn't be avoiding your advisor if you are so close to being done. I'm suppose to have interactions with this guy! Well, over the last three days, this has been on my mind. Probably because I planned to turn everything in today and open that line of communication again...

Over the weekend I was surfing some blogs and came across a particularly relevant blog. And, in addition, a particularly relevant entry. I suggest everyone read his "Dissertation Advisor Avoidance" blog entry. I think it highlights some of the very reasons that it was secretly a very good thing for me not to talk to my advisor for the last three months. Yes, the thesis writing has been very disheartening and frustrating but imagine how guilty and worthless I would have felt if I had missed my deadline AND he had been expecting the material!