You have good ideas, I have good ideas

I am giving a seminar at the end of this week. This whole process involved writing a 20 page paper about everything I've done in the last year or two, which I submitted to my committee yesterday. It took about 3 (snow) days to put together, before I submitted it to Dr. Boss- who dealt it a near lethal blow with the red pen. This was surprising, since this is mostly a document he's read before (as a draft of a manuscript)- apparently not as carefully though! This put me in the mindset of his comments though- it's not like he disagrees with me (although when your rough draft bleeds out, it is hard not to feel that way), he wants me to convince everyone else. In the past I've felt like we weren't in agreement, or that he didn't understand the work I have done. Turning this corner is a MAJOR breakthrough.

Now I have to put together the presentation- and since I have done more then was included in the manuscript- it isn't so obvious how to summarize all that effort on 3 veins of research. We'd both bandied back and forth on this last week (because what else would we talk about while coffee is brewing?).

Today I met with him to show him how I was thinking about it- good timing. The presentation is only just arriving in the shape I am thinking about, and I haven' committed so much time to make me defensive- in fact there are some elements I devoutly disliked. So we flipped through it, and had one of the best chats we've ever had. He made some suggestions I already incorporated (Dr. B:yes, this is good- your next slide should be ____. Me: *click* Yes? Dr. B: ooo, that's eerie. You are starting to think like me. That means it's time to graduate), he made some suggestions that make the presentation WAY better, and he was pleased with the way I had dealt with some of the data. He thinks I am bright, I think he's got a lot of good ideas, and together we are hoping to impress my committee. That's exactly how I wanted this to go, and I am feeling much more at peace with the process.

Tomorrow-much restructuring, practice talk Thursday, seminar and committee meeting Friday. Please hope for me that the committee is impressed, and I'll have more good news soon.