She Thought Badly....

Yesterday I had my thesis exam.
The first exam in the morning was perfect. I was satisfied as there were no significant corrections but the changes of the capital letters that I used.
But, the second exam, with my own academic supervisor was a HELL.

I did not expect that horrible situation, and I was not ready for the heart-breaking statements. Everybody around me knows how hard it was for me to finish my thesis, and how I tried to work on it between my trips to different places, my jobs, and my personal problems....

I took my thesis VERY SERIOUSLY. It has been my baby for months, especially since I went back from France in May. I did my best, spending hours and hours to find the reading materials in internet, as well as buying a bunch of books to read.

Linguistics has been far away from my real life, but I tried to love it, as much as when I decided to take it as my major in my faculty.

I gained the progress on my thesis step by step under the very kind and serious guidance from my thesis supervisor, and we discussed what I wrote a lot. Not only once or twice, but it was really a lot, with the literatures around us during the discussion to prove that I used the correct theories and applied them well in my research... (thank you very much, Pak Agus...)

BUT, yesterday evening, someone who I trusted to be very supportive academic supervisor in the last five years dumped my hard work like a trash. She JUDGED, that as if the words and sentences I wrote in some parts of the thesis were NOT MY STYLE. It didn't represent MY PERSONALITY. And, the most striking statement was, "are you sure that these are your own words?"

IMAGINE...
She mentioned those prejudices only because she thought that I am a straight forward person when I talk!

For God's sake... she knew NOTHING about me and she said she was surprised to find that I wrote "flowery words"...

I might look like a straight forward person when I spoke in my talkshows, in the meetings, in my acquitances with the people I respect, e.g. lecturers.

But personally I am not exactly like that. It's just part of my journalistic profession...it was part of my politeness standard, where I even very hesitate to call my lecturers, worrying if I disturbed their time...

Her statement hurt me deeply. She doubted my quality, she doubted my honesty, she doubted my capability, and the worst of all, she doubted my personality.

Let's just ask my family, my bestfriends or my friends. They would all give the same testimonial that I am such a talkative person with many expressions. Yes, I am a very expressive person. Added with the fact that I love to write, not only in Indonesian but also in English, French and even Javanese, added that I was twice becoming the semi-finalist in an international poetry contest, that I have been hanging out with people from different nationalities and culture, that I spent many times working in international surroundings, plus the fact that I also write the fictions, published by teenage mags and tabloid... it's so ridiculous, but also so painful to hear her accusation... :-((

I cried a lot after my exam. Damn...

An academic work, as well as professional work, shouldn't be taken personally. Thus I think a subjective verbs of feeling are not appropriate to JUDGE the quality of a work.
But she DID use it, by saying, "It's really TIRING to read your thesis."

I said, "excuse me?" and hoped that she would change her statement. But no. She repeated the statement again. "It's tiring to read your thesis."
And I asked her why. She said, "because you talked too much about something that is NOT RELATED to your research".
But in my opinion, how would people understand what I wrote if they didn't have any idea about the organization and the missions that made them publishing political statements?

I wonder why someone who should have been a senior lecturer didn't use more appropriate statement for an academic project like "your thesis doesn't meet the standard of academic writing". I would be able to accept it much better than the statement of "it's tiring to read your thesis"...

Not only that... she also doubted the quality of younger lecturers. It was proven when she recommended me to meet lecturer from Indonesian language department, to clarify the quality of my analysis on English-Indonesian translation. I asked her whether I could discuss with a young lecturer I know well... but she said "no, not that young lecturer please. You know... I can't really believe that he could give you good information. I want you to meet the senior. And I will check whether you met him or not after you revise your thesis."

Again. The way she explained showed how she doubted someone's honesty...

And maybe the best statement that she made of all the examination process was, "I am a bit disappointed of your work."

I went out of the room, angry, sad, upset. And finally I cried after I had time to meet my thesis supervisor. He was the one who knew how I worked on my thesis, how it was corrected, how it progressed... And I feel thankful that he is such a positive person who understands the students well...

I am very disappointed that I had this horrible experience by the end of my academic year.
I am a person who respects the values of CREDIBILITY. I would like to shout at her, saying that I was not as bad as what she thought. I wanted to condemn her for humiliating me... yet, she is a person who has the power to decide the final result of my study...

It's not fair for me. It's not fair for me. It's not fair for me....!!!!!