Wow. This kind of thing showed up in some research that was done by a woman in the SCA concerning how women are different from men, physiologically, and how that affects teaching women how to fight. The idea is that it takes about 15 minutes after the woman’s system is flooded with adrenaline (such as walking into the professor’s office) for the adrenaline to beat its way through the … (whoops, just went to the Iron Rose website to look that up, and they’ve taken the book off-line. Still some good stuff there, anyway). Anyway, 15 minutes after women get startled, the adrenaline hits. Once it’s done, they crash hard, and either burst into tears, or burst out laughing (as the author of the Iron Rose book put it about her experiences as an MP in Somalia, “Try explaining how you avoided an ambush without laughing in your CO’s face sometime. It’s trickier than you might think.” Men have a different hormonal reaction to adrenaline and the lack of it, so they tend not to react as strongly.
Nifty stuff, Ethilrist. I’m trying to recall… it might well have been a delayed reaction to a specific request I made to organize something she felt was going along pretty well.
And BTW, I’m pretty pissed at myself for dropping a gender-specific pronoun. I meant to excise them all. At the time, I didn’t think it was relevant. And I know several men who’ve cried with their advisors. Lord knows I came close once or twice with my first (female) advisor… and then later with my second (male) advisor.
Although I’m not even on her committee… I’m just an ‘expert’ she has the most right to consult with.
capybara, keep plugging away. The end of the tunnel will sneak up on you before you know it.
Nog
[Nelson] Haw haw! [/Nelson]
Nogginhead: mantra is currently “two more years, two more years, two more years. . .”
(Actually I’M only 31, so I have “years” left. . .)
Just an update that I met again with the student today. All is well, most of any tension dissipated quickly.
She actually put together the written framework I suggested and not only did it really help me find my way through her stuff, but she volunteered that it was helpful to her as well.
I am a competent academic!