Adele, just for follow-up, how has your advisor responded in the various situations in which you were pre-screening for advice this summer?
It helps us as well as you to know how reliable the hive-mind here is, and--without being too detailed, might help you see where you can anticipate issues and where you can't.
Any crotchetiness might have been related to the sense that you weren't picking up on the repeated cues that your questions were at times either too specific, or too general, for people to help with, without the input of those who, like an advisor, know the balance of issues as well as the details.
In many cases, the only possible answer is, "it depends," and wait to see how things play out.
That's in itself something you're expected to learn in grad settings: to make accurate generalizations (about repeated, similar answers, here) from the given data, and recognize a transcendent issue from a single, seemingly isolated one.
I hope your semester has started well.
M.
P.S. Related thought, maybe, in addition to the "Fora Guide to the Galaxy" thread on "When do you call the SC post-interview? Almost never!" we need one on "The care and feeding of new grad students"
(And maybe another for postdocs, since the gestational period to first-job birth is lengthening in all fields, even the humanities...)
Meant pastorally, I'm not being snarky here. We seem to have grown a caregiving dimension that seeks to be responsible, honest, and unblinkered by petty political motivations.
That's apparently much needed at present.
M.
