Tales of Supervision: Supervising at 10:30 p.m.

Reliable Internet connection + thesis draft from my student + six hour time difference = supervising at 10:30 p.m. by Skype.

It turns out that my supervisor only glanced at the student's latest draft, which I received in the morning (or around midnight for my student). Good progress was made with text and diagrams. During the day, I highlighted a number of ambiguities remaining in the text, and did my usual Acrobat 9 text edit suggestions. (Acrobat X is flakier than Acrobat 9 and the UI was garbaged. Avoid if possible.) Apparently, they don't completely show up in whatever PDF viewer the student uses (probably Preview since he's on a Mac), so I provided a screenshot of what they should look like.

We agree to do this again on Monday since we're two weeks from the deadline. Also, because he was sick the last time he was supposed to present his "research proposal", it will be held next Friday. (The research proposal presentation is basically a 10-minute talk about the student's proposed/ongoing research [problem, methods, literature], given at a seminar that runs every Friday morning. At it, critics and colleagues are allowed to ask questions about the research. It is open to all interested. The same booking is also used for MSc defenses, that typically last 40 minutes with a 15 minute presentation, 10 minutes of comments and dialogue from the opponent, and 15 minutes for general discussion including the supervisors.)

We scout out possible English-speaking opponents (apparently s/he only needs the text by the Tuesday before the Friday defense).

I will try to attend the research proposal presentation via Skype on his laptop, even though the usual facility for presentations is a PolyCom-equipped teleconference venue.