Who's inadequate?

Alright. That is a rhetorical question that need not answering at any point. (Is that redundant?)

Argh. I am trying to sit here and work on figures for my next paper, the easy part really (for me), because my advisor needs the photographs for a grant. I can not keep focusing though because I keep feeling inadequate.

I ask my advisor today if she has an idea of what she would like from me in two and a half weeks to submit this grant, as I had been gone for a week. She says, "Oh. Nothing you do not have already." I got a little more specific and asked what pictures she would want or what preliminary data she was including. "Oh. Why don't you just send me your job talk."

Only I do not trust her. So I took out all the whistles and bells and left in the figures and told her if she wanted the originals, to let me know because these were all compressed for powerpoint. She sends me some weird email back about the content, and I point out to her that what she seems to want IS IN THE PRESENTATION. So then she makes up more excuses. I am just trying to plan ahead so she does not ask things of me last minute that I could have done ahead of time?!

I just got an email from someone I used to be really interested in working for when I am done. His past couple of emails have been strange (granted I do not know the man at all). He came to one of the job talks I gave because he is in that department, and gave great feedback as someone who is very familiar with some of the things I work with. Honestly, I was scared of making a fool of myself and tried to explain where I am coming from without getting defensive. It is difficult to explain, but he is familiar with both sides of a controversial topic, and I am only familiar with the more vocal side, and he clarified a couple of things "for" me. So I try not to feel inadequate. I sent him a thank you email for taking time to listen to my talk, and the response he sent was somewhat dismissive. I just hope it is not because he thinks I am stupid. I hope it is because, as I have heard from several people in the department who know him, that it is because he is a nice guy and does not just want to say in an email, "leave me the f*&^ alone." I will have to get over this though, if I end up working in his department.

I may have posted about this before, but I remember reading that women in grad school will blame failure on their own inadequecies (however real or not), and men will blame it on the experimental design, saying it is too difficult (again, however real or not). Similar to something else I heard/read once about how men tend to walk over something in their way and women tend to walk around it. Who knows where exactly I heard these or if I am making them up. I always make a point of walking over things though, and I am trying hard to blame experimental failure on the experiment and not my own incompetence.

I am trying not to get angry that my advisor keeps coming up with ideas about potential experiments. Partly because some are valid, and partly because I recognize she is flailing around in deep water trying not to drown in literature she has not kept up with for the past three years. I REALLY need her to just focus and think about me finishing though. When she emailed with some vague experiment today, I emailed her back the experiment I did. Then she emailed me AGAIN saying that experiment is fine, but with "more" (VAGUE) information. So I emailed her back with specific questions, because really, who knows if what these people did is even relevent to what I am trying to do. My advisor likes to make crap up and I am resisting wasting time thinking about said crap.

I think my advisor and I need another heart-to-heart. It has been two weeks, after all, since I had my break-down in her office. Why not another?

[See this post for any thing that may seem confusing or need a reference above.]
[Also, I would come up with a nickname for my advisor, but the ones currently in use are not appropriate to be spreading on the internets.]