I take that back

It was unfair of me to compare my advisor to the W of O. My advisor is actually not evil. He's in fact a fantastic advisor and more helpful than any other professor I've encountered at this institute (and he's not even paying me). And if I do survive this whole ordeal and manage to get my thesis done, I will be most grateful to him. I think the problem is that he doesn't realize that some things that may seem simple to him, can be practically incomprehensible to me. It's like how the famous mathematician Poincaré couldn't understand how anyone could find mathematics abstruse:

How does it happen that there are people who do not understand mathematics? ...There is nothing mysterious in the fact that everyone is not capable of discovery...But what does seem most surprising, when we consider it, is that anyone should be unable to understand a mathematical argument a the very moment it is stated to him.

But perhaps Poincaré is right. And perhaps my advisor is too, and the things he expects from me are not impossible, just very nearly so given the time frame.

(I'm taking a moment to savour this feeling of near optimism, since I'm getting back to work, and within an hour, I'll probably return to a state of panic.)