I read the newer thread before I read this one. My bad.
From what I gather, a thesis committee cannot work as a committee from the very beginning. You can't get feedback on every step from every person on the committee. They'll disagree and you won't get anywhere. It's more important for you to think of your adviser as the gatekeeper of the committee. With every step of the process, you'll go through her first, and then on to the others. She'll let you know when whatever stage of work you're at is ready for the committee to look at. They aren't teachers. You're doing the research yourself, but at every stage, the adviser is there to herd you toward the path to success. You should have had at least two methodology courses (one in undergrad and one during the MA) by now. You should know how to design and implement a research project.
To echo geologizer, your adviser and your committee expect you to be able to manage a research project on your own. They're there to steer you back when you go off course, not to verify that you're doing it right. The fact that you spent months revising and revising and revising your research proposal because you didn't feel it was ready, and you wanted your adviser and your committee to what? Be supportive how? You write a proposal draft, send it to the adviser, the adviser tells you what to fix (not what you did right), you fix it and send it back, she tells you what to fix, repeat last two steps until she tells you to send it to the others in the committee. They send you minor fixes, if necessary, and then your proposal is approved. You move on. You use your proposal to guide how you complete your research project. You don't email your committee often. It's your advisers job to guide you through the process, not the committee's. They come in when your adviser feels that you need their help, or when they need to approve the next step of the process.
It sounds as if your adviser and your committee are frustrated with you. You want guidance (not hand holding), but you may be asking them for hand holding without realizing it. Send your adviser an email with a subject line that requests a brief meeting about expectations for a thesis student. At the meeting, tell her that you think you've been going about things the wrong way, and that you're frustrated, and that you believe she is frustrated, so you'd like to clarify what she expects from you. Specifically, what she needs to approve before you proceed with something and what you need to do on your own. You should suggest that you alter how you communicate with her that best suits you both. Perhaps you should schedule weekly or bi-weekly meetings, to be changed as necessary during the course of the thesis. At the end of that meeting (and each meeting), you should ask her (if she hasn't already told you) what you should have ready for the next meeting. Theoretically, she's approved your proposal, your research design, and other things. You should know what needs her approval before you should do it, and you shouldn't concern yourself with approval in between those things unless you run into a problem that stops you (not an insecurity, but a problem).
I would also suggest that you spend some time considering your personality and what you need from others, particularly your authority figures, for your emotional well-being, and how you go about meeting those needs. I don't mean this in a you're wrong way. I mean this in a self-awareness is useful way. Everyone is different, yanno? I have to tell my profs and advisers that they must be blunt with me, even if it seems rude and hurtful, because I rarely get hints. I get hurt feelings when they get upset because I never seem to realize "That's a great insight; thanks for sharing!" actually means "Shut the heck up and let someone else say something! Argh!" Anyway, it's about figure out what your needs are and then figuring out where your needs don't fit with your adviser's (and others) responsibilities (either for realsies or in their way of thinking), and then where to get those needs fulfilled. For example, if a person where to need a weekly dose of "you're doing fine, you're doing good work, don't give up!" and the adviser is the kind of person that thinks "just fix this one thing, see you next week" is high praise, that means cultivating a mentor somewhere else.
Personally? I've haven't had problems with negative and/or discouraging profs and/or advisers even though I've had my share of profs/advisers with bad attitudes. My master's thesis was a pitched battle with my thesis adviser. We fought tooth and nail from the get-go. She thought I was being a stubborn, condescending know-it-all arguing just to argue (or so she told me). I thought she was myopic and hypocritical. Our weekly meetings generally involved a lot of "you can't do that" and "this is worse than before" and "change this and this and this and..." Anyway. I have a completed thesis that's been defended and signed. My thesis adviser and I still talk often. She thinks I'm stuck up and I think she's wearing blinders.
I prefer my advisers to be hands-off. I come organized, prepared, and with a delineated list of expectations from both sides. I also know where to find the psychologist on campus for my perfectionist flare-ups. I don't accept "because I said so" and I feel free to argue. Any suggestion of change requires an answer a reason why. I don't think I have problems with advisers and/or profs simply because I really don't care if they like me or not. I need their professional approval and that professional approval is ultimately expressed by a signature on a thesis (and eventually a dissertation). I will modify my work and my behavior for that goal. Naturally, I like it when they give me personal approval, but it's not necessary. I find my personal approval elsewhere.
Uh, what? So basically somehow, out of EVERY UNIVERSITY IN THE COUTRY, only the ivies have faculty retiring and spots to fill? I've said it before and I'll say it again: If people expand their job market to include less well-known universities or liberal arts schools, the job market suddenly becomes less horrendous.
Also, there's a classist undertone here. $30k a year is the minimum stipend for "not wasting your life," but somehow working part time at Starbucks (and probably only making $10k a year) is better than going to a lower ranked school. Yet someone living on $15 a year "baffles" you. Maybe for a lot of people, making $15-20 a year sounds like a lot of money. I work THREE part time jobs and make under 15 a year. Sorry, "reading for fun" at these jobs is not an enjoyable alternative to having things like health insurance or the security that I'd be making a steady wage instead of an hourly one. This argument smacks of someone who hasn't ever had to work at starbucks outside of maybe a summer job. But somehow I should turn down or dismiss my midlevel acceptance offering 21 and medical/dental in a cheap area because it isn't an ivy an won't get me into an ivy...even though it has an 80% placement rate overall, better than what Harvard reports. And let's not go into the fact that you more essentially telling people if they can't get into a top tier school, they should work at Starbucks (the academic equivalent of "do you want to end up working a McDonald's" it seems)--a tragic message especially for people coming out of underprivileged backgrounds who want to go into academia.
You also seem to forget that some places are significantly cheaper than others to live in. Take UNC chapel hill- top 20, doesn't offer much of a stipend because NC is so cheap to live in. Guess someone should turn it downfor the $29 offered by NYU, even though 29 is still hardly enough to get you by in the city if you don't have a spouse!
So just to be clear: you came to a message board full of people applying to English/Rhetoric/Comparative Literature PhD programs and decided that, now, in March, 5 months after applying, you will remind us of the news no one doesn't know and repeat to us the websites and stats our loved ones, family members, and friends harp to us constantly?
Do you have a Kickstarter page so I can fund you to push kids off swings while telling them Santa doesn't exist?
Not a grad phone interview anectdote, but one from undergrad. I remember being so nervous at an interview with a Princeton alum that I said flambé instead of Flaubert. My only advice to you from this is not to confuse your culinary arts with your literary ones
Your opening post asks "And do you have any suggestions of how I can weasel myself out of having to find a Latin translator in RURAL CHINA?" This implied that you in fact didn't know how to go about dealing with your undergraduate college and getting a notarized transcript, since you were instead seeking a local translator rather than contacting the school you matriculated from. There was nothing there about deadlines, exemptions, or how to approach things with the place you are applying until four hours after your initial post, so I don't think it's crazy that we all focused on practical advice for dealing with the degree-granting institution.
As for the Latin degrees, I get where you are coming from now, but again, what was asked in your first post was more or less "do you agree that degrees in Latin are so common that this is an unreasonable request on the university's part?" This is the other question I answered--they are not common.
There are lots of smart folks on the forums that can answer just about any question you ask, but I guess the net out of all this is that it is important to ask the question you actually want answered. Hopefully you have a plan of action at this point. I won't post again here since I've said my piece and don't want to seem hostile--I do hope you found some of the above advice, from any source, useful.
