Interpersonal Conflict: Two Sides of The Same Coin?

Welcome to my blog again guys and gals. Forgive me for the late post, it's been a hectic week. This week we shall think about a case scenario and how we can solve/understand it.
Here is a scenario that may often occur in a work place. Imagine this:
You are a student researcher in a lab and just started working in a new lab. Being new, you are still trying to get use to the environment, figuring out what you should and should not do, where all things belong to and where to get what. So technically you can summarize it into one word: LOST.
Since the lab you are in is quite a busy lab, the introduction to the lab was very brief and you were told to learn as you go. Being attached to a strict supervisor, you find her intimidating.
That would be the background of the situation.
The conflict would be as follows:

Your supervisor is a very busy person and therefore does not have much time to spend on you. Most questions asked are replied with short answers and you find that small mistakes that you made gets you a "scolding" from her. This creates a tense environment for you in the lab. Sometimes you would complain to your peers about your supervisor that she is mean and scary, and you lable her as “dragon lady” as a joke and laugh it off. Unknown to you, some of your peers told your supervisor on what you said, this of course upsets her. She however kept it to herself however she seems to be colder to you after the incident.
The situation scales up as you find yourself harder to communicate with her and with your project being under her, the project is under risk due to the lack of communication.
You are stressed out due to the environment and fear that everything you do might cause you to get scolded. Being highly intimidated by her, you feel that it is hard to approach her to discuss on your project. You consider bringing up the issue to your professor but you are afraid of causing more problems by doing so.
Main Problem:
You need to resolve the cold war between your supervisor and yourself to ensure the proper execution of the project. However you do not know how to bring up the topic to her personally. You need to figure out a way to resolve the conflict without causing more conflict between you and your supervisor.

Here's the question, what should you do to confront her to resolve the issue. Since keeping quite and hoping that it would pass by is not working, actions have to be taken.

To make things interesting I would post the other part of the coin a few days later. This way we could reflect on the way we think before and after we know the whole story.
Thus the title: Two Sides of the Same Coin

*edited*

Communication Skills?

Communication between humans would have already begun even before our ancestors evolved into Homo sapiens and through the ages, we slowly but surely improve our means of communication. From barks and growls to carving and pictures, smoke signals and flag signs, mail and Morse codes etc. However a common problem still persist through the ages, though refine are our current state of communication system, there are always occasions where miscommunication occurs between two parties and more often than not, lead to a series of problems.

I have more than enough of my fair share on such occasion, where most cases involve offending the other party without realizing it. This is where effective communication skills comes in to prevent, if not lessen the number of times you’re in such awkward situations. Communication skills DOES NOT only involve the proper phrasing and choice of words, but it also involves courage to speak out and the patience to listen and understand (plus a dash of luck to be in the right place at the right time). There is no point if you have a brilliant idea in your head but you are just too shy or too afraid/embarrassed to voice it.

This is not true only true in workplaces but also in your daily lives and relationships. Knowing how to communicate with others is important in building a strong relationship (and may also help you get the girl/guy :-P) and also helps promote yourself in the social network. Sure, characteristics such as good looks or deep pocket would also help to promote yourself in the social network, but having those with bad communication skills might cause you to end up as “cute guy/girl who only talks trash”. I certainly wouldn’t like that to be labeled on me.

Situations where the language part of communication skills come into play for me would probably be when I am writing my research report or during a debate on ideas. It seriously becomes a pain in the $%# when you have limited vocabulary to use to write your report, leading it to sound monotonous, boring and worst of all, unimportant. This is quite saddening because the report which is supposed to represent the research that you have done (through passion, time and hard work) could not sound as exciting as it should because you do not have the ability to not only write the data, but also present it in such a way that it intrigues and excites the readers and not bore them to death.

So in summary, why is communication skills so important? It helps you get your point across, it helps you create a social presence, it helps you in your workplace, it helps you get attention of people, it helps you get that girl you like, it helps you write an interesting article, it helps you get readers for you blog, it helps you talk to the even the weirdest people on earth, it helps you scold others and not look like a jerk, it helps you to have a vibrant social life, it helps you . . . . .

So yea the reasons we could think is almost limitless, hope I got my point across, if I did, what are you waiting for? Get the brush out and start brushing up on your communication skills!