Friday, November 03, 2006

As busy as usual.

Get transcripts from Mark. Some universities require transcripts as part of the application documents.

Oriana offers me to join the dinner with next Monday's seminar speaker. This will be a practice "dinner with faculty during a campus visit". (See Cawley 2006, pp.40-41.)

Send a thank-you email to Iwan. Email one of the faculty members to follow up my answer to one of her questions during the seminar yesterday. I didn't manage to give a convincing answer to her yesterday. If this happens during the job talk, Cawley 2006, p.40, recommends sending email after returning home to provide the best answer you can craft.

Work on Stata to try estimations suggested yesterday. What matters is how many pathways I can exclude. First, birth spacing. The effect of democracy does not pick up the effect of longer birth spacing.

Get vitamin tablets at Holland & Barrett. Maintaining my physical conditions is very crucial.

Bump into my supervisor at the STICERD kitchen area, and he gives me some comments on my job market paper. When I talk to him about Robin's comment (be more aggressive), he doesn't agree. Which means I should see some balance. He also tells me to keep him posted on the latest development in my job market process.

Robin asks me when the first deadline is. He says his reference letter may not be on time.

Email Tim on how to revise/structure my job market paper and job talk as we will meet next Monday.

Receive email from Mark on mock job interview by LSE faculty members to be scheduled on 30 November.

Check a web discussion board where young Japanese economists hang around. One of the discussion threads is about the job market. Find a post by an assistant professor at top 20 school in US: "CV and JMP on your personal website must be the latest version because many recruiters download them from your website rather than reading the one sent via post."

Review my seminar talk yesterday. I learn that some of the questions are pointless. I should have guided questioners that their questions are not relevant. People say something without thinking deep enough. So they may be wrong. I thought any question should have had some point. I guess I was too East Asian. The source of the problem is the same for deferring questions later. I was too nice to questioners by answering their questions immediately. But it is a narrow-minded kindness: I was nice to the questioner but unfriendly to other people in the audience. I even wasn't nice to the questioner as I was lazy to point out their logic was wrong.

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