A confusing day

When I arrive at my desk in Sticerd, I can't start Windows on my PC.
Ask Joe, an IT staff, for help. He says my PC has got a hardware problem, which means I can't do anything (I don't bring my own laptop to Sticerd today).

So I change my schedule. While the PC is being fixed, I talk to Dave, a fellow PhD student at Sticerd, as he read my job market paper and wanted to give me some comments. He suggests to change the introduction. He has a point. I probably need to write two versions of the introduction and show them to my referrees to see which one is better. Dave also doesn't like the measurement of democracy part.

Attend Monday lunchtime PhD seminar. I keep thinking about what to do today without my PC working. Maybe taking a rest? I don't feel well today...

After the seminar, the PC gets fixed. So I change my schedule again.

While having lunch at Sticerd communal area, Leila comes to me, saying that she's happy with my plan on sending reference letters.

Start working on Stata to do a bunch of additional regressions suggested by Torsten, Oriana, Robin, etc...

I was scheduled to talk to a seminar speaker at today's LSE/UCL Development and Growth seminar, at 1530. Then I received email from Oriana, saying the speaker is arriving late. My slot is cancelled.

Then Dave and Erlend, whose meetings with the speaker are not cancelled as they are among the first to request for meetings, kindly suggested to me and Paolo, another job market candidate, giving their meeting slots. So I end up talking to the speaker as originally scheduled.

The speaker likes my paper. He especially seems to like the measurement of democracy part. Different people like different parts of my paper.

Talking about my job market paper will be crucial in the job market process as I will need to talk to a bunch of people about it at job interviews in Chicago and during campus visits. But it's a difficult task. Even if you organize what to talk and in what order, your listener will certainly interrupt you. Responding to that requires change in the order of what to talk. As a result, my explanation of the paper gets confusing. I need to make a contingency plan.

Back to my PC, working on Stata. Find rather unfavorable results to my main findings...

Time for the D&G seminar. The presented paper is about a randomized evaluation of interventions to improve health systems in Uganda. When the speaker presents the effect of interventions on vaccinations, I speak up. "How did you measure children's immunization status? Measles immunization shouldn't be given to babies aged less than 9 months."

After the seminar, Robin teases me as a child immunization specialist. :)

Go home as I don't feel well. Eat Japanese food. And go to bed early.