Libor Novacek

My second-to-last lunchtime concert at LSE is a performance by a Czech pianist Libor Novacek.

Mozart: Rondo in D, K485

For the first time ever in my life, I enjoy Mozart. Libor Novacek juxtapose various expressions within this piece of music, sometimes even at the same time by playing the piano in one way by one hand and in the other way by the other hand. Libor reveals his sutble, but generous and embracing touch on keys. I would get bored if somebody else plays this piece, as the music itself, as usual for Mozart, is rather simply structured. But with Libor's hands, it sounds totally different.

Mozart: Rondo in A minor, K511

The same comments as above. I have heard some of the melodies in this piece.

Janacek: In the Mists (1912)

An intersting and sleepy piece. Towards the end, I nearly fall asleep, not because I get bored. It is because I'm pleased with Libor's play.

Brahms: Sonata No.2 in F sharp minor Op.2

A theatric, Christian Lacroix-ish piece. Again I easily imagine myself being bored if someone else plays this piece. But Libor plays it in a pleasant way. Towards the end, my mind is truly refreshed.

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Another thing that deserves a mention: the Steinway piano, recently bought by LSE, sounds superb. Part of the reason I enjoyed Matan Porat two weeks ago, I now notice, is also owing to this piano.

Pierre Victoire

Have dinner with Yumiko-san at Pierre Victoire, London's affordable French restaurant.

We have duck in red wine sauce and baby chicken in tomato and basil sauce. Both main dishes are excellent. Bread and olives are excellent as well.

However, service and comfortability is not excellent. Waiters keep kicking Yumiko-san's chair. It takes five minutes to have a bill after asking for it. The place is packed with tables. Our private zone is rather limited. Plus, customers are amazingly noisy here.

I guess this restaurant is affordable despite its excellent food, because it's not that comfortable. If you only need good French foods, it's highly recommended. If you look for a place to relax, never go to this place.

Flatmate Hunting

On the day I decided my future, my landlord asked me to move out in a month's time (see 20 February).

Talking to my landlord revealed that she wanted me (and my flatmate) to move out because she got fed up with finding a tenant for each single room in our house and wanted to rent our house as a whole. (One of our flatmates moved out recently.)

Then I suggested to her that I look for a new tenant to our house. She liked the idea. It also made sense to me because if you're on the supply side of the market, you don't need to travel around in London to view flats and houses or to make many calls to ask questions and arrange viewings. It would be less stressful and less harassing.

I was right. In five days, I managed to find a new flatmate! Plus, I learned a couple of things from this flatmate-hunting experience.

The biggest puzzle to me was why nearly all flat advertisements provide incomplete information on the specification of a room/house. Part of the reason is that the advertisement media limits the number of letters you can use in your ad. But this doesn't explain why all the advertisements at Gumtree.com (this is a nice website for Londoners though it's a bit chaotic) are also incomplete, because you can write your ad as long as possible on this website.

You want to minimize the number of viewers. You want to screen out those not really interested in your property. Otherwise your precious time will be consumed by those who won't take your room.

So in my ad at Gumtree.com, I put every piece of information on the room and the house, including photos of the room, the kitchen, and the garden.

I browsed a real estate agent's brochure to learn how to take a good picture of your rooms. A room picture can be quite tricky. It can make the room look smaller than it actually is. You can end up screening out those who are otherwise interested. I noticed one basic rule among the room pictures on the brochure: take a picture at the corner of a room and make sure that the opposite corner of the room comes at the one-third of the length of the photograph. This makes the room look spacious in a photograph (Lesson 1). See my learning outcomes: a double room and a single room.

On the Gumtree.com ad, I didn't put my phone number. One reason is to avoid receiving calls after you found a flatmate. I also wanted to control the whole process rather than being disturbed every time you get a call. Initially, my landlord kindly created an ad on the gumtree.com with my mobile number on it. Literally a few minutes later, I started receiving calls and texts including unsolicited sales pitches. I hurriedly deleted the ad once. I also didn't want to be distracted by callers who just wanted to ask questions on the room.

Instead I put an email address which is NOT my usual address. I created a Hotmail account for this purpose. This not only prevents spammers from picking up your address but also allows you to shelter your private messages from flatmate-hunting messages.

I learned that Hotmail is quite annoying (Lesson 2). I usually use Gmail (called Google Mail in UK due to the trademark issue). Gmail automatically refreshes the screen when a new message arrives. Hotmail doesn't. You need to click "Inbox" many times. Gmail cleverly screens out spams. Hotmail very often misclassifies junk mails. Finally, Gmail does not have conspicuous advertisements on the screen. Hotmail does.

In addition to the ad at Gumtree.com, I also created an original webpage for the room advertisement by using Blogger. Then selectively email those who have placed an ad at the "Room Wanted" section of Gumtree.com by mentioning the address of this webpage.

Whenever I received a message to my Hotmail account, I called up the sender to arrange a viewing. On Sunday afternoon, I scheduled five viewings. The first viewer, Caroline, didn't come on time because she got our house number wrong. She didn't look impressed by our house after viewing, telling me she would call me after she visited other places as well. The second viewer, Faisal, didn't come one hour after the scheduled time. Neither did Alex, the third viewer. I wanted to make sure if I needed to wait for them. So I called Faisal. He sounded like he overslept. We rescheduled the viewing in the evening. I then called Alex. She got lost. Alex finally came 30 minutes later. Her reaction while viewing the house was Meditteranean: "Fantastic!" But she wasn't Meditteranean when I said no to her question of whether we have the TV. She said she would call me after viewing another flat.

I learned one thing from Alex. She liked the high ceiling of the room. Which I didn't realize when I wrote an ad. Now the biggest puzzle was solved. The reason why flat advertisements tend to be incomplete is that advertisers have incomplete information on what flat-hunters are looking for (Lesson 3). People have different preferences. Unless you are an experienced flat advertiser, you certainly fail to specify important aspects of your room/house.

On Sunday evening, Faisal was supposed to come, but he texted me saying, "Sorry, I can't come. Bye." Another viewer, Eva, never came and never called or texted me. The final viewer of the day, Andrew, didn't come, either. One hour after the scheduled time, he texted me to ask if there is a living room in our house, without a single word of "Sorry" or whatsoever. I didn't reply to him as he wouldn't be a good flatmate.

Some people in London are quite nasty (Lesson 4). Well, I already knew this anyway.

On Monday morning, Caroline texted me, saying she decided to take another place. She's such a nice person. Alex, on the other hand, never contacted me again.

On Monday evening, I had two viewers. Nordine, the first viewer, said he would like to take the room, immediately after he finished viewing the house. Brett, the second viewer, said he was very interested but wanted to see another place as well before his decision. He said he would call me by lunchtime the following day.

Today, Brett didn't call me by lunchtime. I called him to learn that he was waiting for a call from another place he visited. Which suggested that he didn't like our place the most. Nordine becomes our new flatmate.

(In case you wonder, although the ad says there are two rooms available, my landlord says she's happy with just one new tenant. I just wanted to increase the probability of finding flatmates by attracting those looking for a room with a friend of theirs.)

Mankiw's Advice for New Junior Faculty

I learn that Greg Mankiw, probably the most popular economist blogger, advises new assistant professors NOT to start a blog:

Avoid activities that will distract you from research. Whatever you do, do not start a blog. That will only establish your lack of seriousness as a scholar. ("Advice For New Junior Faculty," Feb 24, 2007)

What if a new assistant professor has already started a blog?



I know, I know this is a stupid question.

So the bottom line is ...




Econoclasm's days are numbered (as my days in London are).

Education in Poor Countries

Two new pieces of development economics research on what improves education in poor countries were presented at LSE recently.

Andrabi, Das, and Khwaja (2007) focus on the supply side of education, and find that, in Pakistani districts, private schools are more likely to be set up if public secondary schools are already there. They argue that this is because public secondary schools increase the number of educated women who can become teachers. It suggests the importance of the supply of teachers to expand access to school.

Bjorkman (2007), on the other hand, looks at the demand side. She finds that gender gap in primary school enrolment in rural areas of Uganda shrinks when it rains more than usual (I think Figure 9 in the paper is a nice presentation of this finding). Ugandan farmers grow banana or coffee, both of which are rain-fed. Her finding indicates that poverty is the main driver of gender gap in school attendance, often found in developing countries.

MUSIC@LSE Lunchtime Concert Series: Matan Porat

Now I have time to attend LSE's lunchtime concert series. This week's guest is Matan Porat, a pianist.

Bach: Partita No.1 in Bb Major

Boring. I keep thinking something else. Porat's staccato style of playing the piano doesn't sound fit for this piece of music.

Schumann: Davidsbundlertanze Op.6

Porak shows incredible subtlety during the quite part of this piece. The same motif repeats towards the end, and the way he moves on from there to the last part of extravaganza with a sensitive coda firmly grips my attention.

Bartok: "Out of Door" Suite (1926)

This is an amazing piece of contemporary music. It must have influenced progressive rock musicians in the 1970s. The piece begins with unusually intensive use of bass keys, which is a nice logical progression from the end of the previous piece played.

Porak again shows his incredible subtlety in the quiet part of the piece, but his more aggresive side gets along very well with Bartok, too. I learn that this pianist is amazing with this sort of music in which dynamism and stasis create a stark contrast.

Looking for a flat

My job search is over today. I thought now I could get relieved from all the stress.

No, I can't.

This morning a letter from my landlord arrives, asking me to move out in a month's time. I only need to stay in London for six months more (until the end of August). I will negotiate with my landlord, but chances are slim.

So I'm still too busy to update this blog. If you live in London and have a bedroom available or know someone looking for a tenant/flatmate, please let me know. This is an absolute headache as I'm rather picky: I need broadband, a rice cooker, a washing machine and a dryer, a spacious kitchen, a supermarket nearby with decent whole milk on sale, less than 40 minutes from LSE, and a nightbus from central London (to enjoy the last six months in London). Given my experience of student flat hunting a few years ago, this is a tall order. The current place has these all except for decent milk nearby.

You may want to know what my new job is. No I won't tell you. I will start a retrospective job-search blog after I move, without telling you the final outcome. So you will experience the whole uncertainty that I faced by reading it. Isn't this a good idea?

Millie's Cookies

A mental note. DO NOT BUY COFFEE AT MILLIE'S COOKIES. Their coffee is horrible. And I suffer from it twice in two weeks, first at Victoria Station and this time at Euston Station. Their coffee makes your journey away from London miserable. Beware of it.

Takacs Quartet

This is a very hilarious article written by the first violinist of the Takacs Quartet on how the Quartet copes with a member change, does rehearsing, travels by air, and prepares for a concert.

LSE Catering Service Survey

LSE's Catering Services emailed students to ask for completing online surveys on LSE catering and eating habits.

The prize for cooperation is ...

"a free meal in The Garrick or Brunch Bowl"

I don't need that! (The Garrick and Brunch Bowl are the names of LSE student canteens.)

As I'm grumpy a lot about LSE's catering outlets (so I almost never use them in favour of other school canteens near the campus), I'm willing to participate in this survey anyway, expecting that I'm allowed to give a comment on LSE catering services in sentences.

But the survey only asks multiple choice questions, not allowing the respondent to provide any opinions freely.

I wanted to say, "Why does a bowl of salad with dressing cost nearly 2 pounds?" or "LSE canteens may be above the average in UK universities, but they are certainly below the average by non-UK standards."

So LSE Catering Services do not seriously take into consideration the views from students. No hope for much improvement in the future.

Well, it doesn't matter to me as I leave LSE this autumn. But I'm sorry for LSE students to continue suffering from LSE canteens.

Sushisamba Rio

I choose Sushisamba Rio as the place for the last dinner in Chicago.

An unlikely fusion of Japanese, Brazilian, and Peruvian cuisine is the theme of this restaurant. (Actually, it's not unlikely. For example, Peruvian seviche originates in sashimi brought by Japanese immigrants to Peru.)

For a starter, I take King Salmon Sashimi Seviche. Slices of salmon only the surface of which is grilled are served with salad and basil sauce. One word. Fantastic!

For the main, I have seared beef maki. Grilled scallions and thinly-cut carrots wrapped with thinly-sliced beef are served with teriyaki sauce. I often cook this at home, but it's still delicious. Coconut rice ordered as a side dish is also great.

The decor at this place is a truly unlikely fusion of Japanese modesty and Latin American boldness. The plates are also stylish. Plus, the music on play is very cool.

Yet another excellent restaurant in Chicago.

Signature Lounge in John Hancock Tower

After the whole schedule of job interviews is over, I meet up with Yamada-kun. We have delicious spare ribs at a restaurant whose name I don't remember. Then he takes me to Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the John Hancock Center. The weather is stormy when we arrive. The windows through which we are supposed to see a spectacular night view of Chicago only show raindrops heading towards us. Half an hour later, however, the storm goes away and what I see is this (you see some raindrops on the window):



Honestly speaking, it is not as spectacular as Damascus. But Chicago has its own geometric beauty.

Wave

I have dinner at the Wave restaurant, serving Meditteranean cuisine, on my fourth evening in Chicago, after being quite exhausted from a series of job interviews yesterday and today.

The entrance looks a bit like a cheesy nightclub, but the inside is a very sleek lounge bar and dining room. (Upstairs is W Hotel.)

The menu is a tapas style: various small plates to share. I have a "grilled octopus salad" for a starter. The vinaigrette is Arabic-flavoured, reminding me of foods I had in Damascus. Together with radicchio, it is slightly bitter. But the bitterness adds depth to the whole taste of the salad. I'm very impressed.

Then I have a "sugar & salt pork tenderloin" for the main and a mushroom risotto as a side dish. The pork is okay, but the risotto is marvelous. It's not that easy to serve an excellent risotto.

With an excellent service and a cool interior, I have an enjoyable dinner.

Mambo Grill

Mambo Grill is a Latin American restaurant in Chicago. Highly recommended.

For a starter, I have "Ensalada de Aguacate y Mango Avocado." It is a green salad with ripe mango slices and a vinaigrette made of lime, lemon, organge juice, and (if I remember correctly) a hint of tequila. I didn't know the taste of chuncky mango slices fits very well with lime and orange juice (though I still believe that mango juice shouldn't be mixed with organge juice).

The main dish is "Coconut-Curried Tilapia." I don't know what kind of fish tilapia is. But I still give it a try. Then a perfectly-cooked tilapia steak is served with excellent coconut milk and curry sauce.

The service is also perfect. Next time I come to Chicago, I'll definitely come here again.

Solicitation no.2

Post the application packet for Oxford postdoc.

Email my supervisor about yesterday's solicitation of my job application from IIES.

Start preparing my mock job talk which is scheduled next Monday. Planning the introduction takes the whole afternoon. Cox (2000) helps a lot.

Bump into my supervisor in the Sticerd kitchen area. He looks happy. :)

Back up my data files used for the job market paper. Last week, someone's desktop PC was stolen from CEP (another research centre at LSE, STICERD's neighbour downstairs). You never know.

Receive scam phone call to my mobile, perhaps because I post my number on my CV on the web for the job market purpose... Googling the caller's phone number takes me to this discussion thread.

Receive email from the LSE Economics Department's job placement director, saying that the recruiting chair at Penn State solicited my application. I already posted the packet to them last Monday. In such case, he says, I don't need to do anything.

Start preparing answers to "Expected Frequently Asked Questions" during my job talk. A job market guide says, "Draft your answers to expected questions."

Applications continue, and 1st solicitation!

Check the November issue of JOE, finding that some schools I want to apply for now have job openings.

Email Sue and Leila to additionally send reference letters to these schools. In response to Leila's request, I create a new Excel file containing the addresses of these schools (rather than adding these addresses to the previous Excel files sent to Leila). As Sue and Leila deal with references differently, I need to tailor my request to each one's need.

Finish online application for Caltech. Only after the submission, you will know the email address to which recommendation letters can be sent. I already asked Sue and Leila to send them via post.

Start dealing with the application for Oxford University Nuffield College's prestigious Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (PRF). Their application requirement is the most demanding. Not only CV and JMP but also a one-page description of your current research, a one-page description of the research you would plan to undertake as a PRF, and an additional research paper.

Receive a couple of email replies from LSE faculty members in response to the invitation to my mock job talk. Some cannot come but others say they will. Reply immediately to thank them.

I learn that even if schools accept applications via email, their pre-formatted application form is often difficult to fill in electronically because they provide it in the PDF format. With my PC setting, I cannot fill in the PDF form. As these schools prefer email application. I try transforming the PDF file into a Word file to fill in the form electronically, but this file type transformation destroys the layout of the form. I end up printing the PDF form out and fill in by hand-writing and send it by post, which is actually much easier.

Find that application to Essex requires a cover letter including "how you meet the requirements of the post". Need to think about it...

Leila tells me that all the reference letters except for those from Robin are ready for the first batch of schools. Robin already told me he might be late in writing letters. I tell Leila to send the letters today. This is when asking four references helps as one job market guide suggests. But I also think that as long as my application arrives in time, they will wait for references (this is what administrators in Toronto told me when I called them).

Start writing cover letters for the next batch of schools to apply. While writing one for IIES, receive email from Torsten, soliciting my application to IIES. According to the Harvard job market guide, if a school has requested your packet you will want to change the cover letter and state clearly that your materials were solicited. So I do.

Bump into Raja in STICERD. He asks me to send my job market paper. So I email him the address at which to download the paper. I also tell him references on ethnic identify I talked about yesterday.

Back to writing cover letters. Find that Pompeu Fabra has a weird application requirement: list of courses taken. Why not transcripts?

After going home and having dinner, resume writing cover letters. Now I realize that I'm writing cover letters for schools whose deadline is 30 November. I come to think that most reference letters that are now scheduled to post on 14 November can actually be delayed one week. Which is better for me because I plan to do the final revision of the job market paper from 14 November, after my mock job talk. Email Leila if she's happy with this change of my mind...

Write up one-page descriptions of current and future research for Oxford postdoc applications (see above) and then go to bed.

How to market yourself, dinner with faculty, and applications

Online application with CV uploaded for Columbia Business School. But you still need to send CV and job market paper (JMP) by post.

Torsten stops by. Invite him to my mock job talk next Monday. He gives me a positive answer.

Talk to Tim. His advice includes:

1. Do not drop the measurement of democracy part. The literature is moving in that direction though many have not noticed it. If I drop it, my paper is a public health paper, which few economists have interest in. I need to interest anyone interested in political economy.

2. Begin with Africa is not a good idea. It narrows down the scope of the paper too much. I don't want to sell myself as an Africa expert, do I? Begin with the question of whether democracy improves the quality of government, policy-making, and the lives of people. Previous studies exploit country-level data with democracy scores. My contribution is two fold. Using micro data. Measuring democracy in a precise way.

3. Political economy of development is a niche in the market of economists. Development people need someone in this field. Political economy people want to have someone familiar with development. But sell myself as a development economist interested in political economy, not the other way around. Economics departments like to hire development economists while many think of political economy as luxury.

4. Leave the latest version of the paper into Tim's mail box in Sticerd by Monday morning. He will read it and attend my mock job talk and give me feedbacks.

5. When the paper is finalized, ready for circulation, send it to Tim with two lists of schools I apply. One list includes schools with openings in development (and in political economy, if any). The other includes schools with any field. Based on these lists, he will email his friends in schools listed to recommend me.

6. Change the title of my job market paper. "Mother fixed effects" sound too nerdy. It takes time for the reader to think what that means. "Evidence from Micro Data" is better as it provokes interest. People will be like "How do you do that?"

Following his advice, revise my paper, rewriting the abstract and changing the title of the paper accordingly.

Post 25 application packets via LSE Post Room. The department will pay the postage. Realize that my cover letter includes the title of my paper, which is no longer accurate. Let's forget it.

Send application packets via email to University of Arizona and University College of Dublin. Fill the online application form and email CV and the paper to University of New South Wales.

Receive email from Simon Fraser University, saying that they receive my online application.

Receive email from Arizona, asking to complete application by clicking the link provided, which requires login.

Finish online application for University of Toronto, uploading CV and JMP. The final screen says that I can update my CV and JMP by clicking the link emailed shortly. I wanted to know this beforehand...

Dinner with today's seminar speaker (see 3 November), my supervisor, Oriana, Raja, and Daniel. I can't talk anything as the topics of conversation are the salary of economics professors, episodes of data manipulation by scientists, the weirdness of Oxbridge... But talking to Raja is productive. I ask him what the job market for him was like. "Not everyone is nice." "People ask the same question. The challenge is how you motivate yourself in giving the same answers many times." He shows an interest in my second paper. I manage to tell him about a couple of case studies by political scientists for his theoretical work.

After dinner, come back to my desk in Sticerd. Oriana tells me, "The first time at dinner with economists is always like that. You don't know what to talk. In five year's time, you will get used to it. Don't feel bad."

Online application for Caltech requires not only uploading CV and JMP but also a letter of application describing my current research in the PDF copy. Once I'm ready for that, fill in online application form, finding out that I need to describe my research interest in 50 words. After a glass of wine, I can't think hard about this. Let's do this tomorrow.

Email some LSE faculty members to invite them to my mock job talk next Monday. Let's see how it goes. They should have learned something about me as the faculty meeting on job market candidates was held at the end of last month. If my supervisor and/or Tim pushes me well at the meeting, they would be interested in coming to my talk. Fingers crossed.

How to use MS Word Mail Merge

By browsing the Internet, I learn that the top 5 business schools are Harvard, Stanford, Warton (Penn), Kellogg (Northwestern), and Sloan (MIT). The top 7 include Chicago and Columbia. Duke and NYU are ranked in top 10 or top 15. Europe's top 3 are Insead, LBS, IMD, perhaps ranked in top 20 in the US. Since some development economists are in business schools, I plan to apply to business schools as well.

Buy 90 C4 manilla envelopes (A4 size) at Ryman, 10 minute walk from LSE. Costs 12.48 pounds. Sounds expensive, but don't have time to check other stores. LSE Student Union shop does not sell envelopes in bunches.

Finish writing cover letters. Here's how to efficiently write cover letters by using MS Word mail merge.
1. Create address lists in Excel. The top row should be "First Name", "Company", "Address 1", "Address 2", "City", "State", "Post Code", and "Country". This will facilitates the matching of fields.
2. Save it and close it.
3. Open MS Word and select "Tools -> Letters and Mailings -> Mail Merge..."
4. (Step 1 of 6) Choose "Letters" and click Next.
5. (Step 2 of 6) Click Next unless you already have a template letter.
6. (Step 3 of 6) Click "Browse" and choose the Excel file created in steps 1-2. Then click Next.
7. (Step 4 of 6) Write a template cover letter. Click a location where you want to put the address. Click "More items..." Choose a field you want to put. Click "Insert". Repeat this until all the fields show up. Then click Next.
8. (Step 5 of 6) By clicking ">>" or "<<", choose the address of the school. Click Next.
9. (Step 6 of 6) Click "Edit individual letters..." and edit the template. Save it.
10. Click "Previous" to go back to step 5 of 6. And repeat 8 to 10 until all the letters are completed and saved.

I also need to make address labels which I stick to envelopes.

How to use MS Word's mail merge to create address labels:
1. Create address lists in Excel. The top row should be "Last Name", "Company", "Address 1", "Address 2", "Address 3", "City", "State", and "Country". This will facilitates the matching of fields.
2. Save it and close it.
3. Open MS Word and select "Tools -> Letters and Mailings -> Mail Merge..."
4. (Step 1 of 6) Choose "Labels" and click Next.
5. (Step 2 of 6) Click "Label options..." and choose "8253 - Label" for product number (this works best for me). Click OK and click Next.
6. (Step 3 of 6) Click "Browse" and choose the Excel file created in steps 1-2. Then click Next.
7. (Step 4 of 6) Click "More items..." Choose a field you want to put. Click "Insert". Repeat this until all the fields show up on the address label. Then click "Update all labels". Then click Next.
8. (Step 5 of 6) Make sure that addresses appear in the way you prefer. If not, click "Previous" to go back to Step 4 of 6. If you're happy, click Next.
9. (Step 6 of 6) Click "Print" to print out address labels.

Realize I also need to make address labels for MY address as the sender.

Some schools require teaching evaluations. I create a short note on my teaching evaluation to clarify it.

Revise the CV. Revise the Introduction and Conclusions of the JMP. Go home by the last train.

Cover letter, online application

Prepare cover letters. Read Cawley's advice, only to find that I should run a draft by my primary adviser and the faculty placement director. Too late... (This description seems to disappear in the 2006 version.)

Again this drives me crazy. Not every school follows the same procedure. Some do not require a cover letter as they set up an online application form. Some require online application but still require a cover letter. Some do not require a printed copy of the cover letter as they demand email application. Some require "research and teaching statements". And so on and so forth.

If the online application does not require the uploading of my CV or my paper, I complete it today. If it needs the submission of my CV etc., I will do it tomorrow or next Monday.

There are five major patterns in application requirements:
1. Just send a cover letter, a cv, a job market paper by post.
2. 1 plus a transcript and/or teaching evaluations.
3. Apply online, and send a cv, a job market paper etc. (and the receipt of the online application) by post.
4. Apply online and upload a cv, and send a job market paper etc. by post.
5. Send a cover letter, a cv, a job market paper, etc. by email.

The job market guide for Harvard students says that cover letters for liberal arts colleges should reflect your interest in the school and teaching.

The cover letter samples provided by Georgetown and US San Diego as well as the job market guide for Harvard suggest that including a sentence like "I will be available for interviews at the ASSA meeting in Chicago next January." But this may well be avoided if you apply to universities outside the United States unless they make explicit they are going to interview at the ASSA meeting.

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.