me me me: blah blah blah

I'm working right now on a research statement for a summer institute that will allow me to travel for a week to a fun although not exotic place I've heard a lot about.

Writing about yourself and your ambitions and goals is SUCH a drag, yet self-promotion is the bread and butter of academe, especially on the research side. I think the idea is to create a coherent story about yourself and in this case, to be cutting edge enough so that the organizers want to hang out with you for a week. (All expenses paid, did I mention that?)

Over the last several weeks, I have begun to craft a story that shows that all my research work is organized around questions of economic restructuring. Let's see if I can get something logical out of THAT.