My Life in 250 Words

I am aware that fellowship applications are going to be a part of my life until retirement, but I am still allowed to be bitter about summing up my career goals in 250 words, especially when I need to fit a foreign language into those career goals. My problem isn't that 250 words isn't enough to describe my brilliant future career in academia, it's too much. Hello! I am in a field in which every job ad requests "near-native fluency" in Russian. So, how does Russian fit into my career goals? Without it I will not have a future career as a professor of Russian literature. That last sentence contained fifteen words. Any suggestions for the remaining 235? -Zh.