The text of an email I sent to a prospective employer at his request:

I have taken quite a bit of time to respond to your request not from reluctance or lack of interest, but in search of inspiration.
As you mentioned, this is a time of transition in my life and an obvious time to decide where I will go. What I am looking for is inspiration. Every great achievement in my life has been the result of great inspiration. I want the next job I take to be the same. My ideal job is a company that uses technology in a new, unimagined - inspired - way to lead, not follow. My place in that company, to begin with, would be programming the software that enables that inspiration.
I spoke to Craig about your products and I am honestly intrigued. I am curious about the ways software could be used to see what is going on in the brain and make sense of test results. I want desperately to be in on the next technical revolution and I believe your company could possibly be uniquely positioned to be a part of that. I think that the next big step after the IT boom will be biological in nature. The only way I can get in on that next wave is by writing the software that makes sense of the biology.
The skills I learned in school were all geared to take advantage of the IT revolution. The most impressive technical skill I have is my ability to program. I have worked primarily in C++ and it has become a hobby for me and honestly at times it has been an obsession. Any skill I develop must first be an obsession. C++ is my most natural programming language but using other languages is not much more difficult. I am also proficient in C, Visual Basic, and I even do a little web design with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. UTD's training program in programming is so thorough in inculcating basic programming prinicples that picking up a new language is just a matter of days now.
Other than courses on C++ programming, my best course in school was Calculus. The story behind my success in Calculus begins with the fact that I had no high school preparation for advanced mathematics. I arrived at UTD with a scholarship for high scores on the SAT but with a 750 on the VERBAL portion of the SAT and a 600 on the mathematic portion - the opposite of the typical computer science major. My Dad had been pressing for me to enter MIT and one of the conditions was that I had to take the SAT 2 math test. I scored a 600 again, not enough for MIT but enough to test out of Precalculus at UTD. Skipping Precalculus was the worst/best thing that could have happened to me in my college career. I was not even close to ready for Calculus at UTD. The professors claimed that UTD was the hardest place to take calculus in Texas and I had never even taken trigonemetry. I would have made a D the first semester had I not dropped the class. The second semester I returned and made an A. Looking back at my experience and the experience of several other people is that the only thing that could have prepared me for calculus at UTD was calculus at UTD.
In spite of my computer science training, I would say my greatest asset is my understanding of written communication. At UTD I contributed to the school newspaper sporadically and I maintain a personal website with featuring almost exclusively material that I write. I regard this skill as my trump card and what truly has the potential to make me special. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take as much time getting formal training to develop this skill or explore how it would serve me in the business world, but I see it as big part of my potential value.
I hope this explains what I am about and where I am going adequately. I apologize for the length, but I felt it necessary to try as hard as possible to explain who I am. I am hopeful that you will give me consideration for the position and thank you very much for your time. Feel free to contact me by telphone or email (idahosaedokpayi@yahoo.com).

Idahosa Edokpayi