Saturday Work & Music

Since around 10:00 this morning I've been busy with the only part of my job as an English professor that I don't love: GRADING. It's now approaching 6:30 EDT, and in the time between mid morning and now, I've graded twenty-one sophomore American literature exams. My eyes are tired, and my brain is strained. I didn't go straight through without a break, though. I divided them up into four groups (one of six and three of five) and took breaks in between. At the end of the first group, around 12:00 or so, I walked outside for a couple of minutes and ate a Snickers before settling in again. At the end of the second group, I took a long walk to the student center post office and then circled across campus to Backyard Burgers, where I ate lunch before coming back for round three. The break before the last batch was just a stretch, a drink of water and another Snickers. Now I'm almost finished. All that's left to do is record the grades on the official sheet and turn that in to the Office of the Registrar. And as I can't do the latter until Monday, I'm going home in a few minutes.

Before I go, however, I thought I'd let it be known that I didn't make it through the day on Snickers alone. I've listened to a lot of interesting music that I'd like to mention. I subscribe to a music service called Rhapsody. In one area of the service, I can listen to various "radio" stations. Basically these are selections of streaming audio from the service, put together thematically--formats like '50s Hits, Acid Jazz, Christian Alternative, Old School Rap, Polyester Palace, World Picks and many others.

One nice feature in the radio area is that I can put together my own station by selecting up to ten artists. The program then streams songs from these and other similar performers. I've put together several stations that I listen to at different times, but I'm fairly restricted in what I can listen to when I'm grading. I can't listen to familiar stuff, especially not familiar stuff with lyrics; listening to these, I can't concentrate on what I'm reading.

So, I have this one station I created and named "Mostly Instrumental." The founding ten of the station are Enya (ethereal pop), Acoustic Alchemy (contemporary instrumental), Sacred Spirits (Native American), Philip Aaberg (solo piano from Montana), Mark O'Connor (instrumental virtuoso), Ladysmith Black Mambazo (African township, I think), James Galway (classical and popular flutist), Douglas Spotted Eagle (contemporary Native American flutist), Ian Anderson and Angels of Venice (a wonderful discovery). I've listened to these performers all day, and they've drawn an interesting mix of performers from similar genres in Rhapsody: Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins, Clannad and Mambeaux Sambonesia, R. Carlos Nakai and Dolores Keane, Jethro Tull and Fairport Convention.

I survived grading with a little walking, some nasty fried food, some sugar (chocolate) and a lot of great music.

Now I'm going home and celebrate the end of the a summer session and the coming of a teacher's summer vacation!