Monday, August 11, 2008

music to mark assignments by

Pete Murray - Summer at Eureka
It's gentle and melodic with a pervasive melancholy.

8 comments:

matt said...

Hi Wendy, I'm reading blogs instead of doing my set readings. Came here via Circulating Library. Pete Murray is indeed soothing but I only have "See the Sun"

Wendy said...

Well welcome!
i have to admit this is my first encounter with Pete Murray - have passed him by until now so maybe I'll check out his earlier stuff..
hope you got your reading done in the end!

Anonymous said...

I've been using Chris Isaak to mark to, recently; there's a sameness (not meant pejoratively) to his albums that means I'm not jarred out of my focus.

But lately I've been defaulting to Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme--speaking of pervasive melancholy.

Wendy said...

Simon and Garfunkel....good choice...after I'd written this I wondered whether there was any cause and effect between the marking and the melancholy...perhaps

Anonymous said...

There's definitely cause and effect between the marking and the melancholy . . . but I don't think that the choice of music would ultimately make any difference.

I love teaching very dearly, as much as I love my research, but I've never quite worked out whether you need to have a thick skin to do it well, or a thin skin.

Wendy said...

that's a good question. I think good teaching requires both a thick skin and a thin skin at different times. Some things need to wash off pretty quickly if teachers are to survive, however a thin skin in certain instances can help provide the self awareness and self critique that is necessary for striving for quality...so even though sometimes teaching has its painful and difficult moments...these are also the moments when we learn our craft...by being open to suggestions and change. when i think about it this way then, it's a lot like doing research....

Anonymous said...

Nicely said.

And I know my teaching has vastly improved my research. There's an odd symbiosis between the two.

Wendy said...

yes i have found the same thing in the last few years (particularly during the final writing of the thesis). I had a lot to learn at this time... and a lot of it was clarified at moments in the classroom.