In a way, marking exam papers is calming. You have to abandon everything else and reject all appointments to just do one thing.
So it is meditative.
Besides the cats for company, I was also listening to music. When I got my MacBook Pro with its smaller SSD hardisk, I had chucked everything out. With my lecture files finally settled, there was space to rip my CDs back on again.
After such a hiatus, iTunes album management has improved lots and I found myself adding missing album covers last Saturday.
It was a journey back in time as I looked up art work. I recalled buying ABBA’s Super Trooper album for $3.50; with a Supreme (SR) label, and plonking a pretty penny for a Deutsche Grammophon cassette tape at Beethoven Record House. I think it was $14 – even more expensive than a Verbatim floppy disk then! I still have that tape somewhere.
And Naxos and its east European ensembles who did a great job, I still think. They all have wiki pages so its easy to read up about all this and the music pieces.
The best part, ironically, was when I was exhausted and needed a break. Then I sat back and just listened.
Otterman speaks... 