Just Another Tuesday

iPod morning commute music: Oasis, Stop the Clocks (disc 1); 2006

It was interesting when I went back to Seattle for Christmas and showed my brother, the rock musician in the family, this double-CD greatest hits package. He asked if they really had that many hits. Granted, this 18-song set includes B-sides and album tracks, but the answer is that, yes, Oasis had that many hits. I don't know if it's just my brother, or if Americans in general missed how good Oasis was, and continues to be: Their last release, 2005's Don't Believe the Truth, is the best new album they've put out since 1995's masterpiece (What's the Story) Morning Glory? The bottom line is that this is a great overview of the band. Recommended.

This past weekend was lazy in the mornings, productive in the afternoons. On Saturday, I met with my TOEIC series co-author, who's elderly father has been ill. We've really fallen behind on our schedule, but who can fault her with what she's been through over the last couple of months, and I didn't help anything by going back to the States over the holidays. Fortunately, we both recognize what we need to do (work really, really hard, sacrificing all our free time to finishing the book) which begs an answer to the question: So what are doing writing your blog?

Sunday afternoon, my wife and I went to Costco as we needed to change over to our snow tires and make important food purchases like, er, pepperoni pizza and cheesecake.

Monday was back to work. Our Language Laboratory assistant/saviour, Sae, noticed that I had scheduled one too many lessons for one of my seventh grade classes as I somehow overlooked a minor thing like A NATIONAL HOLIDAY.... Another week off to a brilliant start.

And today, Tuesday, was back into the heart of teaching, four sophomore classes, two advanced (smart) and two standard (not).

I'm still working through the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. As Gib commented on my last post, these ratings are really arbitrary. I've noticed the tendency which he also pointed out towards newer releases surpassing classic releases (fair enough, if done in a rational way). The book itself is a fun read, and I'm actually learning things (example: Dusty Springfield never sang a note in Memphis on her seminal album Dusty in Memphis: all her vocals were recorded in New York and added to the instrumental tracks. I guess she was too much in awe to actually record in the Memphis studio!).

Now, it would probably be a good time to start at least thinking about the TOEIC book!