To be honest, I'm listening to Rihanna as I write this...

So here I am in an incredibly different part of the country, sitting in the gorgeous student union at a major university. The grounds are so very pretty, full of trees, giant red brick buildings and, my favorite part, squirrels! When I went on this trip last year I got really excited any time I saw squirrels running around outside. Come on, I'm a city girl, we don't have squirrels. You can drive 2 hours away and see some, but it's not like they're hanging out outside my bedroom window. I'm sort of like the dog in "Up", I admit it.

OK, back to my point. B and I are sitting up in the student union and "getting stuff done". I put that in quotes because B is actually grading, whereas I'm talking to a friend on Gmail chat, listening to music, occasionally looking at a paper or two and definitely seeing what oldnavy.com has that's new and cute. This is what our next few days will look like: B being productive while I mainline Starbucks lattes and reorganize my iTunes playlists to avoid grading. See, B is on top of things. Me, not so much.

So in my attempt to be productive, I decided to write a blog post! It's the same as grading, right? OK, probably not. A few months ago I wrote about what a weekend of grading looks like for me. It was a really fun post to write and to take pictures for. As I was "grading" this morning, I was listening to music and decided to write about the music I listen to while grading. Read the earlier post to get my requirement because I'm going to go straight into the music. I originally thought I'd post a CD length list of songs, but I decided that's impossible, so I chose 30 songs, organized them and then considering linking them all to their corresponding youtube videos, but I've already spent about 3 hours and I should probably grade at some point. Have I ever mentioned that I'm sort of a perfectionist?

The Grading Mix

1. Mark Isham - Building a Family (from Life as a House)
2. Clint Mansell - Together We Will Live Forever (from The Fountain)
3. The Raintree – 4
4. The Vitamin String Quartet – Hallelujah
5. Alex & Jake Parker - The Life Of David Gale (from The Life Of David Gale) [note: I think this is maybe the most beautiful piece of music ever composed]
6. Coldplay - Life In Technicolor
7. This Will Destroy You - Quiet
8. Randy Edelman - Victory at Ed Parker's (from Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story)
9. Mark Mothersbaugh - Nick & Norah's Theme (from Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist)
10. James Newton Howard - Thought I'd Never Call (from Blood Diamond)
11. Alan Sylvestri – Cast Away Main Theme (from Cast Away)
12. Yann Tiersen - Les Jours Tristes (from Amélie)
13. Ilan Eshkeri - Victoria And Albert (from The Young Victoria)
14. Of Sinking Ships - But We'll All Sleep Better Tonight
15. Explosions in the Sky - Remember Me as a Time of Day
16. David Torn - I. Opening / II. Still Opening (from Lars and the Real Girl)
17. Mogwai - Stanley Kubrick
18. Thomas Newman - Road To Perdition (from Road To Perdition)
19. Rajiv Patel - My Car is a Statistic
20. Johan Soderqvist - Let the Right One I (from Let the Right One In)
21. Rachael Yamagata - Elephants Instrumental
22. Thomas Newman - Revolutionary Road (End Title) (from Revolutionary Road)
23. Hans Zimmer - Honor (Main Theme from The Pacific)
24. The Album Leaf - The Light
25. Clint Mansell - Dead Reckoning (from Smokin' Aces)
26. Nancy Wilson - Lucky Trumble (from Almost Famous)
27. Gabriel Yared - Ada Plays (from Cold Mountain)
28. Steve Jablonsky – Bumblebee Captured (from Transformers)
29. Craig Armstrong – The Prime Minister’s Love Theme (from Love Actually)
30. Thomas Newman - That Next Place (from Meet Joe Black)