Every Friday I teach peremptorily in South Melbourne, and becuase it doesn't happen until the afternoon and at the end of a fairly overstrenuous week I find myself often running late. The temptation is always too great to drive to the station (or a station) and take the train into town. Last Friday (I was going to say 'yesterday' but I realise it has just turned 10 past 12) I had a long work-related (if you were wondering) phone call around noon and I thought, no, today I can't even drive to the station - I'm going to have to drive all the way to South Melbourne. A minute later I had a song in my head. I realised it was 'Go All the Way' by the Raspberries, and in fact it was the rockin' bit at the beginning, not even the actual chorus where they sing 'Drive all the way - all the way to South Melbourne - down Clarendon Street and park in the ACMI car park in Park St'.
I know I'm not unique in this but it does amaze me how a phrase - not even a spoken phrase but I thought one - will trigger the memory of a song. Is this some distant cousin to synaesthesia?
I have been marking essays all day, with a short detour to Shane and Olivia's housewarming. The same old crap keeps turning up. I tried to explain to my second years (and I think I succeeded) a few days ago that there are weird mistakes that flow through essays each semester in waves. At the moment it's the word 'countries' for 'country's'. A few years ago it was the word 'intern' for 'in turn'. Somewhere in there it was the word 'apart' for 'a part'. These last two infuriating errors still show up but less so. Right now it's countries for country's. It probably doesn't look that horrible when you only see it a couple of times. Try seeing it a hundred times. Try getting to the last page of an otherwise pretty seamless and intelligent exploration and there it is three times in the last two paragraphs. Go on, try.