Depending on your job, you probably have certain times of the year that are busier than others. As you may know, I teach at a college so there are a few different "busy seasons." Our school year always starts at the end of August (we don't get Labor Day off so it's a mad dash right off the starting blocks). The week before the semester starts is always busy - things like copying syllabi, finalizing course calendars, and updating whatever course management software is in vogue at the moment.
The end of the school year is also busy - there's plenty of grading to do, plus the various faculty responsibilities that surround graduation. However, the weather is usually just beginning to turn nice in central Pennsylvania around that time so I don't mind the work nearly as much.
For me, the busiest time of the year is without a doubt the November - mid-December time period. Each semester, it seems like both September and October move along at a decent pace...but as soon as the calendar gets flipped over to the month of November it's like a runaway train. By my count, we have two full weeks of classes, a two-day week (because of Thanksgiving), then two more weeks, a week of finals, and then BOOM, semester over.
In that time, I'm supposed to give (and thus write ahead of time) an exam for each of my three classes. As usual, I've completely exhausted all of my "pre" work that I did in the summer - I usually have at least a full month's worth of lecture material ready to go before the semester begins, including such things as enough copies of all relevant handouts, answer keys, etc.
How does all of that relate to cards? Well. Directly, it probably doesn't. What it might mean though is that my blog might suffer a bit. Rest assured, I won't be giving up - in fact, I'm hoping to crank out at least one post a day as usual (though I hope to increase the quality of my posts in the near future).
Until the semester is over though, you'll probably get shorter posts - and perhaps less frequent ones. I've also drastically slowed down on trading - in fact, I didn't mail a single package all week (and I only received one trade package this week). I did spend a bit of money on eBay though in an effort to knock a few cards off of my own want lists, I'm beginning to get agitated with how long my want list is. The completionist in my can't stand that!
Since I'm taking a break from my lesson planning to write this post as it is, let's (re)open a few more packs out of the 1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated box. At the moment, there are only 4 packs left to re-discover the contents of (and if you missed it, the last time I opened up a couple of packs I found a great Mark McGwire card).
Pack 21:
53. Expos rookies (Bullinger, Seguignol, Young)
69. Twins rookies (Koskie, Pierzynski, Sampson)
72. Ben Grieve
105. Jim Edmonds
137. Rolando Arrojo
167. Quinton McCracken
That was a boring pack if you ask me...
Pack 22:
49. Cubs rookies (Maxwell, Nieves, Gonzalez)
75. Juan Gonzalez
78. Jim Thome
130. Derek Bell
133. Trevor Hoffman
4 of 25 HL. Headliners: Chipper Jones
With the eighty-five bazillion (roughly) Chipper Jones fans out there, this is probably a hot commodity card (despite being over a decade old). I think the Headliner cards are quite well done overall, it'd be fun to own the full set (though I don't see that happening anytime soon)!
I guess I should get back to doing my work now.
The end of the school year is also busy - there's plenty of grading to do, plus the various faculty responsibilities that surround graduation. However, the weather is usually just beginning to turn nice in central Pennsylvania around that time so I don't mind the work nearly as much.
For me, the busiest time of the year is without a doubt the November - mid-December time period. Each semester, it seems like both September and October move along at a decent pace...but as soon as the calendar gets flipped over to the month of November it's like a runaway train. By my count, we have two full weeks of classes, a two-day week (because of Thanksgiving), then two more weeks, a week of finals, and then BOOM, semester over.
In that time, I'm supposed to give (and thus write ahead of time) an exam for each of my three classes. As usual, I've completely exhausted all of my "pre" work that I did in the summer - I usually have at least a full month's worth of lecture material ready to go before the semester begins, including such things as enough copies of all relevant handouts, answer keys, etc.
How does all of that relate to cards? Well. Directly, it probably doesn't. What it might mean though is that my blog might suffer a bit. Rest assured, I won't be giving up - in fact, I'm hoping to crank out at least one post a day as usual (though I hope to increase the quality of my posts in the near future).
Until the semester is over though, you'll probably get shorter posts - and perhaps less frequent ones. I've also drastically slowed down on trading - in fact, I didn't mail a single package all week (and I only received one trade package this week). I did spend a bit of money on eBay though in an effort to knock a few cards off of my own want lists, I'm beginning to get agitated with how long my want list is. The completionist in my can't stand that!
Since I'm taking a break from my lesson planning to write this post as it is, let's (re)open a few more packs out of the 1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated box. At the moment, there are only 4 packs left to re-discover the contents of (and if you missed it, the last time I opened up a couple of packs I found a great Mark McGwire card).
Pack 21:
53. Expos rookies (Bullinger, Seguignol, Young)
69. Twins rookies (Koskie, Pierzynski, Sampson)
72. Ben Grieve
105. Jim Edmonds
137. Rolando Arrojo
167. Quinton McCracken
That was a boring pack if you ask me...
Pack 22:
49. Cubs rookies (Maxwell, Nieves, Gonzalez)
75. Juan Gonzalez
78. Jim Thome
130. Derek Bell
133. Trevor Hoffman
4 of 25 HL. Headliners: Chipper Jones
With the eighty-five bazillion (roughly) Chipper Jones fans out there, this is probably a hot commodity card (despite being over a decade old). I think the Headliner cards are quite well done overall, it'd be fun to own the full set (though I don't see that happening anytime soon)!
I guess I should get back to doing my work now.
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