Overwhelmed. Before this week is over, I will grade 75 narrative essays, 50 annotated bibliographies, and I’ll read and comment on 300 student journal entries. No, it’s not normal. It’s the most abnormal week of the semester, and somehow I survive it twice a year. I coax myself through with promises of future reward: spring […]
I call it “syncing passions,” combining activities I love, increasing both the effectiveness and enjoyment of each. Like hanging out with students and climbing mountains. In the last four years, I’ve summited at least a half-dozen times with my favorite people. Plus, we’ve practiced for the higher peaks with a dozen or more excursions into […]
Eschatology—it’s a theologian’s word meaning “last things.” Eschatologists study the events surrounding the end of the world. Preretirement has its eschatology, its list of last things. Just this week I took a class to the Writers Corner for the last time, I taught peer review of essays for the last time, and I filled in […]
I wish life had first drafts. My students will bring theirs tomorrow. They’ll work in groups to make their compositions better before the teacher sees them. Wish I could do the same in life—have several practice runs at something (like raising children or starting a new business) before it counted—before failure was permanent. But then, […]
We were talking about conclusions, and I told them that the last paragraph needs to be the climax of their essay, that it’s a good place for a well chosen quote, or an epiphany, or a surprise (all epiphanies are surprises, but not all surprises are epiphanies). I said that I’m partial to surprises, and […]
Takes faith to write. Also, to teach. Facing a blank legal pad or computer screen, writers must see what isn’t there: the could be, might be, will be. This morning I’m throwing words at the page hoping something will stick. Sometimes nothing does. For a long time. When I do get a sentence that works, […]
Today would have been her 65th birthday. Would have been. My little sister left this world 12 years ago. Next to Charlotte, D’Lynne was my best friend. It wasn’t always that way. As teens we fought constantly (my fault, not hers). But in adulthood things changed. That’s why I wrote a newspaper piece honoring her. […]
So I’m still at the beginning of my last semester, but already have some perceptions of retirement. The first is relief (OK, and maybe some pride) in getting the job done. Like a climber who has the peak in view and realizes that his energy level is high and the weather is holding, it looks […]
“Thou shall not bore thy teacher. It’s Dr. Bellah’s first law of essay writing.” These words, spoken to my Thursday morning class, were met with a collective groan, one which said “But you don’t understand, Dr. B.; I’m a boring person, and I live in a boring town with other boring people.” I told them […]
It’s what I intend to do on my way to retirement this May. Because I want to remember what it was like to be an Amarillo College English teacher. Because I want my grandkids’ grandkids to know that sometimes life’s best gifts arrive unexpected and unsought. That was I—23 years ago—a lost job, a lost […]