Celves
If I were to be honest, I would say that I liked ISA better than ASH. Although, that would not be very fair because the teachers I had at ASH, outnumbered those at ISA thst I loved.
The two schools were very different. I was incredibly lucky to get to go to both and that the times I’d gone to them were broken up at half points of my education.
For strictly emotional reasons, I loved ISA more. I do not exactly know how to describe why. I’ve hardly written of those times in my life, and I’ve been terribly remiss of this. I’d say, I was happiest at those places even as I was my most awkward in learning how to be an adult.
But I remember so many warm and fuzzy memories at school at ISA; the ice skating experience with English favorite boy crush Steve on that very first day; we had small classes and often the older kids mixed with the younger grades. I had crafts. We met in the center barrack. There were rugs on the floor. Couches. Kids of all nations. Kids with all skin colors. We were all friends. I watched the older girls weave on a huge loom; another quilt while her friend knitted and a maze of languages filled the room.
At the drawing table I’d sit and ….there walked in tall carrot top Steve just stepping in with the principal from another prank on the grounds and always he’d bump my seat on purpose as he’d walk by.
The next experience there I was older. I had a serious medical illness. My right arm went paralyzed from some mystery virus I caught.
I had to go for testing several times a week. So, I was too weak to make the long journey to The Hague where the American school was. That took about two and a half hours for me each way a day. Normally. So—I was too ill to do it that year in high school. The international school was right down the road from where we lived, you see, and I could do both in one day and not miss so much school.
We were not put in Dutch schools because we were not Dutch. And the pressure to have the academic credits to get into university forces the decision to stay in the American educational system. I had enough credits to get into either but, I was not Dutch so the decision was always made for me. I have to say that I was actually one credit shy for the American curriculum. I missed American history. Between the two schools, how it happened, I was at the other school when they taught it. A funny bit of irony. But, I had more than enough regular history classes to cover the history issue; world history; European history; ancient history; intellectual history and some extras I took for the fun of it as electives more than got me in, just don’t know a great deal of that one other history.
What I loved the most about the second time I studied there was the canal.
I knew all the pathways around there because of my runaway days. Just behind the school and on the way there was a beautiful and most lovely path along the canal. It was completely canopied in heavy leaved branches of trees. No matter how the weather was out there, under the branches it was always cool.
There was a spot I’d always go. Right after school. My art class door actually faced this way. With my sketch book under my arm, there just hidden by trees on the damp earth I’d sit. Take my time. No hurry to go home. No wish to go home.
I worked on a charcoal sketch for class for a month. It was of a little boat that was docked there. And as I stopped by each day the scene kept changing. More bordering put along the canal edge by the ground to keep the water at bay. Each day I’d have to erase and fix it. I still remember that sketch. It always evoked the moment and the peace of being there. My aunt claimed it the moment she saw it years ago, so, I suppose it was good with the good mark as well from the teacher
There was a different feeling at that school which, unless I have been too vague, I think it defined individuality and celebrated it.
I did not feel that was at the other school. Even the building was said to have been an headquarters during World War II and looked it. Even as we had wonderful educators, they were always reminding us of grade point averages. I always had a stomach arriving in The Hague. But it has its strong points. It really gave me an idea of what the American experience was like for a certain kind of American majority. A peek; like—through a window from the outside.
By the time I stepped foot upon the threshold of the American school, I’d completely adapted to being a European which — made me less than popular with American girls. The boys, however, were another story; obviously
