The girls at my old school were, in a word, crazy. On free periods, we would join lower schoolers’ PE classes, play Red Rover with second-graders, and, due largely to our size, we usually won. On days when our morale was low, our class would gather in the hallways, hold hands and sing “Kumbaya, My Lord” in a circle. In high school, we would ask our history teacher, Dr. Bord, to take us to the playground on the roof and spin us around on a giant turntable. I went to the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York, an all-girls school in a seven-story, carpeted apartment building on 92nd street. Clad in pleated skirts (exactly the same as the Blue Key Head uniform kilts, but much shorter) and ill-fitting polos, all 500 of us kindergarteners through Seniors crowded 92nd street each morning and afternoon. Starting in middle school and continuing through Senior year, we spent our time being rowdy while we weren’t in class. We were never rule breakers, exactly – we never smoke or drank in the building, and there were seldom cases of plagiarism or theft. We always found something so extravagantly insane, however, that there were no rules against it. Some of these activities were more highly organized, such as Quidditch. A few upperclassmen had enlisted Nightingal in the National Quidditch League of North America. The high school was divided into four houses (yes, with a hat), and during practices, the different houses competed against each other. As the seeker of Ravenclaw, I chased the snitch, a small upperclassman, through the 5th, 6th and 7th floors, hoping to tag it/her before my opponent could. The first Tuesday of every month constituted Snuggie Day–part of the Snuggie Revolution–on which students wore their personal Snuggies, brought from home, to school. The head of school finally had to put an end to this as it scared families touring the school. This kind of behavior isn’t present here at Andover because we have too much respect for the school. Although I love Nightingale and look back on my years there with love, I realize that we took the work less seriously, that we respected the upperclassmen less and that we deemed the faculty less venerable. In short, there was no one there we felt we needed to impress. The fact is that becoming involved at Nightingale was not difficult at all, as opposed to Andover, where presidencies and captainships are painstakingly earned and prized and being on the board of a club means working hard, not to mention going to every meeting. At Nightingale any semi-ambitious student could rack up positions without much struggle or difficulty. In addition to being the class president, I was on the board of the school newspaper and literary magazine. I did varsity swimming and badminton, held many positions in clubs and community service and was one of only nine girls in the entire school taking Chinese. Although, written down, it seems remarkable that one girl could achieve so much, it actually isn’t. Varsity Swimming consisted of 12 girls who showed up for preseason, one of whom had severe asthma and was afraid of water. Class presidency was awarded to whoever had friends in their grade. At Andover, being dedicated to a club, team or student council takes time and work, on top of the already large workload (not to mention the amount of effort it takes to apply to Andover, which is enough to make a student value his or her education). It was easy to achieve all that Nightingale had to offer. Andover, however, is a different story. It’s more the strive to achieve that keeps you grounded, and therefore those of us at Andover spend more time working and less time singing ancient African hymns in hallways. As it should be. Margaret Curtis is a new Lower from New York, NY.
