Around this time 18 years ago I was thinking about the important things I needed to focus on for the next 18 years. I was four months pregnant with a very healthy baby girl who, one day, would make me laugh, skin her knee, have disappointments, make me proud, become a teenager, make me want to scream — did I say make me laugh? — and of course, graduate from high school.
What schools would she go to, how much homework would she have, would she make friends, would she love it or hate, would we make the right choice?
As a tiny person, Luiza was very busy. She enjoyed gardening, cooking in her kitchen, reading, and excusing herself to the tiny pink coffee cup that she drank from. When Luiza was 18 months she stated, very firmly, “I want some friends.”
She was almost immediately enrolled in a Montessori school, where she began to learn the ends and outs of “putting your work away,” and that other children may bite you. She was fascinated with the actions of others and what makes them tick, and less fascinated with math. Luiza tried her hand as a coiffurist with her own hair and the hair of others, she became a public service announcer, informing friends the proper way babies are made— yes, she was right. She grew to love doing “research,” which by the time she hit second grade, we realized, was an elaborate excuse for drawing pictures of animals with her friends.
Second grade also marked the time of the great discovery of Harry Potter, which turned Luiza from a regular reader to an avid one. And by the time third grade rolled around her friends’ parents were frantically working out how to undo the, “What?!? You believe in Santa Claus?” reaction Luiza gave when they were all sitting around, chatting one day about the forthcoming holiday. Luiza spent most of her younger years running around outside, jumping out of trees, throwing herself to the ground in extremely dramatic death scenes, playing with playmobile, learning about greek mythology, and passing many summers in Montreal.
She loved to be in the kitchen making up her own cake recipes, licking the batter bowl of cake recipes that were not her own, and making marzipan figures. A slew of small critters came and went, including Cutie Cute (the hamster) and Cutie Cute the Second (also a hamster). She discovered her great love of horses and horseback riding, and oh l’ll just mention Harry Potter again, when Doodley became Dudley. There can be a benefit to watching movies.
With the middle years came an all girls school, where research required words on paper. At the start, the uniform was welcomed, but by 8th grade she was ready to throw off the shackles of uniformity and girl-school oppression. During this time she did, however, learn to love the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, discovered Faulkner, that maps were easy once you created a system, that vocabulary tests are a breeze if you studied, that the viola is a fine instrument, and that math was annoying. The small school atmosphere was hard on Luiza. Her class sized ranged from 10 at one point to 3.
Felix the Wise, her beloved hedgehog, came into and out of our lives, and Lily the cat settled in. She experienced ACL for the first time (a huge music festival in Austin for those who do not know what it is). The playmobile was packed up, and a love of Anime and Manga began, edgy haircuts from Bo, drop offs at the mall, staying home alone. She applied and was accepted into the Anderson High School International Baccalaureate program. She left middle school with high school Algebra I and Spanish I behind her, but Harry Potter and horses stayed with us, of course.
Before Anderson, the student body of any one school never topped 120. When Luiza walked into Anderson High School she entered a school with over 2000 students. Only a tiny portion of them were in the IB program, but there were many other tracks — and cliques. She was thrilled. She had to pick her IB track early, and she began the course, heading towards graduation. She decided German would be her language, and she wanted to keep playing the viola for as long as the schedule permitted. What many do not realize is that here, in public schools, if your school offers IB (and very few do), then you have to take the state required courses along with the IB requirements: Luiza is graduating with a high school diploma and an IB degree that is recognized all over the world (and gives her roughly 60 hours of college credit closer to home). Driving to and from Anderson was exhausting, and so, we sold the house in South Austin and moved north (and gave up horseback for a few years), taking about two hours of travel time out of the schedule, each weekday. Her irritation with math continued, but she soon discovered Chinese.
ACL became regular fare for Luiza — as did many, many, late nights with homework, Germany twice, China twice (she’ll be heading out again just a couple of days after graduation). We hosted exchange students from both countries, as
well as having a steady flow of teenagers in and out, at all hours of the day and night. The driver’s license was certainly a highlight, while the constant discussion from school counselors about careers and colleges a low. “Why do they want you to pick one thing?” Needless to say, she hasn’t, and she’s taking a gap year. Her aspirations have ranged from model to mortician. (In fact, I think she still wants to do both.) While she was sad to give up orchestra, she was able to take on much of what she wanted and plenty of what she didn’t. The on-line health class, took almost a year and half (it was supposed to take a couple of months). But she did realize that “those classes” were not for her. I’m still not sure if she
means the self-paced or the stupid ones. Her high school life consisted of great times— home coming dances, proms, “playing in the pit”, staying up all night, Fiesta Texas, strange and wonderful tales of China, and many more adventures, and of course, the inevitable bad ones, a suicide, bullying, illness, and friends moving away. The passing of Alan Rickman was hard on her — after all, she lost Snape all over again. (Snape was quite possibly her favorite Harry Potter character). Not surprisingly, her math module turned a corner and math suddenly became “the easiest thing.”
She began tutoring others in Chinese, has gotten back on the horse, and has decided to stick with the pleasures of languages until she figures something out.
Through it all, Luiza has worked, she has procrastinated, she has complained, she has been exhausted, she has laughed uncontrollably, she has worked harder, she has cried (a few times, but usually the Hobbit movies are involved), she has been gracious, and she has worked longer. It has been a whirlwind to watch her go through these transformations, and yet still be the same tiny person I can still hear in my head talking about the “registert lady” and asking for “frawbies” (Luizaspeak for strawberries).
Congratulations, Luiza! Go enjoy China. You can sleep when you get home.