100 years of BDS
As most of the long-suffering readers of this LJ already know, I read books in the order I acquire them, so there's a lot of randomness in the sequence: novels I purchase interspersed haphazardly with contributor's copies, books about old race cars and books on novel criticism. Today's entry holds a special place in my heart because I just finished reading the beautiful hardcover edition of the book celebrating the 100th anniversary of my old secondary school, the Belgrano Day School.
When I first got the book (I was gifted one for contributing a small passage in the text), I leafed through it looking for photos of me, was interested to find a couple, but then consigned it to the TBR pile, without really stopping to wonder whether it was any good, and finally got around to it only recently.
It was a huge revelation. I was surprised by how true to the spirit of the place the book is - the original English founder, John Ernest Green, would be absolutely delighted to see how well his initial dream of a piece of English education in the middle of the Pampas has adapted and thrived. I was also amazed at how much emotion and feeling comes through, although the way the book was conceived probably has a lot to do with it: text including the salient facts of the school history balanced out by stories told by ex-alumni. These stories absolutely make the book: the affection that people still have for the place, often fifty or more years after graduation shone through and left me teary-eyed more than once.
The sincerity of the exercise shines through in the fact that it makes no apologies for being a bilingual publication - if your English or Spanish isn't up to par, then you will not be able to understand parts of the book. There is no translation for much of it, and that is true to the school spirit, which expects no less than excellence in both languages from its students, and reflects that in this celebration.
I am a part of many communities: writers, ex-alumni from my university, the guys I play soccer with on weekends, the people at work and a bunch of other groups. But there is no group that I feel more represented by, no people I feel more comfortable with than the ex-alumni of the Belgrano Day School.
When I first got the book (I was gifted one for contributing a small passage in the text), I leafed through it looking for photos of me, was interested to find a couple, but then consigned it to the TBR pile, without really stopping to wonder whether it was any good, and finally got around to it only recently.
It was a huge revelation. I was surprised by how true to the spirit of the place the book is - the original English founder, John Ernest Green, would be absolutely delighted to see how well his initial dream of a piece of English education in the middle of the Pampas has adapted and thrived. I was also amazed at how much emotion and feeling comes through, although the way the book was conceived probably has a lot to do with it: text including the salient facts of the school history balanced out by stories told by ex-alumni. These stories absolutely make the book: the affection that people still have for the place, often fifty or more years after graduation shone through and left me teary-eyed more than once.
The sincerity of the exercise shines through in the fact that it makes no apologies for being a bilingual publication - if your English or Spanish isn't up to par, then you will not be able to understand parts of the book. There is no translation for much of it, and that is true to the school spirit, which expects no less than excellence in both languages from its students, and reflects that in this celebration.
I am a part of many communities: writers, ex-alumni from my university, the guys I play soccer with on weekends, the people at work and a bunch of other groups. But there is no group that I feel more represented by, no people I feel more comfortable with than the ex-alumni of the Belgrano Day School.