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Crossing Over

Phil sent me this link about the MIT Pirate Program. If you pass courses in “pistol, archery, sailing, and fencing” you can get an acknowledgement as a "pirate". They're considering whether to make some kind of public, formal acknowledgment, rather than the current, informal recognition of your peers.

This is something I didn't get at all when I was younger. I had a very active personal, private, fantasy life and the stuff I did at school. Or work. And the two were completely separate.

It took me years to figure out that I could bring them together. It would have been OK as a college student to find classes I was actually interested in, rather than just fulfilling requirements. It would have been OK to do something I was really interested in for my class project, and not just slavishly try to meet the requirements.

Eventually, I did figure it out. Even so, it took me many years to really bring them into line. And even now, I recognize that not everyone appreciates when I list my Esperanto haiku book on my Annual Faculty Review. But, Hey! If I didn't put it down, how else could I show that I'm making a multicultural accomplishment?