She switches to the backstroke after ten laps. Ten more and she rolls over again; breaststroke. She has waterproof headphones and an audiobook going.
"Because an orange doesn't have to be respectful of orange culture in the same way, doesn't have to recuse their judgment."
"Ah, yeah, makes sense. But it's not even just that, because even if there was an orange that didn't recuse judgment they wouldn't be hired or would be fired fairly quickly if it looked like they were interfering with grey culture."
"There's probably room for the occasional teacher to spend their entire career trying to make a difference and playing career politics well enough to keep their job - or just start a weird little grey school with different rules where everyone knows what's up when they enroll - but yeah it's not a good overall pressure."
"Oranges do curriculum guidelines and consult on education policy but it'd take a long careful career."
"Speaking of persuasion, I've been talking to this green online, we have a date next week."
"The kind you persuade to do educational research or the kind you persuade to write you odes?"
He unconsciously reaches for his hair in a "I'm not green, but" gesture, but aborts it before it completes. "He has to use a wheelchair, and apparently he added all sorts of cool stuff that aren't technically robotics to it."
"I don't think he publishes any not-technically-robotics stuff he makes, he called it a hobby."
"I hope he wears a helmet, and I can't really think where he'd ride that wheelchair but." Shrug.