Is Yale high pressure? Harvard isn’t. Brown isn’t.
Most of the tech schools are high pressure. Ivies not so much.
MM
If you define “pressure” solely as, I dunno, math problems, and not “everyone around me was selected because they’re supposedly the best of the best and I feel like I’m barely keeping up.” Which seems weird to me, especially based on the accounts of the Ivy league grads I know.
C.T. Phipps
The rich legacies are fine no matter what their grades are.
Nicoleandmaggie
Yale must have their fair share of those.
My ivy (+ Stanford) experiences have been much more of the I was told everyone around was the best of the best but that is *clearly* not true. Yes lots of amazing people but plenty (white, mostly male) that you wonder how they got in. ‘Tech schools have been much more of feeling like the dumbest in the room for even super brilliant people.
I don’t know, if she’s refusing to go because of the offer being related to the kidnapping it might also mean an acceptance of success without spreadsheeting one’s day right down to bathroom breaks
Based on earlier comments made by Joyce and her family, I don’t think they really had a clear idea of how modern Judaism works growing up. The “leave a glass out for Elijah” thing is a rabbinical tradition, not a Biblical one
UrsulaDavina
I was taught that Elijah would come to dinner when the Messiah came and i am led to Christians beleive that Jesus was the Messiah and John the Baptist was prophet that stood in for Elijah, so doesn’t that mean Christans celebrating Passover is kind of sacrilegious? I am guessing they use the idea that Jesus celebrated passover so we must to as a way of justification. It’s still not cool to do so.
HueSatLight
There is an altered version of a Seder, where they make up a lot of stuff about how things are symbolic of Jesus. It’s really bad, sorry.
That’s different than doing communion, which is also Christians doing a part of what they imagine Jesus did at the Last Supper, which according to legend was a Seder meal.
Needfuldoer
Oooohh, so that’s who’s coming to dinner! That answers the question someone asked the other day!
They’ll be Joyce’s new best friends. Virtually indistinguishable from Dorothy as they’re both hard-working, constantly on the move, and can lift up to fifty times their own body weight.
Dorothy’s gonna try to do a spinning heel study, mess up her footwork, and go flying over the ropes, landing really hard on her back and getting carried out on a stretcher. Then Riley will coincidentally be visiting Roz, who comes to visit Dorothy out of concern, but for one reason or another Riley will overhear a Big Secret and have to take Dorothy’s place on a very important mission.
I just pulled the EP up on my music ap, I love 25 minute long pieces of music. That’s how I meditate. Actually I use Tubular Bells from the same artist to meditate to on a regular basis. I also like the original version of Autobahn for meditating.
To me the scary thing isn’t that she is running headlong towards the cliff to rock bottom (that plunge seems like it was always inevitable), but rather that she is now pushing her friends away again, burning her safety net when she needs it most.
I can actually see that working. After the guided masterbation session, it’s a hard sell to say Dorothy’s as straight as she believes. Find the right guy and I can see them pulling a throuple off.
I am concerned about Dorothy, but I mean, we knew this was going to happen with her. I also kind of wonder if she would have even *wanted* Barry or Jason’s job, but I get this is a matter of principle to a degree.
Was Joyce’s cult one of those Christan sects that celebrated passover and have a sedar? Beacuse it’s cool to attend and particpate in a sedar of a Jewish friend or family it is not cool for Christans to host their own sedar. It seems to be a thing that is being done and it’s cultural appropriation.
I dunno about that. My family did it. We also celebrated Hanukkah. And a bunch of other holidays. My sister believes that the family has Jewish roots, based on oral tradition, but I just figure all the traditions are the heritage of all those who choose to remember them. The Passover story is a human story that shaped everyone. That’s just me, though. I get that other folks feel more strongly than I do about using culture.
Christians actively making Jewish holidays about Jesus is the issue, and it’s a real, fucked up, issue. That doesn’t sound like what you’re describing.
Laura
Hm… OK, I do get that. Thank you for explaining that
…A new perspective to explore!
Mark
Well, on one hand, it is arguable that Jewish tradition is Christian tradition. The first Christians were Jews; gentiles came in later. There’s a bit somewhere about being grafted into the vine. You are, of course, free to accept or reject this bit of handwaving.
On the other hand, yes, there are folks who will make going to the store for paper towels be about Jesus somehow. I really don’t know why. I tend to see it as stemming from a lack of faith, but I’m probably being uncharitable again.
FlamestAndLight
Arguable yes. A BAD argument but it could be argued sure. Given that xtian societies used Jewish holidays as particular times to be violent to extra punish us for not being xtian yeah i don’t think it’s a good argument.
Laura
I definitely hear what you are saying. There’s so much historical pain and trauma, there. That to see one’s sacred days being co-opted and twisted for other (antithetical) meanings, it can feel like mockery. Even desecration.
…I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you for explaining it.
Laura
But, I mean, at the same time, the Torah and Midrash are part of the Christian historical and literary and cultural religious tradition. To cut those elements off from one’s practice — especially for families with blended roots — it just feels like cutting off a part of oneself. And for the Universalists, and Quakers, many of whom believe that “Every day is a holiday,” it can feel very important to honor the traditions and foods and music and teachings of one’s own cultural forebears, even if the current theology isn’t exactly the same.
…I’m probably wrong about this. Just sharing my own limited perspective, based on growing up in a multicultural household.
Laura
Sorry, I know. I should have said, “Even if the current theology is different.” Because the theologies are different.
And by “every day is a holiday,” a better reflection of that sentiment is “every day is a holy day.”
I know that sounds cheesy and new age. It’s just… some people really were raised to embrace multiple cultures, and it’s hard to pick just one while remaining whole.
Laura
Well, in the spirit of cultural traditions…
*Plays “Roll Away the Waters” on the hacked muzak*
BBCC
It’s one thing to do it in a blended house where there’s actual cultural roots to share. It’s another to do it as part of ‘my religious tradition’ when your religious tradition decreed those holidays aren’t part of your religion millennia ago and your forebears spent those millennia MURDERING those who continued to do it because they weren’t part of your faith. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t be allowed to just turn around and say ‘well, this is part of our religious tradition too!’ It’s not.
Laura
I get that. Thank you for showing me that perspective. I really hadn’t thought of it that way. I am grateful to you for opening my eyes to that aspect of the situation.
I guess it kind of depends on how one was raised, what relationship one has to the ancestors’ cultural traditions. Thank you.
thejeff
Yeah, if early Christians had kept some Jewish traditions and holidays then the “same tradition” argument would make sense, but it can’t apply to trying to claim them thousands of years later.
Especially when a lot of those specific practices developed in the rabbinical tradition after the destruction of the Temple and thus after Christianity.
BBCC
For sure! Especially when it comes to mixed houses, the lines for heritage can be blurry. Thejeff is also correct that Passover seders are not part of the Judaism that early Christians left because that developed after the Temple was destroyed, so there’s no way for it to be part of early Christian tradition.
Mark
Go ahead and try to make me personally responsible for the heretical actions of people who perverted what they had been taught centuries before I was born.
Lacking further information, her saying “as if” could just be a comparison she’s making because she spent the past ~18 years being a sponge for everything even remotely Bible-adjacent and it’s just right there in her brain. But I would be extremely unsurprised if her family and church did some of the weird appropriative stuff some groups get up to.
The whole Elijah thing comes from a rabbinic tradition which was the precursor to modern Judaism it also is messianic in nature and given that Christans beleive that Jesus was the Messiah it seems irrelevant if a little sacrilegious for Christans to celebrate it.
Also I did not like Passover my mom was Jewish and my siblings and I were raised Jewish but my Dad is Catholic and we would have Sunday dinner with my Dad’s very large Catholic family who would abstain from eating meat for Lent ( which often crossed over with Passover) and we couldn’t eat bread or anything with yeast so all we could eat is fish on Sunday which I hated. Also I really like bread sont care about the carbs . Also most of my friends were Catholic so when I ate over all they had was fish.
Now I actually like some kinds of fish but it’s too late.
171 thoughts on “Slipping”
Ana Chronistic
“Just call me Tom Bodett from Motel 6!”
Lux
Dorothy no
Zaxares
She’s gonna self-destruct/have a nervous breakdown if she keeps on this path, yeah. :/
Azhrei Vep
DOROTHY YESSSS!!
Dot
Dorothy if you were really committed to doubling down you’d have emailed Yale back already.
Proxiehunter
A high pressure school like Yale would accelerate the tailspin she’s in so it’s a good thing she hasn’t.
Nicoleandmaggie
Is Yale high pressure? Harvard isn’t. Brown isn’t.
Most of the tech schools are high pressure. Ivies not so much.
MM
If you define “pressure” solely as, I dunno, math problems, and not “everyone around me was selected because they’re supposedly the best of the best and I feel like I’m barely keeping up.” Which seems weird to me, especially based on the accounts of the Ivy league grads I know.
C.T. Phipps
The rich legacies are fine no matter what their grades are.
Nicoleandmaggie
Yale must have their fair share of those.
My ivy (+ Stanford) experiences have been much more of the I was told everyone around was the best of the best but that is *clearly* not true. Yes lots of amazing people but plenty (white, mostly male) that you wonder how they got in. ‘Tech schools have been much more of feeling like the dumbest in the room for even super brilliant people.
Yeet
I don’t know, if she’s refusing to go because of the offer being related to the kidnapping it might also mean an acceptance of success without spreadsheeting one’s day right down to bathroom breaks
Nicoleandmaggie
Seriously.
butts
oh, hey, she’s learning things about Judaism, neat
Uly
Ooooooooooor her family was the type of fundiegelical to cosplay Jews during Passover/Easter. Could really go either way, couldn’t it.
butts
Based on earlier comments made by Joyce and her family, I don’t think they really had a clear idea of how modern Judaism works growing up. The “leave a glass out for Elijah” thing is a rabbinical tradition, not a Biblical one
UrsulaDavina
I was taught that Elijah would come to dinner when the Messiah came and i am led to Christians beleive that Jesus was the Messiah and John the Baptist was prophet that stood in for Elijah, so doesn’t that mean Christans celebrating Passover is kind of sacrilegious? I am guessing they use the idea that Jesus celebrated passover so we must to as a way of justification. It’s still not cool to do so.
HueSatLight
There is an altered version of a Seder, where they make up a lot of stuff about how things are symbolic of Jesus. It’s really bad, sorry.
That’s different than doing communion, which is also Christians doing a part of what they imagine Jesus did at the Last Supper, which according to legend was a Seder meal.
Needfuldoer
Oooohh, so that’s who’s coming to dinner! That answers the question someone asked the other day!
HueSatLight
transition from cosplay passover to grokking Judaism in process.
Sirksome
Working even harder? Her grades aren’t even slipping. This definitely isn’t a red flag. Nope.
UrsulaDavina
It’s been like two weeks? I doubt most of her classes have even issued grades.
Needfuldoer
She’s not top of the class, which she’s “supposed to” be on her mental self-worth resume.
(What is Dorothy doing? Is she giving up? Doubling down? Still trying to be President without going to Yale?)
cbwroses
Do you want ants?
Because that’s how you get ants.
JessWitt
They’ll be Joyce’s new best friends. Virtually indistinguishable from Dorothy as they’re both hard-working, constantly on the move, and can lift up to fifty times their own body weight.
3oranges
And destined to be president! …well, I for one welcome our new insect overlords.
Needfuldoer
They’re always here to mess up any day.
When they’re around every camper gets thinner,
’cause if they get the chance they will take your food away.
JBento
And are also entirely commited to a system that they never took the trouble to qustion. PERFECT MATCH!
Yumi
Oof, Dorothy’s really going, “The problem is that I’m not burnt out enough.”
GholaHalleck
“If I just keep burning I’ll turn into charcoal, then I triple the pressure and it’s nothing but diamonds! BRILLIANT!”
Taffy
Dorothy’s gonna try to do a spinning heel study, mess up her footwork, and go flying over the ropes, landing really hard on her back and getting carried out on a stretcher. Then Riley will coincidentally be visiting Roz, who comes to visit Dorothy out of concern, but for one reason or another Riley will overhear a Big Secret and have to take Dorothy’s place on a very important mission.
C.T. Phipps
Dorothy’s problem is she thinks anyone cares about grades.
She’s already killed her sole reason to have a massive GPA.
Heavensrun
(goddammit, I misclicked and flagged this post. This is like the third time, I don’t know why this happens.)
Grades are important if you’re planning to pursue grad school, but if you’re not, then yeah, employers just care that you graduated.
NGPZ
If it were up to me, I’d make Dotty a food that’d make Joyce flip — mac and cheese dog. ?
Also, Dotty no don’t push yourself too hard. ?
I Know Why the Mowed Lawn Screams
Dorothy sweetie you’re going to crash and burn at this rate
Thag Simmons
Plane is already stalled, engine is already on fire
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Plays “Five Miles Out” on hacked Muzak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSKUSeXRBgg
Allandrel
I see you are a person of culture.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…
Opus the Poet
I just pulled the EP up on my music ap, I love 25 minute long pieces of music. That’s how I meditate. Actually I use Tubular Bells from the same artist to meditate to on a regular basis. I also like the original version of Autobahn for meditating.
Sirksome
She’s already crashed.
True Survivor
To me the scary thing isn’t that she is running headlong towards the cliff to rock bottom (that plunge seems like it was always inevitable), but rather that she is now pushing her friends away again, burning her safety net when she needs it most.
jeffepp
Sigh… Dorothy, she’s trying to poly with you. She was before, but now it’s with Joe.
True Survivor
But they are already in Poli-Sci together and what would Joe add?
Yotomoe
His dick, probably.
Jamie
He also has stubble.
Sirksome
I can actually see that working. After the guided masterbation session, it’s a hard sell to say Dorothy’s as straight as she believes. Find the right guy and I can see them pulling a throuple off.
Mr D
I thought Poly without informed consent of all parties was bad form?
JBento
Cheating. The word you’re looking for is “cheating”.
justin8448
I mean, Joyce was very clear with Dorothy that she’s already in a relationship with Joe.
She would still need to negotiate her potential Dorothy-relationship with Joe though.
RassilonTDavros
thisisgonnasuck.gif
DailyBrad
Joyce is a sweetheart.
I am concerned about Dorothy, but I mean, we knew this was going to happen with her. I also kind of wonder if she would have even *wanted* Barry or Jason’s job, but I get this is a matter of principle to a degree.
MM
I think academia’s potentially a good fit for Dorothy. Lots of relatively straightforward benchmarks for how you’re doing, compared to other jobs.
Joy
Academia will exploit the hell out of Dorothy’s brain
UrsulaDavina
Was Joyce’s cult one of those Christan sects that celebrated passover and have a sedar? Beacuse it’s cool to attend and particpate in a sedar of a Jewish friend or family it is not cool for Christans to host their own sedar. It seems to be a thing that is being done and it’s cultural appropriation.
Laura
I dunno about that. My family did it. We also celebrated Hanukkah. And a bunch of other holidays. My sister believes that the family has Jewish roots, based on oral tradition, but I just figure all the traditions are the heritage of all those who choose to remember them. The Passover story is a human story that shaped everyone. That’s just me, though. I get that other folks feel more strongly than I do about using culture.
Hrodvitnir
Christians actively making Jewish holidays about Jesus is the issue, and it’s a real, fucked up, issue. That doesn’t sound like what you’re describing.
Laura
Hm… OK, I do get that. Thank you for explaining that
…A new perspective to explore!
Mark
Well, on one hand, it is arguable that Jewish tradition is Christian tradition. The first Christians were Jews; gentiles came in later. There’s a bit somewhere about being grafted into the vine. You are, of course, free to accept or reject this bit of handwaving.
On the other hand, yes, there are folks who will make going to the store for paper towels be about Jesus somehow. I really don’t know why. I tend to see it as stemming from a lack of faith, but I’m probably being uncharitable again.
FlamestAndLight
Arguable yes. A BAD argument but it could be argued sure. Given that xtian societies used Jewish holidays as particular times to be violent to extra punish us for not being xtian yeah i don’t think it’s a good argument.
Laura
I definitely hear what you are saying. There’s so much historical pain and trauma, there. That to see one’s sacred days being co-opted and twisted for other (antithetical) meanings, it can feel like mockery. Even desecration.
…I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you for explaining it.
Laura
But, I mean, at the same time, the Torah and Midrash are part of the Christian historical and literary and cultural religious tradition. To cut those elements off from one’s practice — especially for families with blended roots — it just feels like cutting off a part of oneself. And for the Universalists, and Quakers, many of whom believe that “Every day is a holiday,” it can feel very important to honor the traditions and foods and music and teachings of one’s own cultural forebears, even if the current theology isn’t exactly the same.
…I’m probably wrong about this. Just sharing my own limited perspective, based on growing up in a multicultural household.
Laura
Sorry, I know. I should have said, “Even if the current theology is different.” Because the theologies are different.
And by “every day is a holiday,” a better reflection of that sentiment is “every day is a holy day.”
I know that sounds cheesy and new age. It’s just… some people really were raised to embrace multiple cultures, and it’s hard to pick just one while remaining whole.
Laura
Well, in the spirit of cultural traditions…
*Plays “Roll Away the Waters” on the hacked muzak*
BBCC
It’s one thing to do it in a blended house where there’s actual cultural roots to share. It’s another to do it as part of ‘my religious tradition’ when your religious tradition decreed those holidays aren’t part of your religion millennia ago and your forebears spent those millennia MURDERING those who continued to do it because they weren’t part of your faith. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t be allowed to just turn around and say ‘well, this is part of our religious tradition too!’ It’s not.
Laura
I get that. Thank you for showing me that perspective. I really hadn’t thought of it that way. I am grateful to you for opening my eyes to that aspect of the situation.
I guess it kind of depends on how one was raised, what relationship one has to the ancestors’ cultural traditions. Thank you.
thejeff
Yeah, if early Christians had kept some Jewish traditions and holidays then the “same tradition” argument would make sense, but it can’t apply to trying to claim them thousands of years later.
Especially when a lot of those specific practices developed in the rabbinical tradition after the destruction of the Temple and thus after Christianity.
BBCC
For sure! Especially when it comes to mixed houses, the lines for heritage can be blurry. Thejeff is also correct that Passover seders are not part of the Judaism that early Christians left because that developed after the Temple was destroyed, so there’s no way for it to be part of early Christian tradition.
Mark
Go ahead and try to make me personally responsible for the heretical actions of people who perverted what they had been taught centuries before I was born.
Yumi
@Mark: lolwut
Nerrin
Lacking further information, her saying “as if” could just be a comparison she’s making because she spent the past ~18 years being a sponge for everything even remotely Bible-adjacent and it’s just right there in her brain. But I would be extremely unsurprised if her family and church did some of the weird appropriative stuff some groups get up to.
UrsulaDavina
The whole Elijah thing comes from a rabbinic tradition which was the precursor to modern Judaism it also is messianic in nature and given that Christans beleive that Jesus was the Messiah it seems irrelevant if a little sacrilegious for Christans to celebrate it.
Also I did not like Passover my mom was Jewish and my siblings and I were raised Jewish but my Dad is Catholic and we would have Sunday dinner with my Dad’s very large Catholic family who would abstain from eating meat for Lent ( which often crossed over with Passover) and we couldn’t eat bread or anything with yeast so all we could eat is fish on Sunday which I hated. Also I really like bread sont care about the carbs . Also most of my friends were Catholic so when I ate over all they had was fish.
Now I actually like some kinds of fish but it’s too late.