hating the hater

1. after class, i told someone a story and one of the less-intelligent overheard and began attacking my opinions (which weren't the point of the story). this dragged me into a corridor argument with four people, and the base assumption is what really offended me.

this country has a lot of wonderful things to offer, but its problems far outweight the good stuff. just because i'm an immigrant doesn't mean i haven't travelled, haven't met people from all over the country, haven't seen what really goes on.

i suspect that i'm more exposed than most born israelis simply because i approached this country with an open mind. i've met with palestinians (heck, i lived with a few of them) and i've hung around me'ah she'arim (although i hated it), i've lived in a village yeshiva, i've protected a settlement in the territories, i've lived on a kibbutz (albeit without having to work on one) and i've served almost everywhere with almost every walk of life. to tell me that my judgements apropos the future of our intolerant society are obviously due to a lack of familiarity with the country is absurd and irrelevant.

it doesn't matter how wonderful the good stuff is if we don't manage to survive long enough to enjoy it. and if we keep up the self-destructive behaviour, we won't. and if israelis continue to aggressively defend that behaviour, and aren't interested in change, then those of us who have tried and failed to make a difference have every right to complain, and every right to leave without being called weak, whiney and uncaring.

no, it doesn't have to be this way. no, there's no justification for it being this way. yes, there are plenty of places where it's not this way. life's too short to spend it fighting all the time.

2. i've been paid! for january. at least that, and i think that the bosses and i are all up to speed - there were some baseline misunderstandings on both sides. i presume that means that this tardy crap won't happen again. if it does, i'm out - although, as i told my mum, i'll be hard-pressed to find a job that makes it so easy to disappear later.

3. once again the marketing boys are pulling the reins, and i had two hours to perform massive system-wide changes and q-and-a it all. it was stressful, there were ugly problems, and overall i'd be totally self-satisfied if it wasn't for having had such a hard time.

4. and i arrived home late, and i had loads of french homework to do. which i'm not doing right now. *sigh*