struggling

wow. i think i've been starting alot of my posts that way....but its these intense ups and downs! today i had an intensely sucky experience on my kitchen work shift--basically, the 4 head cooks are total assholes and will randomly be mean to whomever they want. and of course, they won't let me do anything because i'm a girl, and also yell at me for not doing anything (grr!!). i did my best to yell back, but its tough to keep a prickly exterior for 4 hours straight (with no break), and half the time i was fighting back tears of anger and frustration. so many barriers to communication--language and culture being the two biggest.

it doesn't help that sky is feeling hurt and wants to cut off contact with me again; he's done this twice before when i was off travelling and it became too painful to hear about my sexual exploits (not that he wasn't having them too). mainly i'm just feeling emotionally exhausted from all the ups and downs and back and forths in all aspects of my life. today i thought, it wouldn't be the end of the world if sky dumped me. though i don't want him to of course. but, i don't feel like getting worked up and attached, i'm just tired.

shabbat starts in a couple of hours, the buchbuts (my morroccan saviours) apparently called esther (the head of the ulpan) to invite me over for shabbat. she told them that i couldn't go this week b/c we'll be all together here.

tomorrow night i've been assigned to the 3 hour post-shabbat dish duty--my goodness, it would be easy to sink into a deep morass of self-pity and moping! the truth is that my roommate miryam was on the last ulpan and is a great support person, and some weird sadistic part of me feels up to the challenge of this stupid kitchen job. everyone keeps telling me, you can't take it personally, there just mean assholes to everyone, its not special to you. its something i really struggle with, and of course it was so hard and miserable because i was totally taking everything personally. i just don't know how to be in that kind of environment in a healthy way--putting up a prickly wall or just breaking down and being a mush are both unappealing options. i guess the trick is to let it in and out the other side, like tong lin. just take in all their negativity and release it immediately without touching anything inside. somehow i have a feeling that its easier said then done. but maybe (!??!) it will be a good practice for me.

in the meantime, no work (or travel or music playing or internet or telephone) for 24 hours. if you're reading this, please send me some kind and supportive thoughts, i think i'm going to need them.