"Finding Family in Friends," by MSIH December blogger of the month Tamara Kliot

Studying medicine abroad is exciting! There are always new places to explore, people to meet, languages to learn, cultural norms to adapt to, and things to discover. The opportunities to procrastinate studying for biochemistry or immunology are abundant. However, with the ending of classes and beginning of exams, there has been a noticeable shift in how people are allocating their time. Priorities are shifting as that list of important information to review continues to grow.

While having fun and taking “mini-vacations” are important stress relievers, it is easy to lose sight of that when you are in the thick of studying. It is easy to isolate yourself in a study fortress and spend your time surrounded by books and watching videos on metabolic processes. It is easy to forget to be a human and spend time with friends and talk to family.

I was reminded of this when my Israeli neighbor wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. He was the last person I expected to hear those words from, but he forced me to stop and think. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it's an opportunity to spend time with family and reflect on the things we are grateful for. Living in Israel, it would have been easy to forget to celebrate or even acknowledge Thanksgiving. It is just another day in Israel and in many other countries for that matter. We had had a busy week, multiple quizzes to study for, and a paper to write; the last thing on people’s minds was Thanksgiving.

But as Thanksgiving continued, it was not just another day in Beer Sheva. Some of our classmates had the forethought to organize a dinner at Butchery to celebrate the end of first semester classes and well… Thanksgiving! It was a fabulous time with delicious food (tons of meat!) and amazing company. It was fun to see our non-American classmates get in the spirit of Thanksgiving as well! The night was filled with stories, laughs, and celebration (we did just finish one semester of classes!). I learned so many new things about the awesome people I am lucky enough to call classmates. It was a great way to recharge from a long week and reminded me that I do in fact have a family here in Beer Sheva, people I call friends and accomplices in this adventure we call medical school. 

"A Very Beer-Sheva Thanksgiving" by MSIH first year blogger Becca Siegel

On November 26th, 2015, several medical students from around the world celebrated Thanksgiving dinner in the Middle East. In Beer Sheva, Israel to to be exact.  I am pointing this out because it is notable in many respects. First off, the very fact that a group of people who regularly spend upwards of eight hours a day together would want to spend their few off hours together is quite amazing. Secondly, in a little city, in one of the smallest countries in the Middle East, students from all over the world sat together and had a meal because there was a lot to be thankful for.

We had just taken our last microbiology quiz of the semester. We were a few days away from our very last class of our first semester of medical school. We had survived. We had somehow managed to move to a brand new country, learn a brand new language and start medical school, all in one fell swoop.

Together we ate delicious food and we made nerdy jokes about mycobacteria and we toasted to a circle of people who could one day be called “doctor”.

Happy Thanksgiving from the class of 2019!!!

Now on to finals.

The week before exams, by blogger of the month Jixi He

Luisa's birthday

We like to say time flies when you’re having fun. Well, time flies no matter what you do especially when the exam period is coming up. I can’t believe I’ve already been in Israel for almost half a year now. I know my way around Beer Sheva. I can ask for directions in Hebrew and actually understand the answers. I refer to Soroka as “our hospital”. But I don’t think I’m ready for the exams, even if you give me another 6 months for it. I’ve learned quite a lot this semester but there’s always much more that I don’t know. So this is what we’ve been doing to prepare for the exam…


Luisa’s birthday is coming up. Don’t you dare forget about it! She is teaching the whole class about the biochemical pathways of her existence: You start with 2 substrates-papi and mami, and the enzyme-Luisasynthase, and you get an irreversible conformational change that results in our lovely product-Luisa, who is responsible for making birthday cards, giving our classmates lots of hugs, and keeping everyone happy. This metabolic pathway is positively regulated by love and negatively regulated by sickness on a gloomy day. And there you go; I should pass my biochemistry final after this review session?

Sleepy chaverim (friends)

Sleepy Sam!

How to prevent yourself from falling asleep in class? Fall asleep between classes! Just like how my dear chaverim (“friends” in Hebrew) have demonstrated: a short power nap during the break can improve attention in class and retain 50% more knowledge because you’re not constantly dozing off. Phase II clinical trial pending.

Food before

Food after!

It is absolutely essential to have good energy for better and more efficient studies. The brain takes up only 2% of the body weight but uses more than 20% of our daily energy intake. Let’s take care of that little commander on top with some delicious cafeteria food from the hospital. Beef, carrots, and chicken soup; tastes just like the food I had in China. “It tastes like Chinese” is the best compliment I can give to food. We all might have noticed that we get a little grumpier when we’re hungry. That’s because when we’re hungry the serotonin level drops and this is an important hormone that helps regulate behaviors like anger and aggression. I can definitely tell you that I feel like the happiest person on earth whenever I finish a good meal after a state of starvation. My almost empty plate can tell you that too.

Rainy B7

When you’re busy preparing for exams don’t forget about the little things that can make life beautiful. It’s been pretty rainy and cold in Beer Sheva this past week. Even in this gloomy weather, I still spotted the most beautiful scene at the hospital helicopter field yesterday: a golden sunset against the backdrop of the heavy grey clouds. It brightened up my evening as I walked back home, tired from a whole day of study.

Falafel for Thanksgiving

It’s the 4th Thursday of November. What’s Thanksgiving in Israel like? Falafels! In this cold winter night at the Black Falafel stand, we gathered our friends and family and took turns saying what we were thankful for this past year. I am thankful for my mom, all my friends, this falafel and the fact that I’m in Israel. - blogger of the month, Jixi He

Our First Friendsgiving! by blogger of the month, Jixi He

Preparation!

The third Thursday of November 2014 is not Thanksgiving, neither in Canada nor in America. It is nevertheless the Thanksgiving for this group of people in Beer Sheva, Israel: the MSIH Class of 2018.

It wasn’t very realistic for us to get a turkey because in order to get one you would have to order 2 turkeys from Tel Aviv and someone would have to spend a whole day cooking it. So we decided to go with chickens instead, a brilliant alternative. There were garlic chicken, beer can chicken, and chicken drum sticks. It was a potluck dinner at our classmates’ apartment. I brought crackers and a bowl of pumpkin spice dip, which was described as “orgasmic” by a fellow classmate. But don’t get full on the crackers; there’s more to come!

Brian and Shauna playing Shesh Besh

I wish I had fasted before the dinner when I saw so much delicious food made by my talented classmates: 3 different types of chicken, sushi, Israeli couscous, spicy Indian dish, sweet potato with marsh mellows, pumpkin pie, gluten-free diary-free nut-free chocolate cake, apple pie, and more unlisted. I’ve never been in a class as small, close and intimate as this one where we treat each other like brothers and sisters, even without the sibling rivalry part. There are only 29 of us, small enough to put all of us in one apartment. We tend to each other’s needs like it’s our own—evidence shown as below: the massage train! Who doesn’t love a nice shoulder massage, especially when you can get one in return too?

The night ended with most of my classmates going to watch The Hunger Game. I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving. Even though we’re at a place away from home, we are spending it with our classmates that are just like family.

                                                                                                             

Beer can Chicken

Everyone!  almost....

Kristina makes the best sushi

That's just round 1

Pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream

Massage train!

Our kitty guest

                                                                                                                - blogger of the month, Jixi He 

Winter...in Beer-Sheva? by blogger of the month Julia Rubin-Smith

A few intrepid MSIH-ers and their contraband cart.

Well, winter is officially here. I had been warned that Be’er-Sheva gets cold sometime around the end of November, but I was convinced that was not possible. I mean, I’m a New Englander! How cold can it possibly get?? The answer is…ok, not that cold. It’s still frequently in the 70s during the day, and probably doesn’t get lower than the mid-40s at night, but I’ve been so spoiled by four straight months of sun and blue skies that we might as well be in the depths of a Boston winter. A word of advice to next year’s entering class: don’t be cocky like me; bring more than two sweaters!

Just a small portion of the amazing
food at Friendsgiving 2011

Anyway, enough about the weather, though I could probably talk about it all day (see above re: I’m a New Englander). As Ross, last month’s blogger, mentioned, exams are here, which has turned many of us into sweatpants-wearing hermits. Luckily, we still know how to have a little fun! Last week, as most of you know, was American Thanksgiving. We had a microbiology exam (and a full day of classes) on the actual day, so we decided to hold a “Thanksgiving Day observed” dinner (aka Friendsgiving) on Friday. Four of our classmates generously hosted this dinner in their apartment, and everyone brought a dish or two to share. There were some challenges with the cooking (the turkey unexpectedly came with feathers, which required some serious plucking, many of the ovens don’t have actual temperature settings aside from “low” and “high,” and my elementary Hebrew led me to accidentally buy the wrong kind of flour for pie), but that just makes it more fun! We had a great turnout, including a few students from other years and various Israeli friends. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, so this dinner had some big shoes to fill: luckily, the food was amazing, the company was fantastic, and a good time was had by all. If you can’t celebrate Thanksgiving with your family, spending it with your MSIH second family ain’t half bad!

Oh, and one more little adventure to relate before I sign off for the week: the night before our big Thanksgiving dinner, a few of us headed over to the Big Plaza to buy some fixin’s. We ended up with far too much stuff to carry home, and somehow decided that instead of taking a cab, it would be a good idea to “borrow” a shopping cart and walk it home, homeless-person style. We got some odd looks as we carted our goods across B7 in a shopping cart, but it sure was fun! (Bonus: we used the cart the next day to truck all our cooked food to the party – it even came up the elevator with us!) If any Eden employees or law enforcement-types are reading this, I promise we are going to return the cart…- December blogger of the month, Julia Rubin-Smith