How I Remember Medical Hebrew Part II: Internal

I have two excuses for the unacceptable span of the gap between the last post and this one.  First, internal organs are harder to make stories about (I mean, who really talks about their biliary tract in everyday conversation?).  Second, well, there were lots and lots of rockets, so many, in fact, that I am now home in Ohio because our school cancelled classes until Dec. 28th.

Excuses aside, my wonderful mummy has helped me learn these terms.  It's so much nicer when there's someone who can ask you the words verbally.  She's also a teacher, so naturally, she gave me fun ways to remember things.  I blame my quirky creative genes on her.  Without further ado, internal Hebrew:

Heart - Lev - Easy, lev sounds like "love." Lev.

Artery - Orek - Oreck is the name of a vacuum cleaner.  Vacuum cleaners have hoses.  Arteries are the hoses of the body.  Orek.

Aorta - Avi haorakim - "Avi" is a form of "father" in Hebrew.  So, it's the "father of the arteries."  How appropriate.  Avi haorakim.

Trachea - Kne haneshima - No clue how to help you remember the "kne" but ha means "the" in Hebrew and "women" is nashim.  People accuse women of talking a lot, meaning a lot of breath would be going through their tracheas.  Kne haneshima.

Bronchus - Simfon - Wheezing in the bronchus could sound like a symphony. Simfon.

Pharynx - Loa - Loa loa is a parasitic worm . . . I imagine them in one's throat.  Loa.

Diaphram - Sar'efet - A loud, obnoxious woman named Sara who is always yelling "F-it!" would have a strong diaphragm. Sar'efet.

Duodenum - Treysarion - Well, "duo" means "two," but Hebrew often makes the opposite of sense, so this word starts with "trey" which means "three."  I just remember the rest of this weird, long word.  Treysarion.

Appendix - Toseftan - An appendix in a book would be at the end.  This word means "going to the end." To sof (which means "end" in Hebrew) and then tan.  Hmmm, it's almost winter in Ohio. I'm going to be seeing the end of my tan soon. . . .anyway, toseftan.

Small intestine - Mei dak - Inside your abdomen, there is a pet duck, and sometimes after you eat, it quacks.  When someone hears it quacking and says, "What was that?"  You can just say, "Don't worry, it's just my duck." Mei dak.

Colon - Mei gas - Inside your colon, sometimes there is gas.  When someone smells it and says, "What is that?!"  You can just say, "Don't worry, it's just my gas." Mei gas.

Pancreas - Lavlav - For some inexplicable reason, you "love, love" your pancreas.  Lavlav.

Gall bladder - Kis mara - In Hebrew, mara means "bitter."  It would be bitter to kiss a gall bladder. Kis mara.

Biliary tract - Darkey mara - Derekh is "way" in Hebrew, and Darkey is plural.  So, the biliary tract is the "ways of bitter."  Darkey mara.

Kidney - Kilya - "I'll kill ya' by kicking you in your kidneys!"  Kilya.

Uterus - Rekhem - Babies reck 'em. Rekhem.

Ovary - Shakhala - It sounds like "chocolate." Shakhala.

Tendon - Gid - Kids are reckless and can pull tendons.  Gid.


Okay, that's all I've got.  Now, back to studying Gastro.  I hope you had a delightful Thanksgiving (if you're American - if not, I hope that November 22, 2012, was a great day for you.)

Shalom!

How I Remember Medical Hebrew

Ever since I started getting up there in my education ("up there" being when I had to start memorizing words like Diphyllobothrium latum and Wuchereria bancrofti - a couple human parasites - and hundreds of words like them and be able to write them from memory), I've been using mnemonic devices. These usually come in the form of ridiculous stories, acronyms, and "sounds like" scenarios.  This is how I survived biochemistry, parasitology, microbiology, organic chemistry, medical terminology, and any other course that required me to remember large amounts of information that was completely foreign to me.

Organic chemistry wasn't so bad.  You just put the roots and prefixes and suffixes together.  The same goes for medical terminology.  Learning Spanish was also convenient since it shares so many words and roots of words with English.

But Hebrew. Oh, Hebrew. Hebrew is nothing like anything I've ever heard before.  It doesn't share its roots with Latin, Greek, or anything remotely similar to anything I've seen.  Now we're in a medical Hebrew course, where we learn basically how to practice basic medicine in Hebrew.  As you can imagine, it's a lot to memorize, and I have my ways.  After sharing a few of them with the class on Sunday, my TA and other classmates encouraged me to share my methods.  I'm telling you, most of this is bizarre and makes no sense.  Some of them are going to be kind of difficult to explain.  I'm not promising that it will be helpful to anyone, but maybe you'll be amused. Behold, how I've been able to remember some Hebrew terms and keep them in my head (at least for a day or so. . .):

Elbow - Marpek - "mar" in Hebrew means "bitter" and elbows look similar to bird beaks.  It would be bitter to be pecked in the face by a bird. I would probably elbow that bird.  Marpek.

I told you this is a little crazy.

Heel - Akev - "kelev" is "dog" in Hebrew.  Shorten that and you end up with "kev."  A common command for dogs is "heel!" Akev.

Okay, so I realize this probably isn't helpful for those of you who don't know any Hebrew at all.  So here are some dedicated to you.  

Eyebrow - Gaba - Yo Gabba Gabba! is a disturbing children's show that makes me raise my eyebrows. Gaba.

Jaw - Leset - You set your jaw when you're upset. Leset.

Nostrils - Nakhir - Where should I put my finger? Not here . . . *points to nostrils* Nakhir.

Spine - Khuliya - Someone comes up and tells you, "She was in a car accident and broke her spine." You reply, "Who, Leah?" Khuliya.

Lip - Safa - Sara has soft lips, therefore, we shall call her Safa.

Hair - Se'ar - Creepy dude to a girl with long, beautiful hair, "Say, are you beautiful!" Se'ar.

Chin - Santer - Sounds like a man's name (maybe a variant of the Spanish "Santos?"), and that he would have a prominent chin.  He probably saunters, too. Santer.

Testis - Ashakh - Like a shack that houses sperm. Ashakh.

Scrotum - Sak ha'ashakhim - The sack that holds the shack that houses the sperm. (the suffix -im makes it plural; Hebrew for "the" is ha). Sak ha'ashakhim.

So, most of these include other Hebrew words, inevitably.  Like I said, there's nothing I've ever experienced before that was quite like Hebrew, so it's easiest to use it against itself.

Bottom - Yashvan

Buttocks - Akuz -  Yesh (There is) a van.  You sit on your bottom in a van. Inside that van is also a cuz (akuz). Yashvan, akuz.

Cheek - Lekhi - You turn your cheek to someone - le (which means to) he (ambiguous male). Lekhi.

Tooth - Shen - Glistening white teeth "shine." 

Face - Panim - A common Hebrew phrase translated to English is "all on the face." "Pan" means "all," so it's all on the face. Panim.

Ankle - Karsul - Sul broke her ankle getting out of the car.  Wow, she's a klutz. Karsul.

Big toe - Bohen - Hebrew for test is "bohan," and when you stub your big toe, it's a test of whether you're going to shout expletives to the world. Bohen.

Pupil - Ishon - (My Hebrew TA gave me this one.) Ish means "man" in Hebrew. When you look into someone's pupil, you see yourself in the form of a little (wo)man. (I'm pretty sure Hebrew did this intentionally) Ishon.

Hip - Agan - Broken hips are a common problem with the elderly, and sometimes it happens more than once. When someone tells you Uncle Alf broke his hip, you might respond, "Again?!" Agan.

Thigh - Yarekh - Girls, you see your girlfriend stuffing her face with a donut, you shake your head in disgust, "Girl, ya' wreckin' your thighs." Yarekh.

Okay, that's all for now. I'm learning internal terms right now, so there will be more!  I hope this was a tad helpful for my fellow students, and maybe it was a tad entertaining for everyone else.

Lehitra'ot!

A Bottle and a Language

I asked for a water bottle for my birthday.  I had one last summer that I lost at a construction site (more like, it got packed up by someone . . . or someone stole it) that was fantastic.  My new water bottle of the same fashion is green and wonderful and large (holds 1L).  I finally got it when I went home for the summer and have been joyously using it to hydrate myself since.

It is tragically missing.

I think I left it in the classroom yesterday :/

So I spent today trying to find the guy who locked up last night, to no avail.  In my pursuit, I was forced to use my fantastic Hebrew skills to talk to the cleaning lady.  As I was walking away, I shook my head in embarrassment of how stupid I must have sounded.  I'm glad I live in a country where most people are immigrants and have to learn Hebrew as a second language. As least people give me a little more grace.

I met her in the hallway as I was wandering around trying to find my lost precious.  She stands about 5'2" and was armed with gloves, a smock, and a rubberband to hold her long, soft black hair in a loose ponytail. She was pushing a cart that was twice as big as she is, and she paused as soon as she saw me looking at her.

Me: "Excuse me.  Yesterday. My the water bottle. Green. Here. Summer." (I meant to say 'classroom' instead of 'summer')

Lady: "I only work in the morning, and the other people who work in the evening aren't here right now."

Me: "What name you?"

Lady: "Juliana." (smiles)

Me: "Nice to meet you. What name other people?"

Lady: "Joey, Sarah, Ingrid. . .I don't remember who else."

Me: "He was other man?"

Lady: "Yes, but I don't remember his name.  Talk to Joey, but he's not here right now."

Me: "How much time he here?"

Lady: "In the morning, but I don't really know."

Me: "In the morning?  Okay, thank you very much.  Where are you from?"

Lady: "Colombia."

Me: (in English) "Oh shoot, we could have spoken in Spanish this whole time." *facepalm*  (in Spanish) "You speak Spanish? I speak Spanish!" (in Hebrew) "Thanks so much, have a nice day!"

Next month we have a Hebrew evaluation.  I think I'll be ehhh, studying ze Hebrew during my abundant break times.

Summertime (a.k.a. the time in between exams)

Well, hello, there!  It's been such a long time since I've posted, I almost forgot this place existed.  Since my last post, a few adventure-esque things have happened in Israel.   I'll give you a short summary. I've made it through two exams and two more systems (Hematology and Endocrinology), took a couple trips to Haifa (my favorite part of Israel, I think - it has a beach and mountains and a forest - all in one place!),

Haifa with my classmates!

attended my first MSIH graduation (which is a delightfully unique experience), played like a hippy with flowers in my hair (minus drugs and other icky hippy things, of course) outside Jerusalem with kehila for Shavuot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot),

Chillin' on the hillside for Shavuot

and said goodbye to the graduated fourth years whom I had the privilege to get to know.

Goodbye dinner for our beloved graduated DOCTOR friends!

Then. . .I went home!  Woohoo, summer!

The trip home was ridiculously long, which is partially my fault for being such a cheap skate (I couldn't pass up a $1 Megabus ticket to replace my domestic flight!).  After over 36 hours of constant traveling and convincing people they should let me out of or into their countries, I finally got to see my parents!  After a few more hours and a stop at church camp (where I was doing everything I could not to fall asleep standing up), I got to see the rest of my family!

While home, I finally got to meet my niece Arielle,

Beautiful baby girl!

ride/drive Ben's boat (this time I didn't put a hex on his watercraft),

I'm on a boat!  And driving it too!

sing at open mic night with my friend Steve, 

Steve and I being awesome at music.

take a day at Cedar Point with my little bro,

On our way to Sandusky to enjoy a day of waiting in line in the hot sun!

and hang out with my mum and sis at camp!

Mum and little sis at church camp!

After relishing time with my family for a week, I hopped on another Megabus to go to Chicago to visit my best friend Alexis!

Enjoying our time on Lake Michigan!  This pretty much sums up our sanity.

 She's getting marrieddddd!!!!

I returned home for another week and a half (the time was far too short), then made the long road trip down to Memphis, Tennessee, where I took part in a 3-week internship with Christ Community Health Services.

The admin building has a cool shape.

My time at CCHS was spectacular.  I learned a little about crossing cultures, how to integrate spiritual health, and even a tiny bit of medicine.  Additionally, the other interns were great, and we went out on the town, oh, every few days.

BBQ nachos!  Wow, I'm really craving those right now.

We got our portraits drawn by beautiful Jasmine!

Then it was time for family vacation!  In cabin in the Smokies, we had a wonderful six day relaxation time.  I had been looking forward to it for months and months!

Hot tub after a day of hiking!

The end of a hike that was surprisingly difficult, especially with two babies.

All of the girls in our family :)

So there's that, my summer in a few words (and photos).  I'll try to keep this thing semi-updated, but 2nd year is super busy (with studying, of course).  If anything particularly interesting happens, I'll be sure to let you know.  Like, for example, the breaking up of our family (phone plan)!  Never has a family splitting up been so joyous!

We finally were able to split up our phone plans.  We're not a family anymore! Yay!

Well, it's a long story, but finally Hellephone did something right (well, we think - we'll see).  No more minimum talk times (with a $30 monthly fee if we don't - yeah, ridiculous, I know)!

So anyway, back to studying the heart (we're in Cardiology right now).

Lehitra'ot!

A Quick Update

Hello, Everyone!  I'm sorry that it's been so long.  It seems like finals will never end!  My last exam is Wednesday, and I'll be SOOO glad to be done with them.  I just wanted to share links to my last two posts on the MSIH blog, since I have been neglecting this one. 

Blog #3: Reflections on the Desert People
Blog #4: Let the Adventures Continue!

Also, at the recommendation of my friend Kal, I started a tumblr.  If you'd like to follow me on there, it's cherec.tumblr.com.

After over a month of nonstop papers, presentations, quizzes, and exams, I'm pretty burnt out.  Unfortunately, it's not over yet, and I still have two exams to go.  This song has been going through my head, and I thought I'd share it with you :)

Dory's always there to lift our spirits!  I hope life has been treating you well, and I look forward to posting more words on here when I actually can breathe.

Until then, lehitra'ot!

A House Tour!

Hello!  So, it's the end of the semester, and I'm swamped with papers, presentations, quizzes, and exam preparation.  I still wanted to take a moment to share with you a few videos.  The first is a video tour of my house :)  I know I promised a long time ago that I would post pictures (and I did, but not very many).  A video is always better than photographs, right?

So that's my yard and house!  That curry is safely in my stomach now.  Mmmmm.

The second is a promotional video put together by a group at BGU that features some of my classmates and yours truly.  I'm not sure exactly what it's about, but the footage is from the Super Bowl party we had at Munchilla that was supposed to be a mingling of international and Israeli students.  Clearly that's exactly what happened, as you can see from the video.  Mind you, at the time that this video was taken, it was well past 1am (the Super Bowl ended at 5am Israel time).  Sorry, I couldn't embed it.  You'll just have to follow the link.

http://www.daromtv.co.il/video.asp?id=269#.T2xUkBzQwnQ.facebook

Also, I must confess that my blogging energy has been invested elsewhere, contributing to my neglect of medinthemizraakh (Adventures in Israel).  I am the blogger of the month for MSIH and have posted a couple blogs. Here are the links to them:

Blog #1: The Be'er Sheva Survival Kit

Blog #2: On Promenades and Doing Life

I'm hoping to post another soon, but I'm afraid it may be a glorified repeat of "Rocket Weekends."  We'll see.

Well, that's all for now! Back to studying. Lehitra'ot!

Wild Parakeets and Rocket Weekends

Shalom!  No, really, shalom.  It's been so crazy the past five days; we really need some shalom. 

This past weekend was Purim, the holiday that celebrates Israel being saved from Haman's evil plot by Esther the Jewish Queen of Persia (you can read about it in the book of Esther in the Bible).  Israelis celebrate by wearing (sometimes incoherent) costumes and basically partying and having a good time.  They also eat Oznei Haman or "Haman's Ears," which are little triangular fried pastries filled with fruits, chocolate, nuts, and other tasty things. My lovely classmate Adie made some gluten free ones, so I got to try some.  They were delicious!

One of my classmates Adam had an MSIH Purim party at his apartment.  Adie, Julia, and I went as a three-part costume:

Can you guess what we were?

Cute, right?  Julia kept calling me a "bucket rock," which got a giggle out of me every time.  Making my costume was rather fun.  We had no class in the afternoon, so I called my mom for her expert advice then headed to the Old City to get art supplies.  I ran into Becky and Diana when I got there, and they were drinking fresh-squeezed fruit smoothies.  Of course, I wanted one!  So I went to get a smoothie and got distracted by looking for an empty box for my costume.  After asking a street vendor for one of his, he said he didn't have any extra ones, but pointed to one down the street on the sidewalk and said "Matana!" which means "gift."  I snatched that box right up and left the smoothie in hopes of later getting gleeda (ice cream) from Gleeda Be'er Sheva (the best ice cream in town), which I did later, of course.

Becky and I next to Abraham's Well in the Old City with my new box!

I took my box home and did my best to shape it into a rock and paint it accordingly.  I haven't painted in awhile, and it was so fun!

My favorite costumes from the Purim party were Sriracha sauce:

And Tim and Diana as each other:

Oh, look!  It's Tim and Diana!  Or, wait, Diana and Tim . . . or Tim and . . .

The next day (Thursday), I packed my hiking backpack and sleeping bag and hopped onto a train up to Petach Tikva to attend a student conference for Arabic, Hebrew, and English speakers.  It was quite a crowd, and we had a wonderful weekend in the beautiful Baptist Village.

Seriously, this place was gorgeous.  There was an orchard of citrus fruits (clementines? I'm actually not really sure) with an abundance of rich, green grass and palm trees.

The magical orchard.

I could have spent a few more days there!

Naturally, I chose to spend my quiet time in this beautiful orchard.  There were all sorts of birds fluttering about the whole time. I didn't really pay attention at first, until I caught a glimpse of a beautiful green and aqua bird with a long greenish-blue tail.  The colors were so vibrant, and the sun reflected off its shiny feathers.  Then I realized I was looking at a wild parakeet!  There were quite a few of them flying from tree to tree, singing and eating fruit.  I tried to take a photo of them, but it was too far away.

Kudos if you can spot the birds (I made the photo huge so that it's humanly possible).  Don't feel like a loser if you can't.  I barely can, and I took the picture!

During our weekend in Petach Tikva, we were getting texts and emails from MSIH administration about the "situation" down in Be'er Sheva. I didn't really think about it too much, but Gaza was firing rockets on southern Israel again.  I got home late at night, and sure enough, school was canceled the next day.  It's a good thing, too, because in the morning we had a siren.  Then another.  Then another. . . okay a lot.  The rockets continued, and we even had a couple around 3am on Monday.  Of course, school was canceled again and we had 3 more sirens, the last at 1pm.  That didn't mean all was quiet, though.  When the rocket trajectory doesn't land it in the city, no siren is sounded, but we still hear the explosions and there were a lot of them that spanned this entire 5-day escalation.  We can also hear sirens from neighboring cities sometimes, then explosions.  Needless to say, it's not really so conducive for studying, which is bad for me since we have an quiz coming up on Thursday.

Though I did get some studying done.  Yesterday was incredibly beautiful (as was the day before - in the 80s), and I sat outside to study in the sunshine with the gentle breeze tousling my hair and generously cooling me down from the sun's rays.  Birds were tweeting sweetly all around my yard, and bombs were exploding in the distance.  What a relaxing, peaceful study time ;)  Oh yeah, then there was another one of those darned wailing sirens.

School was canceled again today, but a cease-fire agreement was reached that was supposed to be effective at 1:00am (Israel time) this morning.  Not so much.  While Be'er Sheva hasn't had any sirens today, rockets have been fired on other cities, and I just heard a couple explosions as I'm typing this.  Granted, that explosion could very well have been fireworks, because for some inexplicable reason when there is a threat of rockets, Israelis bust out the recreational explosives.  I think maybe they just think it's funny to make everyone's heart skip a beat every time they set one off.  Regardless, the situation is settling down, which we are very, very thankful for.

Over the past few days of escalation between Israel and Gaza, over 200 rockets have been fired into southern Israel.  This is the largest outbreak of violence in the past year, even greater than last semester when we had a siren like every hour for a little while there.  Here is a timeline if you're interested:   http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/timeline-a-breakdown-of-number-of-gaza-rockets-fired-at-israel-over-past-year-1.418187

If you want to read up on this, don't let CNN be your only news source.  That's all I'll say about that.

A couple of the rockets on Sunday weren't intercepted by the Iron Dome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Dome), and landed in the city.  I found the site of one of them and took some photographs.  The rocket landed in an open area next to a school, and sprayed shrapnel at its walls.  That shrapnel can do some serious damage:

It looks like a super powerful machine gun hit the side of the building.

School was canceled Monday, so there were no children in the area.

Violence is so ugly.

It was quite sobering to see what one of those rockets could actually do.  I'm really glad this is almost over and that everyone here is safe.  We spent our times hiding out during/after sirens praying.  It's really a great time to pray.  Your nerves are on edge to hear how close the explosion is and how many there are, and you're crying out to God for safety, for the lives of people on both sides, for salvation for these people, for His glory to be shown to the world.  It's a pretty unique, awesome experience.

And I've been learning and remembering throughout this 6-day Rocket Weekend that: "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." --Ephesians 6:12