empowerment

i feel pretty darn lucky to be here.  it has been such a privilege to be a part of this trip and meeting such fantastic people: americans, czech, israelis.  at first i thought it was my own fortune that brought me here (and a little bit of shmoozing/mooching skills and that i never unsubscribed from the jewish health professions email list).  i knew with this gift that i would be expected to pay it back, whether monetarily to the jewish community once i finally have a real job when that day comes or just in my value in having my fantabulous personality on this trip (no ego here i swear, my m.o. is actually low self esteem, so this is huge).  but really thats not it, and this is where my new sense of empowerment lies.  they expect more from me and its a pretty awesome position to be able to rise to it.  where i can take it, i dont know, but it exciting.

technical background that dear readers might not know.  first, what you all know is that jews are everywhere.  we are there.  what is important is that we are able to connect to each other to become a united community.  so we have sister cities (speaking of sister, shout out to my sis, thanks for commenting).  boston, haifa, dnepropetrvosk in ukraine are therefore bffs.  back in the days of high school, i participated in trip bringing us american students to haifa, and with haifa students, we went to dnep.  one happy family.  little did i know that 10 years later, my israeli friends would still be my friends, and in many ways grow closer through the years as we went through graduations, army, vacations and visits around the world.

this evening at dinner, we hosted prominent physicians from haifa along with others involved in the haifa/boston connection.   when i told them of the friendships that had lasted and really had brought me back to israel again, their response was 'you made my night'.  they had only dreamed that their work would make a lasting impression on us, never mind lasting friendships.  which is easy to do with friends like maya, yael, and adi.

now as a medical student i will be staying on in haifa in the pediatrics dept of one of the hospitals.  i am so happy to be staying on and spending more time to be part of the community here.  everyone has been so wonderful to me and mirrors my excitement to be here.  they will be putting me in touch with the young leadership division in haifa (more friends!) and with other medical students in the area.

whats in store next (besides sleep asap) i dont know.  but im feeling good about it.