John Carrier

This weekend my wife and I watched season 3 of Weeds on DVD while we sorted through our junk in preparation for our move to Los Angeles.  I love Weeds.  One scene that got stuck in my mind was when Shane is riding in a Mexican drug lord’s limosine to his first day at a new school.  A henchman gives him the sage advice, “Sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes the bear eats you.”

This adage was all I could think about as I completed my Mishnah & Tosefta placement exam for rabbinical school in the wee hours of the morning.  When I went online to email my exam to the dean, I googled the saying to find its source.  Turns out, it’s The Big Lebowski.

I finished the exam not knowing who had eaten whom.  I was at once mentally exhausted, humbled by my own ignorance, and proud of deciphering as much as I did, knowing how far it means I’ve come with my Hebrew (regardless of how far I have to go).  It was actually kind of “fun”…in the sense the rabbinical school deans and others told me my admissions interviews would be “fun”.

Which I guess presents me with an awkward segue for the highlights of what has happened since my last post.

My wife gave birth to our daughter.  My wife is awesome.  Our daughter is perfect.

I have run two marathons — Knoxville, 3/29/09, 6:23ish and Minneapolis, 5/31/09, 5:26:30.  The former I ran with virtually no training — and generally under-slept — about 6 weeks after my daughter was born.  I was dead last among the people who finished the race in under the 7 hour mark.  I zig-zagged the last 50 yards because they’d taken all the bunting off the finish line and I couldn’t find it.  I learned my lesson, trained harder, and finished Minneapolis in my second-best time out of my 4 marathons run to date.

I picked a rabbinical school.  This fall I will begin learning at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, on the gorgeous Los Angeles campus of American Jewish University (formerly known as University of Judaism, or the UJ).

We picked an apartment.  We found a great place in the heart of the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles, just south of Beverly Hills and just east of Century City, less than 8 miles from the Pacific Ocean.

Now we’re getting ready to move to Los Angeles.  I can’t believe it.  The couple of months since my last post have been like the culmination of the total dream-come-true that my last couple of years have been.  My life now revolves around my great wife and three great kids, making beer, running marathons, and serving God.  How awesome is that? 

Sure, there have been ups and downs, but in all, I’m glad I took a shot at the bear.  I think I nailed it.

Thanks for being there.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 1:43 pm and is filed under goals, marathon, rabbinics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.