Inconsistency was the undoing of my last blog and 4 months between posts ain’t exactly the definition of consistent. My apologies. Quite a bit has happened in that time so this post will be relatively short and provide some updates.

On the personal front, my wife and I are expecting our 1st child on/around April 25th and we couldn’t be more excited. Family and friends hosted our first baby shower back in Texas last weekend and that event made things oh so much more real. Currently, I’m readying the nursery by painting and putting together furniture.

On February 9th I ran in my 1st 5k race in an excruciatingly slow 36 minutes (give or take) but I ran (or more accurately jogged) the entire time and didn’t stop once. That said, bronchitis has knocked the wind out of my post-race sails but I hope to be back at it this week.

On the professional front, I was accepted into several Ph.D. programs and decided to accept a position in an American Studies department that extended me a fellowship. I’m excited to get back into school and work towards something I meant to start 4 years ago.

On the spiritual front: I just finished teaching an eight week course at the local Jewish community religious school to 7th, 8th, and 9th graders on the subject of “Israel at 60.” Overall, I believe the class was a success, but not without its problems and I think the curriculum I developed will be useful in teaching a modern Israel class if the opportunity presents itself.

In the next few days I’ll have my post up on Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People, a post I meant to have up about … oh four months ago. Anyway, that’s about it and it’s good to be back.