It's raining, it's pouring...

Niigata has been a very rainy place as of late. Snow has been falling in the more western parts of the prefecture, but in the middle (or chuetsu) region, it has been nothing but gray skies and steady rain. Even now, I hear the drops steadily pelting my windows... I went into Nagaoka for my monthly Board of Education meeting today and took a quick snapshot to capture the very typical weather:


Rainy Nagaoka
Originally uploaded by kristi-san.

I just returned from my first bon-enkai or "forget the year" party out there. It was fun hanging out with the other prefectural ALTs and generally having a good time, particularly since I rarely see that set of folks.

I got my second completed app under the belt today - after much deliberation, UCLA went into the mail this morning. Supplementary materials and writing samples are also winging their way to Columbia, Chicago, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (The rest of their apps are my project for this weekend, oh joy of joys). Seriously, this whole process is like a second full-time job.