Today it is raining again but not very heavily and I was going to run late for school if I didn't ride so I did - through the rain across the bright red bridge over the wide river surrounded by flatlands of lush green, water from puddles splashing up onto my feet. Last week I was late and missed the short quiz at the start of the class that I HAD bothered to study for. On the train I realised I forgot my umbrella . . . I certainly stood out in the tramp up the hill amid the bobbing current of umbrellaness. Nice weather.

On the train I found my attention drawn to the rice paddies which are starting to fill up with water. A year. One year since I was walking through this landscape, then so unfamiliar, for the first time seeing the rice grow over time in their waterlogged, concrete defined shelves. I saw little frogs then. It still doesn't fill like I know this place as though it were entirely my own, something that I had grown up around and intrinsically felt a part of, but it does feel comfortable.

A year.