I finally got around to asking Okaasan if I could put up my address. Here it is!
Adrienne Weber
c/o Mutai
4-14-16 Komone, Itabashi-ku
Tokyo, Japan
173-0037

I'm not really sure about the order of stuff, but that should work. Here it is in Nihongo.
‚P‚V‚R�|‚O‚O‚R‚V
“Œ‹ž“s”‹´‹æ�¬–Î�ª‚S�|‚P‚S�|‚P‚U
–±‘ä—l•û
ƒGƒCƒhƒŠƒGƒ“�EƒEƒGƒo�[—l

So,now you can all send me lots of stuff! ;)

 
Apparently BB WAVES, who are now called DREAM PLANETS, will have a live show, following a talk by Makino next weekend. (The live show is credited as by 'Yuki & DREAM PLANETS (Actor's School) '. Yuki-san really is like Anna-san's replacement for the new DPIS and Actors. I wonder if Anna-san feels mortified and betrayed by it all, having this young (well, 25 yr old) woman come from America and completely take her place with both her students and her father. But how long will it be until Makino 'realizes' that DPIS is no longer 'Makino Masayuki's School', but 'Murai Yuki's School', the way that he did with Actor's and Anna-san. If he can treat his own daughter the way he did, how will he treat someone who's no relation? I don't know. At any rate, I'm going to an onsen with my host family next weekend, so I can't go even if I wanted to. But I think that's for the best. I don't want to get sucked up into it. Because it won't give me anything. The ideas are still great, but the way they're doing everything...it's just too much. Everything's whipped up to this feverish pitch, especially Makino himself. Reading Yuki-san's book, I was amazed at how final and definate (not to mention defensive) all his statements are. Ex, When Yuki-san was crying because a staff member quit, 'Why are you crying? Did you really like them that much? Are you really that sad their gone? You've got to be kidding! If you liked them that much, they why don't you go with them! You quit, and be with them!', or when the students couldn't say anything bad about Anna-san at first, 'Do you not need me here? Do you want to go to my school, or Anna's? If you want to choose Anna, then I'll leave. I'll give you this school, and I'll go, and I'll make another school! And it will be better than this one! And all of you will be my enemies from now on.' I mean, jeeze. If you're told that, especially by a charismatic,older man, what are you supposed to do? Although I pray with all my heart that things didn't happen that way, the way they're written in the book. Because it has all of the BB members going to Anna-san, and saying things like, 'I never really liked Anna-san. I hated going to school because she was here.', and 'I came to this school to see Principal Makino, but all I ever saw was you. I don't ever want to see your face again.' And that last was from Wakane, our Wakane, the leader of the Song Team,who's been going to Actor's for 15 years! I just hope that it all didn't really happen that way. I can't even imagine what that would be like, to have all of your students you'd taught, and given advice to, and wished only to protect like Anna-san said on her birthday in 2001, come to you and one by one tell you that kind of thing to your face. I can't even begin to imagine how painful that would be.
And so, I can't deal with DPIS and Makino, and all his changes, and condradictions anymore. If I have to choose between him and Anna-san.
I CHOOSE ANNA.
(part of me really wants to add, 'and Makino can go f--k himself.' to that, but I am an adult now, so I will restrain myself. Plus it ruins the dramatic impact of my declaration)

 
Yesterday was a very fun birthday. I met Ayako at Ikebukuro at 11:30, and then we walked around Ikebukuro. There was a cell phone shop, so we decided to go to it. I got a Hello Kitty cell phone from AU, which gives students service for half price. It's very cute! I love it! It's gonna take me a long time to figure out all the stuff it does and how to do stuff though. LOL
Then we went and had pasta for lunch at this place called Pronto, where I think I've gone with Erina et. all before. I had bacon and eggplant pasta. Then we went Karaoke. We sang for 3 hours. They had every single Namie and MAX song, including album songs, and apparently they're gonna have Anna-san's so some time (I found that by accident). It was fun. Ayako has a really good voice! She said that at one point she'd thought of being a singer. Then we went to the department store and looked around. On the street this guy came up to us and asked if we'd like to work in a caberet club. (!) Ayako hurried me along, telling me to ignore it, that that wasn't the real way Japan was. LOL We had okonomiyaki (pork and mochi and cheese). It was really good! We talked for a really long time, about home stays, and the government, and tradition/ America vs. Japan, and being jealous of people, and stuff. I'm so glad that Ayako and I get a long really well. We had a lot of fun. She also bought me sweet peas (dk. pink and white) for my birthday. They're on my desk now. They smell so good!
Also! As we were walking, I saw a girl that looked like Kyoko. So I stopped, and stared at her. She stared at me. '...Mina...?' 'Kyoko...!' It was Kyoko, with some boy I assume is her boyfriend. I couldn't believe it! So we grasped hands and jumped and squealed in delight, and made many promises to hang out soon. She looked so pretty and grown up! It was so cool, because the whole time I've been wishing that I'd run into one of my Bunkyo friends, and I then actually did!
Also, I made plans with Anna-san (hee hee hee hee hee) to come and check out the class on 2/7. +D
My cell phone # BTW, is: 090-4223-8475 in case anyone wants to call it. I keep forgetting to ask my host family if I can put up their address/phone number, sorry bout that guys. Ill do it soon! And thanks so much for all the birthday messages!! I love you all so much!! *glomps all around*

 
Ahhhh! If you knock, the door will open, or whatever. Woohoo!!

Dear Adrienne,

Hello!It's very nice to hear from you!So,you live in Tokyo!Wow,that's great!
And yes ofcourse,you could join us!Maiko,is teaching with me here at the Love Junx too.
But we only do dancing.We don't do singing here,is that okay with you?
Maybe you should come and watch our lesson before you decide joining.I'll send you the lesson
schedule,so if you have time come visit us!And beside Hyper class,I started a new class called the Pop class.
That's a class for person with Down syndrome.This class is amazing too!It'll be nice if you could watch this class too!
Well I'll be waiting for your reply! Thank you for mailing!Hope to see you soon!

Anna Makino

 
Yesterday was our first day of classes. Okumura-sensei came and picked me up at the station and rode with me to Gokokuji, the station you get off at for JWU, and then walked me to school. The school it'self couldn't be more different than MHC. I mean, I guess that's obvious, but I was still suprised. The buildings are all very Japanese -very square and clean-lined, and the landscaping is very nice - round bushes, and a big tree in the middle, a lot of camellias, and two plum trees, which smell really nice. I'm so glad for all the camellias, their shiny dark leaves and bright pink flowers were definately a welcome sight yesterday, because it was really cold and rainy. Okumura-sensei showed me to the Hyakunenkan, which was built for the college's 100th anniversary. The building all made of some marble like material, and it's really nice, except for right near the elevators. Every floor (I think there's 12) is color coded, with huge horrible panels of really garish colors near the elevators. Then she took me over to the build we'd be having class, where I met the other ryugakusei. There are only 5 besides myself. The first two I met were Brittany and Eileen. Brittany is pretty, in a ....well, I guess she's what a teenbopper grows up to be. Very manicured and preppy in a trendy kind of way, with that same kind of attitude. She's one of those girls that I usually take an immediate dislike to, just because they seem to be everything that I am not. Popular, confident, capable that sort of thing. Real all American. She also dances, apparently. I don't know. It's not even that I want to be all of those things necessarily. Just that I couldn't be if I tried. Also because I always feel like they're looking down on me in some way - although that could just be me projecting. At any rate, to add to this, she turned out to be the ryugakusei who's family is in Shibuya, and they also apparently have a minuture dauschaund. And most importantly, she's been studying Japanese since she was in 1st grade - she went to some kind of international school in Oregon. I did note that my Japanese does still seem to be better than hers - she can't read that many kanji, and her grammer, etc phrasing isn't always correct. (Although I suppose mine isn't either). Her accent kind of reminds me of how Olivia's was a couple years ago. So anyway, she's my rival now, although what I'm trying so hard to prove I don't even know. Hopefully this feeling will lessen as time goes on. I guess this is where I run into that issue again of my Japanese. I kind of feel like it's all I have to fight with. Which is why I need to be the best at it. I mean, if you take it away from me....what other skills do I really have? I guess I found another goal for this year....like Maiko-san, and Ami in that one episode of Sailormoon S, I want to be someone who people will love and need even if you take it away from me.
Anyway, moving on. Eileen is from Puerto Rico, I think she said, and she's bilingual, speaking both Spanish and English. She and Carolyn, one of the other girls have only been taking Japanese for about a year. She has a boyfriend in the States, and is obessed with getting an internet connection to talk to him and write e-mail to him.
Carolyn is the other one who lives here in Itabashi, altho she takes the train, not the subway. She goes to Wellesley, so we talked a bit about girl's schools and what not. She seems nice, maybe a little ditzy. Or it could just be that she doesn't understand what people say so much, since she hasn't been taking Japanese for so long.
Then there's Kara, who I swear has the biggest eyes I've ever seen. She seems kind of soft spoken, but nice. She also has a boyfriend, I think. Her family took her skiing last weekend, and she said that it was the scariest thing she'd ever done - including sky diving - because she's only skiied once before, and her family skiis all the time apparently, so they took her on all the black diamond slopes. Yikes.
Last is the other Eileen, who is a double exchange student, first from Taiwan to U of Oregon. She also seems pretty nice.
After a introduction type lesson with Tanabe-sensei, during which I was incredibly bored, we spent the whole day having interviews, being bustled along to various buildings, meeting the computer room staff, and the housing staff (all of us except the Wellesley girls will be moving into the dorms in April), seeing the counseling room, and the health center, etc. (We had a lot of fun making sarcastic comments about the latter two, because the counseling room is only open three days a week, with the one counselor (a man) whoi speaks English only there on Monday, and the health center only has a doctor on Fridays, so we joked that we'd all have to schedule our mental breakdowns (limited to easy to explain problems ;) ) and illness accordingly.
As for the results of my interview, I may have a lot of free time on my hands. ^^; I'm ahead of all the other girls, and the class, so I'm going to have private sessions with Tanabe-sensei on Thurday afternoons, and then just come to the Kakikata, Kanji, and other lessons, not the grammar or speaking or reading ones. However, it actually works out grea this week, because that means I have no school on my birthday.
It was rainy when it finally came time to go home at around 4 PM. I'm the only one taking the subway, so I walk alone to and from school. Having only done the walk once, I got lost, of course. It's actually just a straight line, so it's really easy, but I went out from the wrong exit, and so ended up walking for about 15 minutes before realizing that I had gone down the wrong street. So I turned back and went back to the school, and finally found my way to the station, nearby which there is a flower shop with really beautiful pink sweet peas. The subway ride home was easy, since I'm only about 5 stops away. I found my way home from the station with no problem, except that by that time I was so tired I and tired out from getting lost and trying to remember where to go that I barely had the energy.
Today we're going to the Kinokuniya in Shinjuku to buy books which will go to the library at the end of our stay. On Friday there's a tea ceremony thing, and on Saturday there's an event for us and the ryugakusei from Waseda at some big hotel. I didn't really want to go, but I signed up because everyone else did, and I figured I might as well, since I should get to know everyone better. I still say thank goodness for all my Bunkyo friends. I haven't seen any of them yet, haven't even talked to any of them on the phone (speaking of which I should call Kyoko this week), but it's just comforting to know that I have them. That said, I do hope that I become friends with all the other ryugakusei, I guess. Tomorrow I'm going karaoke with Ayako. I may get a cell phone too. Oh,and I just e-mailed Anna-san, asking if I could join Hyper Class, so...
The moment of truth comes soon.... ;)

 
*this is what I wrote when I was sick, last week. These entries are probably gonna be late like this now, because Im writing them on my computer, and ten putting them on a disk and posting them from otosans PC*
Ok, I'm going to take this pause between being sick and starting to do things again to think a little bit about why I'm here and what I want from this year.
First off, do I want anything from it?
Now I'll admit that part of me is happy just being here. Just being in Japan, and taking classes at JWU, even taking Japanese with the other ryugakusei, whom I haven't met yet. I hope they're nice. I also hope they don't all know each other, because aside from me, there are two from each other school.
But to get back to the point, I do want more than that from my year in Japan. Even if I wasn't doing nothing everyday,the way I hate so much that I talked to Kou about. Because I am expecting things from this year, maybe more than is wise. I'm still looking for that 'something' that I was when I went to see Actor's, just over a year ago. I'm still looking for whatever it was that I found at Actor's, and then lost again.
Which brings me to one of my goals. Anna-san. Anna-san has become for me the symbol of the Actor's that I saw last January. Which means that if I'm still looking for what I found in Actor's, I'm looking for Anna-san. But I know how dangerous it is to look for the answer to everything I'm searching for in one person, even more so than in one school. It's really dangerous. There are so many oppourtunities for me to become disillusioned, rudely disabused of what I now believe to be 'truth'. But I'm praying that my ideas of Anna-san are all from both what I saw with my own eyes and what I'ved heard from students, so she won't come up against some ideal of her I've built in my head. That I haven't romanticised her, idealized her too much. I guess I'll find out, if I ever get up the courage to go find her.
While we're on the subject, I went to the Dream Planet home page again the other day, to try and find the time for the BB event on Sunday. And it was changed again, this time with a bunch of pages on Yuki-san's book that's coming out. This time though, there was more glorifying Makino-sensei. A whole separate page, actually, linked from the words 'My life was changed by meeting this one man.....Makino Masayuki....'. I know. I know. But it wasn't always like this...it wasn't! And from talking to Kou....it isn't all like that now... I mean he didn't seem brainwashed into thinking everything Makino-sensei says is right, or that he's some god. So I guess there's hope there. But I still understand the lure of Dream Planet.
Because we're all looking for the 'something'.....If I had to put it into words, I guess it's the reason for living. What we're all supposed to be doing here. Because all of a sudden 'just having fun everyday, doing nothing' isn't enough anymore....
And Dream Planet is a group of people who've all reached that point. Who want to know what the point of this all is. The only problem is...it seems like now, Dream Planet has ceased to be the 'way to an answer', but the answer itself. Or rather....that the process of finding that answer, among feeling and crying and living, that that process itself has become the answer.

Well, now I've gotten thouroughly off track again. But I guess I'm still looking for the answer to what I want out of my year here, among so many other things. But I want to take it slow, not worry about what I want out of it, or finding that 'something' again, or even about my more material goals that I lose sight of myself. I'll try to take it all in stride. To remember that maybe, up to a point, they're right at Dream Planet. I can't get so caught up in the search for all my answers that I forget to stop, look around, enjoy the moment, to feel, to love, to live. Not to get so anxious about everything.
I'm in Japan.
MAX is here.
Anna-san is here.
If I want to see them badly enough. I will.
As for all my friends here, it's ten times easier.
After all, that's kind of the motto of my life.
If you want something bad enough, you'll get it.
You just have to make it happen.
Of course there are exceptions.
There are always exceptions.
But on the whole, (and yes, I'm quoting Ayu here)
'Everything begins from wishing as hard as you can.
Because to believe in something is a wish itself.'

 
*This is what I wrote on the plane*
Well, it�fs finally hitting me; I�fm going to be picked up at the airport by people I don�ft know, to be taken to a family that I don�ft know, who I�fm to stay with for three months. I�fm finally remembering that I�fm going for school, not just to find Anna-san, and see MAX and Namie, and buy stuff. I really don�ft know what the program will be like; I mean, I don�ft even know how many international students there will be.
But at least I know people here; at least I have friends here. I have to keep that in mind if I get bewildered, or lonely. I�fve got all my girls from Bunkyo, I�fve got Masa-kun, Rimi-san, and Kou, and even Anzu-san and Hakase-san. I�fm not a stranger in a strange land. I�fve got connections. I know people, and people know me. It�fs not like in that Tomo-chan song, where she says �eIn this country no one knows I exist.�f There are people that know me here. People that said �eIf you need anything, if you�fre having any problems, call me!�f
Now I just have to make friends that actually go to my school. ^^;
And I have to find the perfect balance between school and play. I need to make my school life a part of my life, make it worthwhile, make it an experience where I meet new people and new things, and stay open to all of that. But at the same time, I don�ft want it to interfere with other things like it did when I went to Bunkyo. And yet, as I�fve said (?) I don�ft want to lose sight of the fact that once again, I�fm here to go to school. But also not just to go to school. Like Anna-san wrote in �gPower to the People�h, I want to turn all my meetings into strength.�h