The latest and greatest

The latest and greatest to date:

I've seen Inception twice now in theaters. It's beyond phenomenol. If you havent seen it yet, stop reading this and go see it immediately.

Yesterday we were given our placements for school in Korea. I will be in Naju, whose bird is the dove, and is famous for their fat Naju pears. There is a pear museum and a pear festival. Naju is located in the South western part of South Korea. It's about 5-6 hours from Seoul in the Shellenando (sp.) province. The closest big cities are Mokpo and Gwangju, both of which are a half hour to an hour away. The bus station in Gwangju is enormous and consists of shops and an iMAX theater.

Naju is a smaller city haha of 100,000 people. Gwangju has about 1.4 million in comparison. I'll be teaching at Naju high school, a co-ed school with about 483 students, around 160 in each grade. I'm excited to teach co-ed and even though I've had more experience with middle schoolers, I think I may be better suited to teaching high school.

Suddenly everything has become more real. I can envision what my life will be like for the next year; although big gaps, such as my homestay family, still remain. In Naju, there are three other ETAs, all guys. My friend Josh wanted to called as the Naju Namjas (guys), but I objected and now we're the Naju Crew. More than seven other ETAs are also nearby in the closest cities and we're a mere 5 hour ferry ride from Jeju (the island). The KTS, the fast paced train, will take us to Seoul from Gwangju in about three hours.

All in all I'm excited for the next year. There are friends of mine who were placed all over Korea, and while thats a little dissapointing, it does give me more of a reason to travel and see the country. As of yet, I haven't looked at my adoption papers to figure out exactly how far I am from the place I was born...but I will soon.