In 2 weeks I will no longer be living out of a suitcase.

Oh glory day. Today was the much anticipated Placement Day here at Orientation. The 70 of us dressed up in our finest dresses (except for the guys ... they wore pants) and awkwardly stood in a large auditorium until Mrs. Shim (the head honcho of Fulbright Korea) read our name, school, and the name of the town where we will be living and teaching for the next year! Super exciting, but somewhat nerve wracking. Up until now I guess it really hasn't registered that I will be living somewhat alone in a big scary country that I just met. But I signed up for this. Just weird to know that the first time I will have to be a real "adult" (pay my own cell phone bill, have an actual job that doesn't let you wear running shorts, etc) I will be doing so in Korea.
Anyways ... today I learned that for the next year I will be living in Hwasun, a mid sized city in the southwest tip of Korea. It's located in the Jeollanam-do province (the greatest of the 10 Korean provinces, in my opiniong) and about 20 or so miles east of the Yellow Sea. As of now, I'm not too schooled on exactly what Hwasun has to offer or what excatly I have gotten myself into. My current knowledge of my host city is only what I have drawn from the first couple or so pages that sprung up on the Google search bar.
However, I'm pretty excited about my placement in Hwasun. I will be teaching a co-ed high school and will have around 6 classes with 30-35 students in each class. We filled out preference forms about two weeks prior to Placement Day indicating where we would like to live and what type of school we would like to teach. I was very open to any type of school (boys, girls, co-ed, high, middle, etc). The only preference I had was to live inland and not in a coastal or island area. This is due to my diet ... as the closer to the coast, the more fish-based is the food. Gross. However, my request to be placed away from the coast was not exactly met, as I will be a good 20 minute busride from the fishies. There's nothing really I can do about it now ... but I do not intend to put any fish (or other meat) in or around my mouth for the next year. I just hope I am able to communicate with my host family and build a strong relationship with both my host family and my school.
I have been able to check out the school's website and from what I can tell it looks pretty legit. Granted everything on the website is in Korean, so I really don't have any idea what it is saying. It could be saying "Worst school ever!" but I hope not. I doubt that is something they would advertise ... Koreans aren't that silly. There are lots of pictures of smiling and happy Korean kids ... so that's promising. I have also learned that there have been 3 past Fulbright ETAs at my school, so I will be able to contact them and get some more information about what exactly I should expect.
I will leave you all with the website from the school and a map of where I will be living for the next year!

Enjoy!

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
(I realize you all could Google map this yourselves, but look! I have saved you the trouble!)

http://www.hwasun.hs.kr/cgi-bin/main.cgi?board=5_3
(If you click on the blue English link at the top of the page you will be able to view the English program)