Just read the title of the blog

Hey everyone, its the one and only Beth Kopay coming at your semi-live from a hostel in DC.  So before I begin, I guess I should introduce myself properly.  (Extend hand, but alas, you can't take it.  Stupid computer screens...)  My name is Beth Kopay and I'm a teacher.  And I love it.  But I'm not a typical teacher.  Now don't get my wrong, I have my official background training/degree in elementary education, but I have found a new path that will lead to happiness - ESL!  I fell in love with (like literally tripped, stumbled, and broke my leg on the way down into the ESL hole.) teaching English to non-native speakers.  I just sent a year teaching English to elementary school students (see Mom and Dad, still maintained some old educational ties - so my degree didn't go to waste) in the Marshall Islands with an organization know as WorldTeach (check it out - www.worldteach.org).  Now, if you are like any other person who is not Marshallese, the next question popping into your head is - What are the Marshall Islands?  (Am I right?  Of course I am.)  Maybe now you are about to Google it.  That's right, click on the Google Maps, and type in Marshall Islands.  Can you see it?  Its that super tiny green dot in the middle of the ocean.  Actually, when I'm looking at it, I don't even see the green dot.  I just see the letters - Marshall Islands.   Did you ever wonder how cool it would be the labels on maps actually existed in real life?  Think about it.  But I digress.  My atoll with Utrik.  Its one of the most northern atolls in the Marshall Islands, and received some nuclear fallout - but don't fear, I do not glow in the dark (but if you think about it, I would never be afraid of the dark because I would be my own nightlight.)  Side note on that story - during Orientation in Majuro, we had the lovely opportunity to eat pizza at the embassy and talk with the ambassador about her job and whatnot.  So the evening progresses and she is asking where our assignments were and I said mine.  Well... the reaction on her face may me feel very uneasy.  Gasp*  Utrik!  Geez, are there any people left on this island?  Have they all been transformed into large lizard like monsters with 20 eyes, a green tongue, and bright red eyes all because of radiation?!  Yep.  But not really, she just overreacted.  But it made me quite a worry wart after her reaction.  Well, that year was quite an adventure.  Actually a better phrase would be positive challenge.  Somethings I loved (my host family, the students (some of the time), and the sunsets), and some not so much (the abuse, the hitting, the rock throwing at children, situational starvation, receiving a penis made of muk-a-muk, watching the aftermath of the dude who made me the penis get beat up with a hammer by my host father, and watching my host father's demise into the unfriendly realm of becoming a drunk are some of the few).  So I hope you please stick around for some of the next blogs to come, for guaranteed it will be mind-blowing.  (Does it mean an emotion/feeling or actually having your head getting blown up?)