It's the Russian in me.

This is largely inspired by my amazing mentors and teacher friends who are honest as fuck when it comes to the challenges of teaching. My teachers (both Russia and the US) will forever hold an incredibly special place in my heart and I will forever gush about them. That's just a fact. But never in life have I imagined myself in their shoes and well, I am as of November-December of 2017. It all started with the TEFL course I took in Chicago aka some of the best frickin 4 weeks of my entire life. I was new graduate at that time and knew for sure that I wanted my life to have zero to do with my degree. So in the process of figuring out what the heck to do with myself my mom mentioned to course to me and we decided to do it. (Boy am I glad I listened to her) Fast forward to now- I've been teaching English at home for several months and let me tell you, it has been quite a journey. I've bragged about my students and what a pleasure teaching them is on a few occasions an...

Hey again, loves, and wow it's been a long while since I have blogged! For this one I am just jumping right into it.  Pretty much all my posts here are filled with emotions. Raw, strong, and genuine, which I like. Well, y'all, this blog ain't going to be any different. Long story short, there is a lot going on in my heart and mind right now and one of the things that helps me process it all is writing, hence why this blog is happening. Let me now explain what all has gone on in my life: I've been living at home (in Russia) since the end of November of 2017, I work as an English language instructor, AND recently I was able to visit the States and see all my dearly loved peeps there. Life at home has been great for the most part and I am happy that I made the choice to move back and spend some more quality time with friends and family here. My heart truly needed it and I am happy I listened to it. I am enjoying teaching English and getting to know and help my awesome, ...

Hello again, my lovelies, and welcome back to my blog! Before I get into the core of this post, let me just make one thing clear once and for all: I have very specific views on gay rights and I stand my ground VERY solidly regarding them, so with all due respect, NOTHING you say will change my opinion. Ever. If you don't like that and don't agree with me- I'm sorry, I don't care. Please just know that there is no point in trying to convince me that what you believe is right and what I believe is wrong. Okay, great. Good talk. Let's start with a little throwback to about four years ago. A Russian person comes to the US to study and, literally within the first week, hears things like "Oh yeah, so and so is totally gay" or "I'm straight, so...". Hint: that person was me, of course. And just so you have an idea- I kinda knew what gay was, but I was absolutely clueless as far as what that meant or, for example, what the word "straight...

Hello, lovelies, and welcome back to my blog! :)  The subject of vulnerability has always been very close to my heart. May be because us, Russians, are very much a "let me do it all" kind of nation. Meaning we rarely ask for help or share our deepest pain and struggles with people. (At lest from my experience. Every Russia is different, of course.) Or may be I am so passionate about vulnerability because I just know a whole lot of people who feel like opening up and letting themselves be helped is a sign of weakness. That can be applied to anything, really: something as little as needing a quick ride somewhere or something a bit more serious like sharing about physical or mental health issues and other personal matters that can really affect one's life.  So often I see people I love put this face on and try their hardest to pretend like they are just fine when in reality they are not. And as someone who is BIG on compassion AND who tries to "play tough" al...

"How do you feel?"- I used to get this question a LOT as I was getting ready to leave the US for an undetermined amount of time and come back home. In response, I used to say it then and I still say it now, having been in Russia for more than a week- it's all the feels. And I am going to try and explain those to you and may be help myself sort everything out in my mind and heart. FYI: this blog is going to be pretty raw and honest mainly because the Russian in me pretty much never sugarcoats things, as you know. So let's go. Imagine being 18 years old, leaving everything and everyone you knew and loved, and moving to a new country. Not only that, but doing this school thing while also fully emerging yourself to a totally new language, learning and teaching environment, culture, and so on. A lot? Yeah, I'd say it was. But years went on, things got easier, foreign language got progressively more internalized and my own, new people became more and more like second ...

Hello lovelies! It has been a minute since I last blogged, but I'm back, so welcome! :)  As you can tell by the title, in this blog I'm basically going to write about where I grew up (Russia, specifically, Yekaterinburg) and why I love it so much.  Little general info about us (Yekat, as I will refer to it): we're the fourth largest city in Russia (after Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Novosibirsk); Yekat was founded in 1723 and ever since then was one of the industrial centers of Russia (we have a lot of metal, lots of factories, etc); we stand on a river called Iset; lastly, we are the capital of the Ural Region (cause naturally we had to be a capital of something, right?). And yes, I pretty much knew all this by heart because one of my wonderful teachers in school taught us all this and much more, I just looked in Wikipedia once to double-check myself.  But before I bore the crap out of you guys, let me just say I LOVE my home city. I mean, look at these pics! :)...