Hi!  I’m your blogger, Em.  For a bit of background: I grew up in a small Midwestern town, and ventured to a Small Liberal Arts College on the East Coast for undergrad where I started studying Russian because the alphabet was pretty.  I majored in Political Science and Russian, and had the opportunity to travel to Russia twice–once to Siberia, and once to Moscow.  I spent my junior year abroad in London studying politics and history and enjoying life in London–shows!  museums!  fun restaurants!  I was working in DC when the August 2008 War broke out, and I started to become interested in Georgia; another seed of interest was dropped in my anthropology class when I heard about the archeological site at Dmanisi.  I was sold on Georgia when I saw how pretty the Georgian alphabet is (do you see a trend here?).  I decided to go to grad school back in the Midwest at a gigantic state school, where I focused on post-Communist politics and learned Georgian and Russian.  During grad school, I had a fantastic summer working in Tbilisi.  After graduation I moved down to the Southwest, where I complained about the weather, read lots of YA novels, taught Russian lessons, and worked retail until I could return to Georgia.  My first semester as an English teacher was spent in a town in the Kakheti region.  Now I work in the non-tourist part of Tbilisi, and enjoy the luxuries and quirks of the city in my time off.