Last month an article appeared in the Toronto Star about a young man from Ottawa, Matti Tikovt, who joined the Estonian army. The story was written by Liivi Sandy, who is in her final year of studying journalism at Ryerson University. It was a half page story with a photograph and a small map to tell the uninitiated where Estonia is.

"I got the journalism 'bug' from my father," said Sandy, whose father Neil Sandy was a well-known radio reporter at CFRB. "When I was young, it would make me feel good to listen to him on the car radio."

Sandy's mother is Kadri Tamme, daughter of artist Aksel Tamme, whose works grace the homes of many Estonians.

"When I was in my final year at high school, I co-edited the school paper," said Sandy. "There I exposed a scandal and I was written up by the Town Crier, a community newspaper. It was that exposure which probably convinced them to accept me at the Ryerson journalism course."

"At Ryerson, one has to make up one's mind, after the second year, which branch of journalism to go into. I chose 'print'," explains Sandy, adding, "last year I would have liked to change my mind. Our assignments were very boring. It wasn't until I was accepted as an intern with the Baltic Times, in January 2004, that I became more interested."

"My internship lasted for six weeks, this year. Baltic Times is based in Riga, Latvia but I was located in Tallinn where they would send me usually on two to four assignments a week," said Sandy. "Some of the articles were about corruption in the police force, another about Professor and politician Rein Taagepera." Hardly puff pieces.

Now back in Toronto, and Ryerson, Sandy is working on the staff of the school newspaper, the Ryersonian as co-arts editor (the product of mother's genes).

"I love drawing and art ... and travel," said Sandy, adding " I spent 5 weeks and 18 cities travelling in Europe this summer, before arriving in Estonia. I visited my sister, who is 7 years older, and lives in Riomaggiore near Genoa, Italy. I have a large family and they're all very supportive of what I am doing."

Now, if we could only get her to write for Estonian Life…

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