Lindsay -- the main point of what Lampada wrote had to do with the written vowels that can follow the consonant ц. The letter combinations ця, цё, цю, цэ are never found in native Russian words, while the combination цы is relatively rare and found only in certain circumstances -- namely (1) in certain grammatical suffixes, such as in улицы, the nom. pl. of улица, "street"; and (2) about a half-dozen words that have цы- not in their grammatical endings, but in the word-root itself -- such as цыплёнок, "baby chicken." (Incidentally, you'll see that -ёнок ending again and again in words that refer to baby animals: котёнок = kitten; китёнок = baby whale; and of course ребёнок = human child.)

But in most other cases, when you hear the sound combination цы, in writing it will be spelled ци. For example, the word for "circus" is pronounced like цырк, but the written spelling is actually цирк.