Create Your Own Adventure: Under The Sea in Belize

By Te-Erika Patterson

Recently, Mary Ann Reid, author and creator of the acclaimed Marry Your Baby Daddy Day, an all expenses paid wedding event for unmarried parents, decided to take the time to create an adventure that would frighten the faint of heart.

“My life has been really turned upside down for several years now and I am putting it back together,” Mary Ann confides. “I wanted to do something else besides reading the self help books because ‘a good scare is better than good advice".

That ‘something else’ that Mary Anne is referring to led her to grab her passport and explore the depths of the beautiful country of Belize during a solo vacation where she challenged herself by facing her fears and diving into the unknown, on more levels than one.

“During one of my feeble attempts to meditate I started to envision water and swimming,” Mary Ann recalls. “Someone told me this means ‘feminine energy’ and that my intuition is provoking it. The water just seemed safe as a place to cocoon and cover myself from life's blows. I have been really, really down after the last traumatic event and I was ready for a good, healthy scare.”

After receiving a random email about a driving trip in The Maldives, Mary Ann’s curiosity got the best of her and she researched the qualifications to become a diver. She quickly learned that she had to become certified to participate in scuba diving which tickled her because she had never swam in any depth of water that would cause her to stand on her tippy toes to see above it. She recognized it as a challenge that would take her focus off of her recent life transitions and she decided that a solo trip to Belize for her birthday would be the perfect gift to rejuvenate herself. Before she knew it she was on a plane coasting over the Gulf of Mexico about to experience a thrill of a lifetime.

For some women, the thought of traveling alone seems horrific, but Mary Ann believes this trip was unparalleled with any other life experience.

“I was nervous since I have had nothing but drama lately, but that shed quickly and I was able to be my authentic self again,” Mary Ann shares. She soon found herself zip lining, becoming a certified scuba diver, eating alone and sharing stories with kindred spirits. Bogged down by the demands she placed on herself, her time spent rediscovering her majesty in Belize was actually the antidote to her heavy heart.

As she returns to New York, ready for whatever may come her way, humming the tune to Billy Joel's 'Don't Ask Me Why', Mary Ann is now more certain about her place in the world.

“You have to walk out in the world like you belong in it," she asserts. "Step into it. Walk straight, give people eye contact, smile, take a seat at the bar and order your favorite drink---let people stare and marvel at you. Embrace you.”

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EDITORIAL: Uneccesary Subsidies

My uncle graduated from college in New York in 1975, his tuition was $0 per semester. Today that same college charges $230 per credit or $5,430 for the year full time tuition. When he told me this, my jaw dropped. He told me during the time he was in school, college was subsidized by the state. When talking to other folks of his time, I get the same story. Either school was free or a student could work part time and afford to pay for college and the cost of living. In 40 years, a lot has changed.

After poking around and talking to several people about education and the cost of higher education. It seems at some point the states stopped subsidizing tuition and began subsidizing other things. A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Government usually does this to prevent decline in an industry, an increase in prices for products or to encourage hiring of more labor. With this in mind big oil has made record profits in recent years. I’m talking billions and billions and billions of dollars.

These oil and gas companies making billions of dollars in revenue, the federal government gives these companies roughly $10 billion dollars a year in subsidies. Between 2002-2008 $72.5 billion dollars were given in fossil fuel subsidies. Disturbing is it not? Especially when programs such as higher education continue to suffer and tuition increases 3-8% each year. With this in mind, our lovely U.S. Senate recently voted 51-47 to continue over $20 billion in subsidies payed for by you and I. That means while we suffer at the pump paying $4 per gallon and some families up North suffer more by not being able to afford to pay for heat, we (yes, you and I) are paying for them to screw us and harm the environment.

Now let us take a look at how the fossil fuel industry affects politics. Think Progress performed an analysis and 47 of the Senators who voted in favor of keeping oil subsidies received an astonishing $23,582,500 in campaign contributions. That’s roughly $500,000 for the Senators who voted to keep the subsidies, to get a more detailed analysis check out this website. This is how money corrupts politics and the people who control the money control the politics. This is the kind of thing that needs to stop, this is why our politicians are corrupted and this is why the average lay person could never get elected into office. With the deficit we have one would think programs such as subsidizing an industry that makes record profits would be the first to go. This is more proof of how congress has no idea nor do they have the intention of making this country better.

President Obama continues to voice his opposition to fossil fuel subsidies and we the people have to help. If we are to go towards the path of renewable energy and towards a path where tuition increases stop and cuts to education and other social programs are halted. Federal subsidies such as this one must stop. The fossil fuel industry is not the only industry that receives government help while making profits we only dream of. While there are some industries that may need government subsidies there are many who do not. Let this year be the year of change and let us vote out of office those who support programs like this and it is time we have a discussion on taking money out of politics. Write to your congress person, make a phone call or pay them a visit and make sure you let them know how you feel. Things will only change if you demand for that change. What are you waiting for?

To get a deeper understanding of these subsidies check out this site

U.S. Senate Votes to Continue Oil Subsidies

Big Oil's $38 Billion Defense

Skyrocketing College Costs

About the Columnist


With a bachelors degree in political science from Florida Atlantic University, Christina Fermin has always cultivated her love for history, politics, sociology, ancient knowledge and teachings, the outdoors, the ocean and the environment. Christina strives to make our world better by helping us all create a new reality and understanding of all taking place here and now. You can reach her atChristina@MySavvySisters.Com

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Educated Immigrants Moving Back Home For Job Opportunities

In growing numbers, experts say, highly educated children of immigrants to the United States are uprooting themselves and moving to their ancestral countries. They are embracing homelands that their parents once spurned but that are now economic powers.

Enterprising Americans have always sought opportunities abroad. But this new wave underscores the evolving nature of global migration, and the challenges to American economic supremacy and competitiveness.

In interviews, many of these Americans said they did not know how long they would live abroad; some said it was possible that they would remain expatriates for many years, if not for the rest of their lives.

Their decisions to leave have, in many cases, troubled their immigrant parents. Yet most said they had been pushed by the dismal hiring climate in the United States or pulled by prospects abroad.

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Now Trending: Stretched Earlobes

As the new generation is becoming more comfortable with displaying their individual tastes, there seems to be a constant struggle to show the world how much of an individual they are. Nipple piercings, tattoos and dropping out of college are the old fashioned way to rebel against what society deems to be appropriate behaviors for its youth.

How can I be different? That’s a hard question for many. In case you haven’t noticed, long gone are the days when a simple ear piercing was enough to show you’re cool. These days you must demonstrate your individuality and disdain for the mainstream by stretching your earlobes so wide that you can fit a pencil through them.

Wondering what the inspiration behind the new stretched earlobe trend is? We were too. We decided to have a chat with Issa Waters, the beautiful spirit behind the blog LoveLiveGrow to see what she thinks about it.

MSS: Who was it that inspired you to stretch your earlobes?

Issa: I don't know who I first saw with stretched earlobes. I'm a Burning Man participant - a burner - and many burners have stretched earlobes, and lots of my friends and acquaintances do, so I see them all the time. I love other body modifications like tattoos and piercings, so I view stretching a piercing as just one more neat thing that can be done to the body.

I regularly have the urge to do something different to my body like get a tattoo or dye my hair. This urge hit me once at a time when I wasn't in the mood for a new tattoo, and had two roommates with stretched earlobes, so on a whim I decided to go for it.

MSS: What did you do to prepare to alter your body in this way?

Issa: I didn't do a lot of research at first. I relied on my roommates to guide me along the process, although I've read more about it since then. It's just called "stretching". Some people call it "gauging,” but that's grammatically incorrect since gauge is a unit of measurement, not a verb. Getting your ears pierced is the only part of the process that requires a professional. After that you can just gradually work in larger sized jewelry to stretch the piercing. And I do mean gradually! I would stretch the next size, then wait for the stretch to heal completely before stretching again. It took months to go from a standard ear piercing, around 18 gauge, to the size I have now at 00 gauge.

MSS: Why do you believe this is such a hot trend these days?

I don't really follow the "hot trends". Is it one? If so, I guess it would be because tattoos have become relatively mainstream, so in order to be different you have to try something else. I've seen a lot of really creative work in the areas of piercings and stretching, so there's plenty of room there to be unique. My social group is mostly burners, so that's who I see with stretched earlobes, along with lots of other body modifications.

MSS: Does this piercing style affect your family or work?

Issa: I'm not sure my childhood family really noticed. The last time I saw them I had bright pink hair, so I doubt my earlobes really stood out. I don't expect my earlobes to impact my future at all. With the people I hang out with, the jobs I have, and the activities I pursue, stretched earlobes are nothing too exciting. My grandkids will probably think it's totally boring, since they'll have moved on to something else.

My ears aren't usually the most interesting or obviously weird thing about me, so, honestly, they hardly ever come up. I do like wearing flesh tunnels - the jewelry that lets you see right through my earlobe so that it's most obvious that they're stretched. If I'm really looking for attention, I can stick something through there. If I'm at a restaurant, I can stick my straw through one earlobe to entertain the kid the next table over. Unless I do something like that to call attention to them, though, most people won't even notice.

MSS: So much for being different.

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Connie Rice Is A Modern Day Superhero

By Te-Erika Patterson

"When you're focused on the mission, you forget that you're scared." ~ Connie Rice

Constantine "Connie" Rice, the author of the newly released memoir Power Concedes Nothing, is just one cape away from being a modern day superhero. The Los Angeles based civil rights attorney’s tumultuous work confronting the social justice ills that plagued the underprivileged in her community is the basis for this tell all book that allows the intellectual advocate to recount her personal and legal journey as she attempted to quell the violence and corruption that had become the unfortunate trademark of her neighborhood.

MySavvySisters.Com spoke with Connie Rice about her book, her background and the mental strategies she uses to achieve her goals.

According to Connie Rice, she didn’t experience much of the social and personal angst that many teenagers experience. “My parents poured a lot of attention and stimulation into my life,” Connie remembers. “I knew who I was and I had a purpose in life. I didn’t really care what other people thought about me. I was focused on my job which was to learn as much as I can about the world.”

“We were overloaded with high expectations,” Connie continues. “My first word was Mommy, my second word was Daddy and my 3^rd word was college. It’s kind of hard not to come out of that household with anything but an achievement agenda.”

As a social justice advocate Connie claims the progress she made is tied to her intricate view of problem solving. “I like to think about who is needed to solve this problem,” she offers. “I also understand who has real power. There is official power and there is real power. You figure out who has the real power and you convince them that your vision is best for their vision. You bargain with them. You try to persuade them and make them offers they can’t refuse. If you are standing in my way to a solution then I will do everything in my power to remove that barrier. If you’re smart you will join me.”

The Harvard graduate and New York University law school alumnus says her intimate involvement with the Los Angeles gangs as well as her work with the Advancement Project (www.AdvancementProjectca.org) which she co founded, is a result of her personal priority of having no fears.

“I’ve never been particularly afraid of anything,” Connie asserts. “It comes from having to perform and being focused on the mission. When you’re focused on the mission you forget that you’re scared.”

Having never been labeled as a feminist, Connie is well aware of the limitations placed on progress for women due to societal restraints. “I have never accepted the normal constraints that women have,” Connie says. “We’re supposed to fit in the space that we are allowed. I never followed that rule.”

When partnering with the Los Angeles Police Department to forge an alliance between the city’s gang members, Connie became a legend in Los Angeles. She formed a gang academy comprised of ex gangsters who willingly come forward to work with her to keep the community safe through open talks about the high stakes war between the two forces.

“We’re working very close with the community these days,” Connie shares. “We are running a community policing force. For the first time in LAPD history an officer will receive a commendation for demonstrating how they prevented an arrest versus how they facilitated one.”

Connie Rice offers these words of wisdom for any woman trying to make her dream come true.

• Everybody has to come at their goals in a way that fits their personality.
• You have to understand and accept what you don’t know and then find people who do know what you don’t know, to work with you.
• Start at the outcome and then make your plans in reverse. Ask yourself, ‘What is it that has to happen for this to happen?’
• Find another way through impossible. If it looks impossible on paper, sometimes there is another way around what looks impossible.
• I keep my eye on what matters. Life’s too short for dress rehearsals. Just get out there and do what you want to do.
• Figure out what the game is and if you want to play it play it. If you don’t, create your own game.

To learn more about Connie Rice, please visit The Advancement Project.

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