Sizzling Advice from Sista Serensky

"My boyfriend wants to break up, but I dont"

Mmm, yes, I can see where the problem lies here, fortunately, I have just the right motivator to help you with this, dire, dire, issue. Allow me to present to you my sassy alter ego, Sista Serensky. I will now leave you two to discuss your trials and tribulations (heads up, quite a fiesty one, to say the least).
GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL, uh-uh, you really want this man?! You, want him!? You listen up sister, this pig clearly does not deserve to pull on your heart strings, he does not even deserve to poke at them a little bit. You know why? Because little miss sunshine over here can shine on without dwelling on a disconcerted meat-head who will not even give you the time of day! Listen to yourself woman, you really think I will rattle off a magical secret formula that you can use to conjure your “man” into falling in your pretty little arms again?! Uh-uh, think again, Cinderella stories stopped applying to real-life on your ninth birthday sweetheart. The only way you will get this morally inept hunk back is with a rag of chloroform and handcuffs, which, even disregarding the possible prison sentence, would require a stupid amount of effort. So look me here in the eyes, drop this clown, drop him like its hot, drop him like Michael J. Fox trying to hold an egg in a spoon. I guarantee he moved on days before he even decided to muster up his arrogance enough to tell you of his decision to leave you in the dust. Unless you want to latch on to his ankles like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum on his mom after getting dropped off at day-care then brush off this chump like the dirt off your shoulder. You need a re-evaluation, a wake-up call, hear that? That piercing shriek in your ear, nope, not that soccer mom screaming like a banshee because you cut off her minivan in the express lane, but the sound of your consciousness cursing you for losing sleep over the guy who forgot your name two weeks ago. Listen to your mind, imagine your mind as your grandma, smacking those cute little knuckles with a wooden spoon for eating desert before dinner, I bet it hurts. GOOD. It should hurt, I want it to hurt, because you know what will really hurt? Confessing your undying love for mister congeniality over here in a last ditch effort to win him back and then watch his ignorant lips curl into an “it’s not you it’s me”. HONEY, if you get hung up on him, sitting at home pounding down pints of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia while he hits the clubs getting hung up on god knows who pounding down god knows what then who do you think feels worse here? Mmmmhmm, not him, not Monsieur man candy, so chin up sweetcheeks, and repeat after me in a sassy black woman voice “I AM A STRONG AND IN-DE-PEN-DENT WOMAN AND I DON’T. NEED. NO. MAN”! Feel better? I know you do, now get out there, call up your gals, put down the ice cream (maybe after the next bite), and hit the town, make him the one sitting at home sobbing over ice cream, go out and get it gurl, work what you got.

Honing in on Heroism

Black Hawk Down, a true account of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia in which 18 American Delta Force operators, Army Rangers, and Navy SEALs lost their lives making it the largest combat loss of American troops in any single battle since Vietnam. The precedents of heroism and sacrifice that took place during this battle left me speechless, I could not help but marvel at the valor with which the servicemen fought through such brutality and violence. For me, Black Hawk Down altered the image of the fearless invincible American soldier whom I so innocently imagined, not in a negative sense, but gave that image emotions, humanity, compassion, a respectable endowment to fear. I finished the movie with a renewed outlook on the human conflict associated with war, the struggle not to just stay alive and protect yourself as I had once believed, but to fight for the person next to you and gift him the opportunity to return home. For me, the movie withdrew a primal instinct with which I never quite realized I had in me, an odd sense of realization that fighting does not just entail survival but promise. Promises that a soldier makes to his comrades to ensure that they can make it on the plane back home and catch their child's fourth birthday, or to see their wife standing in the threshold of their home teary-eyed waiting for their triumphant return. The irony of this comes with the fact that I have never come close to experiencing even a slight hint of the bonds they share, not even a tinge of relativity, as to the way they endure, not only literally, but mentally and emotionally as well. This movie portrayed the heartache to war, the atrocities, the unnecessary  casualties, everything wrong with the way humans resolve conflict. Yet, just as beautifully as it shows the horror and the gore, it shows valor and camaraderie with which the men persevered, and although the suffered losses beyond measure they triumphed against all odds by holding out together. While other war movies glorify the image of the United States in all its glory, "Black Hawk Down" glorified the soldiers behind that image, the actual person under that uniform, and therein lays the reason this film rests on a pedestal for me. Because it exemplifies that the true valor that our soldiers bolster does not rest in their iconic image the media broadcasts, but the underlying grit and perseverance instilled in them as human beings.