Secret AGENT Woman, Secret AGENT woman...

Hi Guys :)

So it's been a while. Quite a while. Over a year, actually. And here is why is has been so long: I have been leading a double life. Well, not really. But I have been running two blogs. My other blog, A Bent Piece of Wire, is a fashion blog. It's a lot of fun. However, it's not Operation Indigo. This is the blog where I "take on the tough stuff" and "Bring on the pain" and all those other little slogans you read about on the walls of gyms. So, in the spirit of my doubleosity, I present to you 2: amazing women who led double lives, and the world was better off for it. Even though a lot of people may not know that. :D


Josephine Baker:




So, you've probably heard of her. She is called "The First Black Superstar" and she had a pet cheetah name Chiquita, who wore a diamond collar. She was a singer, and a dancer during the Roaring Twenties in Europe. But did you know that she was also a spy for the French?? And that after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., she was offered the un-official leadership of the civil rights movement? And yet, the thing most people know her for is her famous "Banana Dance". Go figure. She was so good at her job, no one remembers she did it. Click HERE to learn more about this, if I do say so myself, quite fabulous woman.




Julia Childs



America's most beloved chef. She TRAINED Martha Stewart. I mean, she practically INVENTED French cooking. Well, she definitely made it BETTER. This American woman became every ones favorite chef. She wore pearls and high heels in the kitchen, and had smiles to go round. But before she was "Julia CHILD" she was "Julia Child.", an agent with the Office Of Strategic Services, or OSS for short. She supposedly left that all behind after she married her husband, but will any of us really know? Click HERE to read about Julia and her amazing life..You can also check out the film "Julie & Julia" starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep.


Phew. All this sneaking about while dancing and making Boeuf Bourguignon is making me tired...I don't think I would make a very good spy..so I'll just stick to blogging for now :)

Love you all!

Luuuuuurve,
Justina


P.S. THE GIRL IS BACK!!! :D

Role Model?

wow. wow. wOw!
Let me start at the start.

Discovery Girls Magazine, a magazine for girls between the ages of 9-13, recently hosted a contest to find thirty GIRL role models. Out of those thirty, the ten most voted for will win a trip to California, and a photo shoot for Discovery Girls.


Guess who's a finalist??


Me!

I'm excited because this gives me a chance to show that you don't have to have a license to drive, or have lots of money, or whatever, to make a difference in this world. As I have shared with you, I want my words to reach out and make change, good change. Here are thirty, (twenty nine?)girls who all try to do the same.


So, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, I am asking for your vote. It would be great to win, but if I didn't, that would be OK too. I just want to spread the word. What word? well, you'll have to figure THAT out for yourself...

Anyway, here is a link to the voting page :
http://discoverygirls.com/fun-stuff/contests/role-model?destination=fun-stuff%2Fcontests%2Frole-model



Yours until airplane food actually tastes good,
(Did I mention I just got back from a trip?)

Justina

Bimbo?!?! Oh. No. You. Didn't.

This has me E-N-R-A-G-E-D-!

In a recent letter in New Moon Magazine, A girl was ranting about a website where girls, aka "Bimbos" play games and be part of an online "community". (Un-ladylike snort here) Some community. Girls can set a goal for their "Bimbo". That sounds great until you see the goals. You can purchase, using "Bimbo Dollars" (with real money sent through PayPal) an eating disorder, or a implant (whether your butt or your boobs is up to you), plastic surgery and, well, you get the picture.Whats really sad? That there are over 2237293 registered users and counting.:(

Now I wonder, WHY would you want to play a game like this?

Here is the definition of "Bimbo" as given by (The Ever Helpful) Merriam- Webster:

Main Entry: bim·bo
Pronunciation: \ˈbim-(ˌ)bō\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural bimbos
Etymology: perhaps from Italian bimbo baby
Date: 1918

1 slang : man, woman Jay Stuller> —used as a generalized term of disapproval especially for an attractive but vacuous person



You get my point?
Now if younger girls are playing this, they are growing up thinking that eating disorders are a good thing, all it takes to get a guy is HUGE boobs, and that being stupid rules.

And who is the GENIUS who came up with this??

3 university students.

The opening statement on their website?
"Become the hottest, coolest most intelligent and talented bimbo the world has ever known!"

followed by...

"# To progress in the game you have to get her a hot boyfriend, a cool place to live, and find her a great job.
# You can also style your Bimbo and show her off to other players.
# You can compete with other Bimbos to see who's the best dressed and most popular."
this gets better and better.. THREE FOURTHS of their management are women.....

Oi.

Anyway, if you want to heck ( erm..check) out this pillar of stereotyping and sexism, here you go :
http://www.missbimbo.com/

I need to go drink some tea...

Housewife? I DON'T think so...

I am sitting in the living room watching that ever informative show, Wife Swap. This week, one mom is convinced that the world is ending in 2012, due to a Mayan prophecy and the other one just announced that she spends 40,000 dollars a year on her daughters golf lessons.

40,000 dollar mom's husband is, to quote the Mayan mom, "a male chauvinistic pig." This so-called "pig" just informed the new wife that if, "god forbid, anything were to happen to his wife, he would just find someone else to clean the bathroom." In the beginning, they kept showing shots of this man sitting on the couch while his wife cleans, cooks, and chauffeurs. He just informed the Mayan mother, that he believes that housework is gender orientated, and that women are better cleaners, cooks, etc.


Is this guy for real?


How many other men and boys think like this?



How many women and girls go through the stuff that $40,000 mom is going through?

Who came up with this theory that all women and girls are good for is house work??? Obviously someone EXTREMELY under-educated and ignorant of our many talents. (Haughty sniff here)

So what do YOU think?

I mean, come ON people! This is the 21st century, not the DARK AGES!!


Now I want to know, WHY would you put up with this kind of treatment? Why not say something? Like, oh, I don't know.."Why don't YOU get YOUR butt off the couch and help me wash YOUR dirty socks, sweetie?" That sounds about right....

I think women just gradually are grown into the idea that men and boys can do things we can't. It is a subconscious message that society presses on us.

DON'T LISTEN!!!!!

Now we are at the end of this episode, and the moms are going at it..Mayan mom is telling $40,000 mom that her husband is "rude, arrogant, and I have NEVER been that disrespected."


Hmph.. Could have told her THAT myself... :)

Dear Marianne.......

.... For the benefit of others just starting out on this, I recently received this comment in response to my post " Gimme Gimme Gimme".

"Marianne said...

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you are thirteen.You write like an adult and see things from a different perspective than I, a thirteen year old girl, do.I think that this blog is just so you adults can pretend to understand us.Please don't post anything else until you have a REAL thirteen year old posting. "

Marianne, I got such a kick out of this,I am writing a WHOLE post for YOU. I am real, and I am thirteen. If you scroll down just a little further, you will see photos of me. No, that is not photo shop. I'll take it as a compliment on my vocabulary that you think I am an adult. And while many adults do pretend to understand us, most of them don't start blogs, and pretend to be a thirteen year old girl. Unless, they are a SERIOUS creeper.

I, and my family, enjoyed this so much, I made a video in your honor:




P.S. My mum is so psyched, she says this is because I am homeschooled :).

And Now For A Trip To Outer Space....

"Class, I would like you to closely observe the condition of "Space Case" that is afflicting this poor girl. She, as you can see, can not keep her thoughts in line, and as a result, has not posted on her blog in over two months."

To all of my readers: I sincerely apologize. I have, as you can see above, come down with a horrible case of "Spacieus Casius". Every time I have a thought, I sit down at my computer and begin to write it, then realize I was supposed to be somewhere a half an hour ago. I have so many unfinished drafts in my "Posts" section,it isn't even funny. And that is how it has gone for the last two months,18 days, __ hours and __ minutes.. (Not sure when this will show up, so fill in the blanks)

So if you have not jumped ship, I thank you, and want you to know that in the future, I will take my vitamins.

Gimme gimme gimme!

"But I want it!"

The oldest argument between kids and their parents around.

In a recent post on New Moon Girls' Facebook page, a mother wrote:

"My daughter has fake uggs and when she asked for these 130.00 boots because her friends has them I said no and my reasoning was that she didn't want them because they were good boots but because "everyone" has them."


My first thought when I heard this was, "Just say NO!".Then I thought,"I wonder why does this girl think she has to have the Ugg's, not the Bearpaws, which happen to be about $110 cheaper.Is it because the boot's are better or because "everyone" has them?And if the former, what will she do with her $130 shoes when "everyone" ditches them?

Being an individual when it comes to what I wear,I couldn't care less what "everyone" is wearing.But this girl obviously does, and expects her parents to pay for that.Which brings me to two problems. One, kids expect their parents to just have an outflow of cash for them to spend on stuff they don't really need and two, their parents give in to it. Now I too have things I really really want and want my parents to buy for me. But my mom has come up with a good way to cure this. She gives me this saying:"If you want it that bad, buy it yourself." Boy, does that curb my need! If I really want it, then I'll buy it, but it really makes me think about if I really need it.I don't expect my parents to just pay for everything I want and they encourage me and if I can't pay for a thing may give me half or a third of the price to help.

So to Ugg Girl: Maybe you should, if you really want the boots, buy them yourself. Or if you don't want to do that, maybe you should look into a generic pair, which are just as comfortable and look just the same.The only difference is that they cost a lot cheaper. :)



The lesson in all of this?
Wait, there's a metaphor for it.

If you want it that bad, buy it yourself.