An Bittersweet End, and A Beautiful Beginning

After nearly 7 years, it's finally time. As of March 1, 2017 the BattyMamzelle blog will officially become defunct at this address. Over the last two months I've been working closely with a designer I trust to build a website that's more suited to my needs. A lot has happened over the last few years and Blogger is no longer sufficient to handle everything that a professional writer needs.

But, alas you can't get rid of me that easily. I, and the blog, will still be alive and well over at www.cate-young.com. I've very excited about this change. Moving platforms has been on my to-do list for the better part of three years, and I've finally done it. This blog will remain up as an archive. Most of it has been gutted circa 2012 or so, but the important stuff is all still here for reference when needed. The essays, the rants, the nonsense; it's all right where it's always been and will remain up until the Google machine sees fit to swallow it up.

Over the next couple weeks I'll be finishing up the migration and switching over my social media. My handles will stay the same, so you can always come find me for a chat online. I will continue to blog sporadically over at my new home and I hope you'll follow me there. To everyone who has read me, cited me or just complimented me, THANK YOU. It was that encouragement that made me confident that I could make something of my passionate rantings. I'm grateful and excited for the future.

Passengers Should Have Been Brave Enough To Explore Its Dark Premise

Imagine the scenario: your high-tech hibernation pod on the spaceship you're travelling in to colonize a far flung planet has popped open 90 years too early because of a technical malfunction. Faced with the knowledge that you will be long dead when everyone else wakes up, what do you do? According to Passengers, the answer is "doom a beautiful woman to the same fate and lie about the fact that said fate was in fact your choice. Fall in love with her then stalk her across the ship when she discovers the truth and wants nothing to do with you."

In another world, this would be the perfect setup for an exciting thriller with feminist undertones about men's entitlement to women's bodies. But if you can believe it, Passengers is meant to be a story of true love, forged in the fires of intergalactic peril.

No, I'm not kidding.

Other critics have noted the sinister undercurrent of the film's very premise, but the problem with Passengers is that it tried to have its cake and eat it too. Either you're making a film about unconscionable behavior in the vast emptiness of space, or you're making a romance drama about two people effectively lost to time who find love. It takes a level of skill that this film lacks to blend the two successfully.

Bring On The Next Dumpster Fire

via aboutface.org

2016 was a dumpster fire of a year. Not counting larger international setbacks *handwaves* I had a shitty time personally. I ended relationships and I reevaluated others, but mostly I figured out how to get closer to being my own best self. It took a lot of self-reflection and recognition of my own limits, but I'm better off for it, even if it was a long and painful process.

Somehow I also managed to accomplish quite a bit. I wrote my dissertation and finished my Masters degree. I completed a pop culture criticism fellowship with Bitch Media, I appeared on the BGD Podcast, I pitched my first paid pieces and became a ~*rEaL wRiTeR*~ and I started building professional relationships that I hope I can cultivate as my career progresses. I'm proud of those things. They were difficult and extremely hard-won, and now that I've done them, I know I can do them again and again until I'm comfortable enough to raise the bar and try something more difficult and much harder won.

The biggest lesson I learned this year is that despite all the whining about how entitled millennials are, no one ever teaches you how to be an adult or gives you a sustainable roadmap for your life. You're on your own. You figure it out through trial and error and you hope you don't fuck up irreparably. I'm 26 and I'm CONSTANTLY calling my mum to complain about the latest thing I failed at, because at this point in my life it feels like time is slipping away from me and I've never going to have the kind of life I want. And while the first part isn't true, the second part doesn't have to be. It's just going to take far more hustling than I was told I'd ever have to do, what with my good education and two degrees.

2017 will probably suck. That's just the way life goes, but it doesn't have to suck for me. I have goals and I'm planning to achieve them. I'm going to write more. I'm going to stop neglecting this blog. I'm going to save and I'm going to stop making lateness a part of my identity. I'm going to find a way to get myself to the opportunities that I want. Because all I can do is make sure that I'm set.

Here's to 2017!