Gattaca

What a terrible movie. It's like the fantasy of a 10-year-old crying over the fact that his brother is taller than he is. So, here's this fascinating dystopian society, with deep-rooted class inequality, which raises many interesting political, moral and technological questions. The movie notices none of them. The only thing the audience is asked to care about is whether the hero gets to do his dream job. Is there a larger implication here? Will he try to fight injustice or help others? Nope. He just wants to be an astronaut because space is cool.

No one in the underclass besides the hero gets a name. They are all faceless, uniform men. There is only one woman in the movie--the blonde. No, I don't remember her name, why should I. Her job is to be a sex object and tell the hero that she likes him more even though his brother is taller. Their first sex scene occurs immediately after she has, in horror, watched him beat up a cop in order to avoid being questioned about a murder which she, and the audience, have strong reason to believe he committed to pursue his childish spaceman fantasy. This is below the moral level of a fairytale--and not just because the hero murdered an innocent man. At least in a fairytale, you have to give the beggar some of your bread before she'll do magic for you. Here, the hero gets special favors from a dozen other characters while narcissistically pursuing his dream with complete disregard for every other person besides himself. Disgusting.

An upside to sleep deprivation?

I've spent the past week complaining about the effect sleep deprivation has on my mood, concentration ability, IQ, energy, and memory--but now I think there may be an upside. I am more creative. I suppose some of the aforementioned factors--fatigue, lack of focus and IQ--weaken my usual obsessive grip on What Needs to be Done and my rigid ideas about What Ought Not to be Done. As a result, I've been less productive and done things like eat French fries and take the elevator rather than the stairs--but I also find my mind expanding. I think more, rather than constantly seeking something on the agenda to do. New ideas are occurring to me. Suddenly I have half a dozen blog posts to write.

Life tracking after school

Activity	Average time spent per week (hours: minutes)
Sleeping	8.08 (per day)
Reading	17.10
Homework	15.50
Class	15.15
Getting ready	10.13
Exercise	9.28
Socializing with significant other	7.13
Internet	6.45
Lunch talks	6.15
Food	5.43
Socializing with others	4.30
Watching movies	4.08
Errands	2.55
Cleaning and organizing	2.40
Travel by bus or car	1.57
Walking	1.15
Relaxation	0:25
Hedonism	0:23
Wasted time	0:13

 Compared to when I was working, there has been an increase in time spent

• sleeping
• exercising
• working
• internet
• getting ready

While there has been a decrease in time spent

• reading
• socializing with my significant other
• watching movies
• wasted time
• travel by bus or walking
• errands
• cleaning
  
  No change in time spent
• socializing with others
• cooking and eating
• hedonism
• relaxation

There's been a dramatic increase in working time, from 20 hours to 31 hours. A dramatic (but unsurprising) decrease in travel time from 6 1/2 hours to 3 hours. Time spent on errands decreased from 6.23 to 2.55.

Most of the predictions I made about my schedule before going back to school were true, with the exception that, while I thought internet and "getting ready" or transitional time would decrease, the former actually increased by about an hour, while the latter doubled! There are some real possibilities for improvement here. For instance, when I get home from class, it's common for an hour or two to disappear in what I've been calling transitional time, but much of which is wasted.

Probably the biggest surprise is that, after moving in with my fiance, time spent focused on him actually decreased by about two hours. Guess that's a function of not having weekends anymore.