Yeah, agreed, and I'm certainly freaked out.

I'm curious...as a fellow scientist, have you had any life experiences that took you off the bench for many months in a row? If so, how did you deal with that? This probably sounds stupid and like my priorities are all kinds of ****ed up, but putting down the pipettes for an indeterminate amount of time has been hard for me, mostly because it's the thing I like doing most and I won't be able to do it for a while. I have some things that I can do (papers to write and a structure to build) but I feel like I'm losing my biggest outlet for stress.

Thanks for the well wishes. I think I need to just accept that this is going to suck.

I can write more later, but yeah, I had a tragedy in the middle of grad school. Mine was much more sudden, but I definitely found that doing *something* academic kept me sane and centered in very meaningful ways. In particular, I had to start teaching a class the week after, and having that schedule forced on me turned out to be very important. I didn't spend a huge amount of time in lab, but, after a few weeks, I started going in at least 1-2 times per week. I don't remember it at all, but apparently I was very productive.

that's nice poincaraux that you could turn it around. I lost a year of uni with being mentally broken =/ Also have lost my grandpa to cancer and like a year and a half ago the son of my dads best friend. He was my age and studied law at uni. In November he felt weird and they went to the hospital, found cancer and a month later (30 dec) he died. I hate f cancer =/

Oh, I'm pretty sure I was mentally broken for at least a year. I just would have been broken for much longer if I'd kept away from social and scientific interactions for longer.

Yeah, what a year. Within 12 months, my son was stillborn, I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer/cancer, my grandfather to myriad old-age-related illnesses, a woman who was basically a 2nd mother to my wife and a good friend of mine to pancreatic cancer, and a close friend to ALS. Dear modern medicine: get working. You're not done yet!

I still have very vivid memories of the passing of my father. I think the most important thing that we need to realize is that everyone will grieve differently than each other. I don't believe there is a right/wrong way. I've heard before that you need to talk about it but meh, I hated talking about it and still do really. I don't find it therapeutic, but I do recognize that other people might. I wish we didn't have to go through these things :\.

Huh. So, weird bit of psychology there. I did lose people to cancer, but I always think of that year in terms of the stillbirth, probably because it came first and I was in shock for everything else.

Lost brother-in-law to brain cancer at age 32 when he had a 1-year old child. Very difficult. I was 17 on the verge of 18. I didn't and still do not like talk about it, but my Dad will talk a lot about it. As said above, everybody is different. Knowing in advance and being able to say goodbye is something I cherish, but it was also hell on earth for those few months where he was losing ability to function.

In all honesty I think this is one of the situations you can afford to be 'selfish' and let the other person effectively look after you, at least to some extent. For me personally, even though it was a ****ty situation to be in, it was nowhere near as tough because it was possible to go out and unwind because I didn't have the same emotional tie up to the situation. I also knew that it was something that was going to be tough for me in the short term, but long term I would be fine, which made it much easier to get through, whereas as the person involved you dread the present and the future.

Basically I would say milk her support while it's there, just make sure you give her time to get away. While going out with some of your mates for some beers might not help you at all, it will revitilize her because it gives her a chance to recharge in a more relaxed situation.

Obviously everyone is difficult but I think the best thing y GF at the time did was basically make me go out with my friends once or twice a week and get away from everything, and it meant that I could be 100% supportive while I was there.

http://www.bonobos.com/light-pink-washed-chinos-for-men

So, a month or so ago I was thinking about getting an audi A4, then I discovered the new lexus IS300 and looked into that.

Now I think that I may go for a tesla model S instead - some weird Dutch tax laws allow me to get that for more or less the same price as the other two. Anyone have experience with that car?

no experience with the Tesla, but consumer reports rated it as best car ever fwiw http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/09/auto...rts/index.html

i say get it and report back. if anything, you'll look like a 100% boss driving it.

I think a lot of that kind of review is politics. Though it beats Top Gear pretending to review it when they've written the script in advance.

6 hour recharge time on a 240V line gtfooh with that nonsense.

I saw that review but being from Europe I don't really know consumer reports as an organization.

@ike; yeah that is the main downside. However, you can get a thing in your home that cuts by more than half, and there will be supercharge points on the big roads in europe that charge it full in half an hour (for free!).

A big downside is the waiting list, end of the year if I ordernow .

don't go Tesla. You'll regret it the moment you have it, because "electric cars" are just not supported as much as it should be to become really big. The lexus is nice imo

I'll believe it when I see it (and not a moment before then), and a half hour every 200 miles is turrrrible. Especially since that number is probably going to be significantly lower if I'm driving at 80mph. This doesn't even get into the battery degradation that will happen.

The tesla looks cool, it's just not ready for primetime yet. Giving it 99/100 is obnoxious.

200 mile range isn't such a big deal in Europe. I've rarely driven more than 200 miles in a day before

(Also the superchargers charge to 50% capacity, they can't go to 100% as it'd damage the batteries. Apparently)

Yeah I was (and am) in a lot of doubt about the range as well. However, I haven't been outside the range with my current car, ever. I don't plan on going on holiday with it like many other dutchies do because I don't have kids and enough money for flying holiday.

I misread the supercharge information, but in california a couple are already operational and since tesla is really trying to go big I am sure there will be quite some points on the main european highways.

But I have to say I am kind of a sucker for value propositions and driving a €95000 car for the same price as a €43000 car is quite attractive.

Also I think the car looks sick. Will probably go have a look at it this weekend.

If I was going to buy a €43k car then I'd probably get that one too. It's important for the future and it's a good conversation piece at least. Plus it appears to be a good car, consumerreports hyperbole notwithstanding.

The lexus is €43k the tesla €95k but I can get them at about the same monthly cost. The tesla is a lot bigger though and a lot faster. (5,6 sec to 100 vs 8,8 sec).

I don't really understand why they don't just put more batteries in the car though. They can use the whole front part or part of the trunk, anyone technical enough to understand why they don't do this to extend the range?

I don't know, but it's already got about double the range of any other electric cars

Go big and buy a fisker karma. Here in Leuven there is one

Batteries are really heavy yo.