What's the hardest thing you've ever done?

Originally Posted by Neo_Version 7

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I've said this multiple times, my apartment is open to any and all SFers who want to crash.

* booking ticket now *

Originally Posted by West24

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yeah i also dont know what hes talking about dirty wise etc. its a big city its going to have some dirt. nothing compared to the states etc. and to your point of poor housing mixed in good areas, i think one thing the city tries to do is mix co ops with normal areas to try and not make massive areas of pure goverment housing. which seems to be not a bad idea as you dont have any areas in downtown which you would definately not want to walk through. other then regent but its also now going through some massive development etc.
I'm thinking of the area east of yonge. Queen E is ghetto as can be. It's full of homeless people and crackheads until at least the river, where it gets a bit better. There was actually a shooting there a couple months ago. King E, 2 blocks south, is a much nicer street, even if it's kinda dead. Lots of high-end furniture etc. The area around the St. LAwrence market is kinda whack too. It's an area that sohuld be highly developed because everyone with a bit of money and taste likes to shop there, but the area just north and east of it is really ghetto.

Originally Posted by TyCooN

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s

Were you given any training on how to disinfect them yourself?

?

no, the idea was for you to be in a lot of pain, and for it to look gross. nobody was going to die over in in a couple of days, the assumption was.

In an eight month period:
I herniated a disc in my back, had excruciating nerve pain, had spinal surgery. This caused me to miss two months of work (PhD research)

Returned to work, find out my expected graduation timeline cannot be changed due to funding issues. Immediately went back to minimum 60-70 hour weeks to catch up from my missed time. Bust ass for three months, finish all required experimental work.

Get married, take two weeks off.

Write about 2/3rds of 370 page thesis in two months, including finishing dozens of theoretical calculations need to support experimental findings. I was writing or crunching numbers at least ten hours every day, including weird **** like waking up at 2am and finding I was motivated to write and staying up until 7am when my wife got up.

Find job.

Defend PhD, graduate, start new job two weeks later.

Would never have believed I could do all that, it was a brutal period. I actually enjoy the working part of it, in a weird masochistic sort of way. I pretty much worked until I either couldn't stand up anymore because of the pain, or until I was a safety hazard in the lab.

Originally Posted by Gibonius

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In an eight month period:
I herniated a disc in my back, had excruciating nerve pain, had spinal surgery. This caused me to miss two months of work (PhD research)

Returned to work, find out my expected graduation timeline cannot be changed due to funding issues. Immediately went back to minimum 60-70 hour weeks to catch up from my missed time. Bust ass for three months, finish all required experimental work.

Get married, take two weeks off.

Write about 2/3rds of 370 page thesis in two months, including finishing dozens of theoretical calculations need to support experimental findings. I was writing or crunching numbers at least ten hours every day, including weird **** like waking up at 2am and finding I was motivated to write and staying up until 7am when my wife got up.

Find job.

Defend PhD, graduate, start new job two weeks later.

Would never have believed I could do all that, it was a brutal period. I actually enjoy the working part of it, in a weird masochistic sort of way. I pretty much worked until I either couldn't stand up anymore because of the pain, or until I was a safety hazard in the lab.

Bravo. What was your thesis on. You have a PhD in chemistry, right?

Originally Posted by mm84321

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Bravo. What was your thesis on. You have a PhD in chemistry, right?

Yeah, physical chemistry. It's not exactly easy to explain on a lay level, but I basically studied metal atoms with molecules stuck to them, using spectroscopic methods (light) in the gas phase. I focused on carbon monoxide and/or benzene, along with some metal oxide work. We used lasers to vaporize the metals, then other lasers to analyze them. A lot of it was tunable infrared lasers, which are a pain **********. Lots of high voltage pulsed electronics, very precise timing (nanoseconds). Very low sample densities, we never actually got to see or collect any of the stuff we were making. It was basically a signal on an oscilloscope. We got most of our information from comparing our data to calculations, determining quantum states and geometry of the molecules.

Hardest thing I ever did was single handedly replace the roof on my house. It took 10 months in addition to working full time, started with ripping off four layers of shingles, was approximately 2000 sqft with 14 different surfaces, and required approximately 13,000 cedar shingles, each one fastened by hand.

Originally Posted by Gibonius

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Yeah, physical chemistry. It's not exactly easy to explain on a lay level, but I basically studied metal atoms with molecules stuck to them, using spectroscopic methods (light) in the gas phase. I focused on carbon monoxide and/or benzene, along with some metal oxide work. We used lasers to vaporize the metals, then other lasers to analyze them. A lot of it was tunable infrared lasers, which are a pain **********. Lots of high voltage pulsed electronics, very precise timing (nanoseconds). Very low sample densities, we never actually got to see or collect any of the stuff we were making. It was basically a signal on an oscilloscope. We got most of our information from comparing our data to calculations, determining quantum states and geometry of the molecules.
That actually sounds really interesting. What kind of career do you have?

Originally Posted by mm84321

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That actually sounds really interesting. What kind of career do you have?

Currently teaching while I wait for my wife to finish her PhD (also in chemistry). Will be applying for jobs again soon.

Overcoming Asperger's Syndrome. Worked all my life to be as functional as I am today.

As simple as it sounds, the hardest thing I ever did was to drive a few miles up and down twisting and steep grades on I-8 in zero-zero-visibility fog at midnight while I was "dead at the wheel" (suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, desperately sleepy, desperately tired, and generally depressed at the time). Any reasonable man would have recognized the danger and would have pulled off the road. (I myself pulled over on straight-as-an-arrow US 99 when freezing tule fog made it zero-zero one night.)

Compared to that, safely driving several miles asleep (head back, snoring loudly) over and down a twisty mountain pass was child's play.

Beating the other 60 million sperm to the egg.

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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Beating the other 60 million sperm to the egg.
Been coasting ever since?

Originally Posted by Shoe City Thinker

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Overcoming Asperger's Syndrome. Worked all my life to be as functional as I am today.

good for you. that can't be easy. that strikes me as one of those things that is an affliction that people just don't understand, and will act like you are an asshole rather than differently abled.

Originally Posted by globetrotter

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I've had a couple of challenges in life - the selection process for the unit I was in in the army was insanely difficult. the first cut one in 5 made it, the second cut one in 25 made it - so, essentially, there were 125 applicants for every position. the second "test" was 6 days, intensive physical activity all day (one example - picture a cliff over a sea shore, you have a bag, and you need to bring up a pile of wet sand from the beach and pile it on the top of the cliff. no indication of how big the pile is, you just have to keep carrying wet sand up until the pile is big enough) , less than an hour sleep every night, and they would run us through a creek that carried sewage twice a day, so that our blisters and cuts would get infected. it was very easy to drop out at any time.

ironically, the training was much harder, and lasted a long, long time.

moving to the states was very hard - I gave up a good job and good status for 3 years of uncertainty and financial struggle, on the gamble that it would pay off and I would be able to give my kids a better life.


That training's nuts, Globe. Glad your gamble on the US paid off