I miss Bing. I miss Bing a lot. For those of you who don't know, Bing is (was) the post-doctoral scholar who was in my lab until this past summer, when he moved to Canada (winnipeg). Bing was great. Through Bing I learned "Binglish" which actually takes a lot of talent to speak. Phrases like "I sink maybe too difficulty" and of course, "Impossible, I sink" were common ones when Bing was around. His logic was not always understood by all of us, but some of us were able to see through that anyway. For example, Bing wanted a car. It seemed to be the thing to do when you come to America from China, even if you own a decent bike and can bike to school. So Bing went looking for a car. The first one was bad because although it was cheap, Zhou Li (Bing's wife, also a wonderful lady who just became a Christian recently!!) didn't like the color. ...? So yes, we bit our tongues and didn't say anything. They finally got their car, which Bing described as "silver or guh-REE". This is 'gray' in BInglish. Following the purchase of the car, Bing decided to get his license. After multiple tries, he got it, and for teh next few months I was terrified that we would be on the road at the same time (not even in the same car--just driving at the same time). After seeing how much fun it is, Zhou Li decided that she too wanted to drive. She, however, gave up soon after she plowed into a tree in an empty Target parking lot. Note to reader: Trees don't just grow anywhere in parking lots--they are usually planted on medians--in this case, the median was at least 6 inches off the ground. Another note to reader: By 'tree' in this case, I mean a 7 cm diameter sapling. Zhou Li's logic is also quite remarkable; she turned the corner around the median containing the deadly sapling, but the turn was too sharp. According to Bing, "I tell her 'must braking! must braking!' But she NO BRAKING, she do gas pedaling!!" Apparently the car rode up on the median, and despite Bing's pleas for her to step on the brakes, since the pedal that she had her foot on wasn't working, she just pushed it harder. ...Right. At any rate, the sapling caught the car right between the headlights. Apparently the police came later on, and Zhou Li complained to me later that they laughed at her. I was glad I was on the phone at the time, because it was pretty hard not to even then.
Anyway, that is one of our favorie Bing stories. Too bad I didn't start blogging when he was still around. I would have had a written history of our 2 years together in the lab.
Oh well.
Back to work.