liebestraum: Friendship

I met J by chance four years ago. One Tuesday afternoon I was running downstairs to go to the colloquium for I was a little late. On the fifth floor I met a pretty girl with bright eyes who was apparently looking for something. “Do you know where Building 10 is?” She asked me very politely. “I’m going that way. I’ll show you.” I thought she looked like a long lost friend. On our way to the colloquium, I found out that she was a friend of my long lost friend at PKU. Having similar background easily bonded us. I had fun talking to her about science and work. Sitting next to a new friend during the colloquium, I actually found that I followed the speaker perfectly, which is kind of rare I have to say.

History has a tendency to repeat itself. This Monday I found that I was sitting next to J again at her last colloquium. Four years have passed and the colloquium had changed time and venue, to a brand-new building which is much closer. J is now ready to be on her own, to start a new lab down south. I am so proud of you, J! I know you will do great, no matter how hard the transition might seem to be. You’ll be very brave. You have family and friends to count on.

我希望你会以“挥一挥衣袖，不带走一片云彩”来告别这个康桥。

Roodi
April 15, 1998 - November 2, 2005

Roodi left us last Wednesday. It happened all so quickly. Now I still can't imagine that he will never come to work anymore. We are all very saddened by the loss of a very special member of the lab.

Roodi was our advisor's Vizsla (Hungarian hunting dog). Ever since he was a little puppy, he started coming to work daily. He was well trained. He knew he should never come inside the lab, so he stayed in the office on the carpet, most of the time. He brought us so much love and affection, and received so much attention from us in return. He had a certain routine: he would come to work early in the morning, and demand people to play with him for about 5 minutes. Then he would go to sleep in his kennel. He would wake up for his noon walk, waiting impatiently for Steve to come take him. He would basically take himself on the walk route (he needed help getting out of the building, though), running all the time only to stop at certain trees to jump at the squirrels, and to point at the corner of Walker Memorial to some imaginary animals. Coming back from his walk, he would play a rope toy called "Kung" for a long time, shaking the rubbery Kung so violently by the rope that it clashed with his skull while he ran around the office constantly avoiding all the furniture. He was just full of life. Though there were signs that he was getting old, such as the appearance of white hair on his chin, cauliflower-like skin tags popping out here and there, and worse, cysts on his chest and belly (which the vets said were benign). But he was only seven and a half, which was about 52-years old for a person. No one had expected him to go so soon.

Roodi was smart. He saw people putting on their jackets he would think that they would take him out for a walk. We tried not to put on our jackets in front of him. He understood several words such as "go out", "walk", "treats", "Kong", "ball". We would not say "go out" loud in the lab. Instead we say "go O-U". We couldn't even say "T", because he would associate that with "out". If you asked him "do you want...?" he would tilt his head sideways and raise his eyebrows as if expecting something. Sometimes he whimpered and whined to get attention. He hated fire drills. The fire alarm must hurt his ears. He would cry so sadly and loudly and I believe everybody in the building would hear his cry. His cry alone would get everyone out safely.

Though he was a hunting dog and he had the instinct to point and chase animals, Roodi was very timid. He was afraid of almost any new things to him, from a small magnet lion to a large inflated rhino. He was even afraid of ice buckets. Sometimes he would overcome his fear and become fond of certain things, or even become overly possessive, like what happened to the magnet lion or the mouse cover in the shape of a mouse. But sometimes he would run away as fast as he could to take refuge in his safe haven - his own kennel. That usually cracked us up.

Roodi loved people. Though he would bark at strangers and sometimes he was a racist (he especially liked to bark at young Asian females), he would get to know them very fast. If people got down to his level, he would not hesitate to bestow on them his kisses. He rolled over for certain people (he was very selective on this) and asked them to rub his belly. I heard that this was the ultimate show of submissiveness of dogs. That did not necessarily mean that Roodi was submissive. Most of the times he was, but he changed a lot since Strider arrived a year and a half ago. Strider is the younger Vizsla. Roodi was very dominant to Strider. Roodi bond to his caregiver very quickly. I took care of Roodi and his older sister for about a week around one Christmas. I left them for two hours on Christmas day. I came back home he was not in the living room where he used to be. He dashed into the living room hearing me and I was wondering where he was while I was away. I saw that my bed looked a little messy though I made my bed that morning. I could faintly make out the outline of a dog and four paw prints. I touched the bedding and it was still warm! It turned out that Roodi slept in my bed because he couldn't find me in the house but wanted to get closer to me. My bed, which had my scent, was the closest thing he could find! What a sweet dog!

To me, Roodi was a very special dog. He was my most loyal photography subject. I went through all the Roodi pictures I have taken over the years in the last couple of days. I was surprised that it came to a total of 2.5G JPG images. He had certainly helped me improving my skills.

It was so shocking when Dave told me that Steve postponed his trip because Roodi was very sick last Wednesday morning. The whole lab was very disheartened. I knew Roodi was in surgery and they found cancer on his liver and spleen. I thought that they would just remove the tumors and Roodi would recover at Angell's and come back to work later. But he didn't make it.

At least Roodi didn't suffer long. Just Tuesday he was still running around the campus like any other day. He even successfully begged Wendy and I into giving him a bonus walk around 1:30pm that afternoon. Like any other walk I took him on, he got so many compliments from people for his boundless energy and superb ball-catching ability. It was such a nice day: temperature in the 70s, only two days after two inches of snow. Roodi had the sense for a good day. I was so glad that I let him win, let him go on his usual walk instead of playing ball right downstairs. I will always remember him as an energetic dog that loved people's attention and released our stress and tension.

Rest in peace, Roodi. I will miss you a lot.