departures

08/03/10

8:40 AM

Over the past month I’ve gotten very fond of my roommate Melissa, so her departure last Saturday was rather sad! We went out to dinner the night before she left at a place called Chocolate, a Russian restaurant/bar/lounge, we being Melissa, Cunningham, Drew, Shirley, Katherine, Fayez (Melissa’s friend from her program from Saudi Arabia; he is awesome and insanely mellow and actually Pakistani), and two labmates of Cunning’s who I’ll call German and Scot. Chocolate is not a place I would ever go to alone. It looks very classy and has reasonably priced, delicious Russian food, but I quickly realized, as a musician I would meet a few nights later put it, “It has a metric buttload of Russian prostitutes”—really. None of us were solicited.

The morning of Mel’s departure was a relaxed affair. We had brunch with the Saudis, then Shirley, Cunning, Fayez, Mel and I hung out on Mel’s bed after helping her pack. It was so fun and so laid back, I miss her already.

Mel wasn’t the only one to leave; to my dismay CiCi graduated and left for an industry job nearby. I miss her quite a bit, even though she left weeks ago. Worse, Monkey yesterday requested 20 days’ leave from work to study for the GRE, which he is taking August 24^th. He was granted it and was ecstatic, singing and dancing and otherwise exhibiting Monkeylike high spirits. I was thrilled for him but I will miss him too.

Lastly, Fayez leaves today. I went with him, Cunning, and Shirley last night to the tallest bar/grill in Beijing, called China Bar, to say goodbye. It was too classy for us; we all felt uncomfortable, so we went down 61 floors to Xiu bar on the 6^th floor and sat in the outdoor lounge. None of us were drinking; to try to look like paying customers, we ordered and split an appetizer instead. It was a really nice night, although the next morning (today) I had to be at work at 8:20 to attend a 4 hour long lab meeting (right now). Yes, it's all in Chinese. No, I don't really understand most of it. It's going to be a long meeting.